grass again.
Suddenly a sea of stars and silhouettes of trees appeared. I stumbled out
of the wall of darkness and to a halt just in time to avoid tumbling over the
precipice and into the misty abyss.
Amal and Savannah were wide-eyed beside me. We needed a distraction
to throw the monster off our scent.
I grabbed one of the stone busts along the wall and heaved. The marble
head spun end over end into the darkness, and the sound of a heavy thud and
rustling bushes echoed upward. The basilisk roared from behind us, and the
deafening sounds of its footfalls rose as it scrambled over the edge of the
cliff, scaling its way down.
Fuck, that was too close.
I nodded at Savannah and Amal and quietly moved forward along the
wall toward the gazebo and the caves in the cliff.
A
moment longer, I searched the entrances of the three caves for a clue.
Pale light emanated from a pool in one, and steam rose off the water. Idyllic
in any other circumstance.
Amal pointed to the middle cave. “A way in.”
There was a thin seam of light. Before I could respond, an angry bellow
erupted from the darkness behind us.
Savannah spun around. “The basilisk. Go, go, go.”
We charged into the cave. The light was emanating from a cracked door. I
shoved both women through, then slammed the door behind me.
We found ourselves in a rough-hewn storage cave lit by dangling Edison
bulbs. I pushed Savannah and Amal forward and around a corner just as the
door exploded off its hinges, and shrapnel slammed me into the wall.
Savannah gripped my arm and hauled me out of danger as the darkness of
her magic filled in behind me.
We scrambled up a narrow set of worn stairs cut from the rock. The walls