“Jeez,” Dray mutters, “it feels like the end of the world.” Which is dramatic but entirely accurate.
“Yeah,” Beaufort says, rubbing at his head. “I don’t like the way it makes my magic feel.”
“I’m sure those stinky bastards aren’t too far away. Probably wary of the dragon.”
Blaze tosses his head like that’s totally reasonable in his opinion.
We stride off towards the destroyed forest, our pace faster than it was. The swirling tornado roars more loudly the closer we come, and the wind around us seems to be sucked that way, our clothing and our hair taken with it.
“What is that thing?” I ask, raising my voice above the noise as we weave our way through the charred tree stumps.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Beaufort shouts back.
“Could it be the power source the Head talked about?”
“It looks,” Thorne says, straining his eyes that way, “like …” He shakes his head like he must be wrong.
“Like what?”
“Shadow magic.”
For a moment, we all stand staring at it, utterly transfixed. Thorne is right. It is like shadow magic, the way it moves, the way it shimmers and shines, the way it seems to both draw and devour the very little light there is out here.
I shake my head in disbelief. This place challenges everything I thought I knew about the world. It’s so strange. So alien. It’slike I haven’t just stepped beyond the borders into a different realm, but I passed through into an entirely different universe.
We continue onward towards the giant fault in the earth, weaving our way through the tree stumps. The charred earth sticks to our boots in ashy clumps. And the air is thick with dust and ash as well. It has all of us coughing and wiping our eyes.
Finally we reach the lip of the fault line where the ground falls away from our feet. Almost immediately, I’m struck by a tingling in my chest. Fox’s magic. Does that mean he’s close by?
I peer down into the abyss.
I sigh. Didn’t I just say this place is surprising? That nothing is as it seems? The fault line in the earth is just the same. Because when we peer down into its depths, we’re not met with darkness or blackness, but a swirling silvery mist that makes no sense at all to my brain.
“It’s magic,” Beaufort says before I even ask the question. “Some kind of complicated magic.”
“Is it the Madame’s?” I ask. “Do you think that’s who it belongs to?”
Beaufort shakes his head. “There’s one way to tell.” He turns to Thorne.
Thorne nods and removes the glove from his right hand. Then his shadows are streaming down into the abyss, towards the swirling mist. They’re consumed almost immediately and I gasp, wanting to pull Thorne away, not sure what this could mean and if it’s dangerous for him. But in the next moment, his shadows are racing back towards us, into his hand, and he slides his glove back into place.
“It’s okay,” Thorne says. “It’s nothing more than a mirage.”
Dray tips forward, peering further down into the crack in the earth.
“You sure?” he says, sounding not convinced at all. Thorne meets his gaze with a dark, hard stare.
“I’m sure,” he responds.
“Then how are we going to get down?” Dray asks.
I roll my eyes. “Blaze?” I suggest.
Responding to his name, the dragon shuffles forward and nudges me with his snout.
“You’re not going down there alone,” Beaufort says.
“Fine,” I respond. “Are you going to come with me?”
