“We’re gettin’ outta here, buddy. Don’t you worry.” Shiloh pinched his fingers together as if holding a needle and poked the force field. The bubble around them popped and evaporated into nothing.
Seymour rushed over to Sariel’s side. “Hey!”
“Hello.” Sariel’s eyes were shifting in multiple directions, many of them closed. “I am afraid I am quite wounded.”
“Very wounded,” Day agreed with a worried meow.
“It’s okay, come on.” Seymour tried to help Sariel stand, wrapping his arms around him. “Oof, work with me, big guy.”
Sariel slowly but surely was able to get up, though he leaned heavily against Seymour’s side. “What about the chochin?”
“They are linked to the Inro just as I am!” Day replied. “They will follow. Do not worry.”
“But themostri… They had the brain.”
“Later,” Seymour said quickly. “We need to?—”
The troll jumped.
Seymour didn’t think trolls could jump.
Especially not so high or so far, allowing them to land only a few feet away…
Blocking their path back to the hall.
“Run!” Shiloh bellowed, clapping his hands and creating a giant shower of sparks.
It only seemed to annoy the troll at best, but it bought them precious seconds to race toward the building.
The same place where all the fighting was still going on.
Great.
Wonderful.
Because racing through a bunch of monsters and tiny lantern men sounded like fun.
“Once we get in there, we should just stick to the walls, yeah?” Seymour gave Sariel a reassuring squeeze. “We gotta make sure you?—”
“Here, mystella. I will carry you.” Sariel grunted, perhaps from exertion or pain or both, but he swung Seymour up into his arms and took off at a dead sprint. “Day! Come!”
“Here!” Day hopped up on Sariel’s shoulder and then dropped down on Seymour’s chest.
“Hey! Oof!” Seymour hugged her close but tried to push out of Sariel’s embrace. “Sariel! Dammit! You’re hurt!”
“And you’re slow,” Sariel gently retorted. “We must escape to another part of Faerie as quickly as possible.”
“Quickly sounds great!” Shiloh snatched the Rolodex as they ran by it, wheezing. “I got you, Izzy!” He pointed off in the distance to another door. There was hundreds of feet of path plus another building between them and it. “If we can make it to that door over there…!”
“Then what?” Seymour demanded.
“Fuck if I know, but it’s gotta be better than here!”
The building before them was a round room and large rectangles cut into the stone equal distances apart. Some of these openings led to other paths, but most were simply dangerous gaps where many a monster was finding a short trip for a long way down.
The lantern men were relentless, and the monsters were mostly dead or on the run.
Choco saw them and waved.
