CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

 

Something wet and gritty like sandpaper slid across Gabriel’s cheek, the pressure pushing his head back. His head flopped forward again, and the slobbery thing pressed against the bridge of his nose and over one eye this time. The world slowly buzzed back into focus and he cracked open his eyes to the sizzling, popping fire, the ash filling the sky—and a huge white tiger licking his face.

“Ow.” Gabriel sat up and rubbed the welt on the side of his head. “What happened?” he asked, just as he remembered the explosion. His gaze dropped to the golden nameplate dangling from a chain around the tiger’s neck. The word Andimian was engraved in it.

“Andimian!” Gabriel yelled, reaching out to the tiger. “Leejor fixed you!”

The vision that Prince Oliver had shown him—the one of the prince finding Andimian wounded on the palace floor—shot through Gabriel’s mind and made him wince. The huge tiger blinked his blue eyes, pushing at Gabriel’s leg with a giant white paw. He knew the tiger wanted him to move—that he needed to move—before he went up in flames along with the trees blazing around him. He forced himself up, stood on wobbly legs, and then stumbled forward against the tiger’s soft coat.

Andimian stretched his front paws low, angling his body so that Gabriel could climb aboard. Grabbing hold of the leather straps around the tiger’s neck, Gabriel pulled himself up, and at the same time noticed two things. One was that ropes were rolled up and looped around the tiger’s harness. The other was a scroll attached to the straps.

As they soared high above the crackling fire, Gabriel tugged the paper out with one hand and read the note:

 

Gabriel,

I hope this note finds you, and finds you well. Finley arrived at the palace and informed me of your trouble with Dacho. Shortly before that, word came from Leejor that my mother and sister, along with your friends, landed at his home. However, the empress and princess are dying. Sadly, neither Leejor nor Eric has a healing method for their strange illness. If there is any hope, it will be found from an ancient. Finley told me that you know of the white witch, Cadence, who happens to be just that. Furthermore, it is you who has the ability to move swiftly with the magical power bestowed on you. Therefore you have the best chance of freeing the witch and getting her to my family fast. I implore you, Gabriel Stone: Allow Andimian to take you to Fool’s Well, find the witch, and bring her to Leejor’s. It is our hope that she will have the cure to what is killing my family.

Go well and with haste as time is running out.

~ Prince Oliver

 

Great.

Gabriel slumped against Andimian’s back, wrapping his arms around the tiger’s neck. The crisp wind beat against his pounding head and a sick feeling churned in his stomach. He was supposed to go in the freaking well by himself? To get a witch out?

Gabriel sighed. And just when everything had started to go right, too. The Solarians leaving Valta? The portal destroyed by the explosion? And the royals safe again? All very cool. Gabriel had known they’d have to get the white witch out of the well in order to release the souls from the vase. But doing it alone? And with the added stakes about saving the empress and princess—from death? Definitely not cool. No, it was worse than not cool. It sucked slime—green slime with maggots. Wells were Gabriel’s kryptonite.

Before he knew it, Andimian dove down through the air. Below, a huge field that looked like a sea of gold spread out for miles. Andimian landed and padded forward. Corn stalks crunched under the tiger’s paws. The whisper of the wind rattled the shoots, creating a sound like an alarm that blared in Gabriel’s ears.

“The well’s in a creepy cornfield?” he croaked out, his voice trembling and tears stinging his eyes. He squeezed them shut, then opened them again. Chill, you loser. Don’t be a baby. But as much as Gabriel told himself that he had faced much worse in Valta before and that he didn’t need to be afraid, memories of being trapped in the bottom of the well when he was five flashed through his mind. He was tempted to stay on Andimian and demand that the tiger take him away—far away—from the creepy cornfield and the stupid well, wherever it was hidden. But instead he slipped off Andimian and held his head in his hands, trying to gather courage and wishing his headache away.

After a minute, he collected his nerve. “Dude,” he said, hoping the cat would understand what he was saying and could be his temporary new best friend. “I’m not gonna lie, okay? I don’t like wells. So if I’m going to go down one to get a witch out, you’re staying with me.” He locked eyes with the tiger’s bright blue ones. “Is that cool?”

Andimian didn’t respond, but Gabriel thought it looked like the tiger was laughing with his eyes. “Don’t you laugh at me,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, feeling annoyed even though he knew he shouldn’t. Seriously, the tiger had just saved him from burning his butt off, but fear, anger, and something else Gabriel didn’t know how to explain churned through him. Not to mention he hadn’t eaten all day. The fact that he was starving to death made him extra grumpy.

Andimian nudged Gabriel forward with a bump of his huge tiger head. Gabriel stumbled, then batted him away. “Yeah, yeah, I’m on it,” he said, his heart rate climbing as he edged through the tall corn stalks that looked like a forest of skinny, golden trees. With the tiger leading the way, he ambled his way through the cornfield, the crops making scratching noises against his jacket as he went. With the towering crops soaring above his head and the gray sky, he was disoriented. He wasn’t sure which way the well was, but he trusted that Andimian did. With each step forward, Gabriel’s heart galloped faster until he was sure it would spontaneously combust.

Gabriel pushed through the stalks until he came into a clearing. Golden grass that reached above his ankles spread out around him. In the distance, a barn that looked like it had been sawed off at the middle with only the top-half remaining sprang up in front of a green forest. Gabriel widened his eyes at the structure. It had chipped brown paint and a peaked roof with one large window. But the top half of the barn sat on the grass as if the bottom part had never existed; there was a smashed-out window where the door should be.

Weird.

Gabriel searched Andimian’s eyes. “Lemme guess. The well’s in there.” He ticked his chin toward the brown structure as his heart sank to his sneakers.

The tiger lowered his massive head and blinked.

“Of course it is,” Gabriel grumbled. “Fine then, let’s go.” Then he did the only thing he could think of. Balling his fists, and before he could change his mind, he peeled out towards it without looking back, and ignoring every warning in his head. Several feet later, he skidded to a halt. Jagged pieces of glass dangled from the window and gave glimpses of Gabriel’s reflection as he puffed for air. His brown hair sprung wildly out of place around his soot-covered face.

When Andimian pounded in behind him as graceful as an elephant, Gabriel pulled the ropes out from where they were secured on the tiger’s harness. “Come on,” he said, stepping through the large window.

Andimian folded his wings against his back and stepped through the hole behind Gabriel. Inside, the smell of must and old things hit his nose. The barn had bookcases lining both sides and books strewn across the floor.

Double weird.

The fluttering of the pages on a book was the only eerie sound as the wind ruffled through it.

But it was the gray stone bricks in the middle of the barn that drew Gabriel’s attention. Formed into a large circle with a big hole in the center, the stones were stacked about three feet high.

Fool’s Well.

Reminding himself that Empress Malina and Princess Evangeline were dying, Gabriel tiptoed to the side of the well.

Peering down into the deep, dark hole he called, “Hello?” His voice echoed back along with stirring from below. No answer. Gulping, he stretched his neck farther over the side to get a better look, but only blackness filled his gaze. “Cadence? My name is Gabriel Stone, ma’am,” he said, trying to sound polite and not annoy the witch. “Um, I’ve come to try and get you out of here. I-I actually need help too. My friend is trapped in a soul vase thing that Caprice used and the empress and her daughter are really sick. Dying actually. The prince wanted to know if you could, you know, maybe do some magic that Leejor doesn’t know about and um … maybe save them?”

The jangling of what sounded like chains pitched through the air. Shivers raced over Gabriel’s skin. It had to be Cadence. Okay, thought Gabriel. So she was tied up. He got that, but why couldn’t she just talk already? Let him know that she wasn’t gonna turn him into a demon, blow him up into smoke, or turn him into a frog—or whatever it was that witches did.

“I wish you’d answer me,” Gabriel called out.

More clanking of chains, louder this time.

With a groan, Gabriel secured the ropes to Andimian’s halter using a knot that he’d learned in Boy Scouts. “Insane,” he mumbled as he flung the rope over the edge of the well. “I’ve totally lost it.” He swung one leg over the edge. He paused, closed his eyes.

Please, please let this go okay.

“For the empress and the princess,” he said aloud, reaffirming why he was doing this crazy mission in the first place. He looked to the tiger. “And, Andimian,” he said, twirling the ropes around his wrists, “listen for when I ask you to pull me out—us out—as fast as you can.” Gabriel didn’t want to sound like a wimp, but normal twelve-year-olds didn’t go jumping down into wells with witches in them—wells that brought back horrible memories of near-death experiences.

Andimian let out a low rumble that Gabriel took to mean the tiger agreed.

He swung his other leg over the side of the well and began scaling down the wall into the blackness, every inch of him a trembling mess. The farther he went, the more his mouth grew dry, like he’d swallowed a wad of cotton balls. The longer he was in the dark, the more his eyes adjusted to the dim light and the harder his heart seemed to bound against his ribs. He couldn’t believe he was really going down a stupid well. Bits of moss clung to the gray stone, and red stuff like dried blood splattered the rock. His breathing sped up and a chill settled in his bones; the dampness in the air stuck to him like Velcro. Gripping the rope as tight as he could with his clammy, shaky hands, his feet finally splashed into cool water and he knew he’d hit bottom. Everything inside of him screamed to climb back up the rope and get out of there as fast as possible. He blew out a breath and instead slowly turned around. “Cadence?” he called out, forcing his voice to keep steady, inwardly reminding himself why this mission was so important. “I’m here to help and I’m, you know, not a bad guy.”

That’s when he turned and found pale eyes, the shape and color of a harvest moon, staring straight at him.