My senses screamed at me. Quickly, I looked around, checking out all angles. To the left and right, the walls of the trench stretched upwards as far as I could see. Behind us, the whale skeleton seemed to block our exit.
Up ahead, the trench narrowed to almost a point, ending in another weed-covered rock wall. I narrowed my eyes, peering through the gloom, and saw an enormous round shape etched into the wall. It looked a little like scales.
No, not scales. They were shells arranged in a large rosette pattern in the wall, bone-white and shining with an odd, preternatural pearl-like luster. It should have looked pretty, but it didn’t. It looked terrifying, like a door made of shining human teeth.
Hyacinth waited until we were next to her and pointed. “There you go.” Her voice was a hushed whisper.
“That’s the sea witch’s lair?”
“Yep.”
I frowned. “So… it’s a cave?”
She beamed. “That’s right.”
“No other doors? No emergency exit out the back? No side windows to let in a little sunshine?”
Hyacinth shook her head. “Uh uh.”
Cress and Donovan began muttering to each other behind me, while I studied the creepy door. Whatever their plan had been, it didn’t involve a frontal assault.
“Hey.” Hyacinth suddenly spun around to face us and spread her hands expansively. “Do you guys want to play a game?”
I caught the wicked spark in her eyes and held up my finger in a warning. “Hyacinth?—”
“Let’s play…” Her coral-pink lips split into a huge smile. “Ding dong ditch!” She flicked her powerful tail and darted away from us, heading straight for the door, then smacked it with both fists, causing it to clatter loudly like a snake’s rattle. Without hesitating, she turned around and sped past us at a lightning pace, cackling in glee and spinning effortlessly through the bones of the whale, and disappeared into the distance.
A sickening pulse thudded through the water around us, and my heart sank. The door cracked, then swung open, smacking against the rock wall with a terrifyingly loud clang.
Before I could move, before I could even breathe, enormous silver-blue tentacles erupted from the hole, slithering like snakes, peeling up the sides of the trench. I froze.
A woman’s voice—deep, thrumming with an alien power—echoed out from the darkness within the cave as the tentacles kept coming and coming, long and thick and absolutely horrifying. “Who dares disturb me?”
Donovan was suddenly in front of me, a shining dagger in each fist. A tentacle shot towards him, lightning fast, and wrapped around his arms, squeezing them to his sides.
The voice cackled. “Got you!”
He swore, threw his head back and shouted a word in a foreign tongue; a flash of green light sparked in the water. The tentacles unraveled and slithered away.
“Ouch! What the—ooh, you just wait until I get there, you little bastard.” The voice echoed, getting louder. Those enormous tentacles snaked closer again. Donovan, now with his hands free, swiped at them with his daggers, and they flinched back. “You want to use magic on me?” The sea witch’s voice rose through several octaves. “Onme?”
A tentacle reared back and shot forward, wrapping around Cress’s leg and tugging at her. Another circled her arm, holding it tight. Quickly, she whispered a spell under her breath and slipped out of the creature’s grip like she was boneless. Still, the silvery-white tentacles kept coming, getting thicker and thicker.
Donovan whipped around, facing the door and brandishing his daggers. He roared a challenge. “Come, monster! Face me!”
Cress dropped down and planted her feet on the sea floor in front of me, one leg stretched out, in a classic predator crouch.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m coming, you little shit,” the sea witch spat out from the depths of the cave. “Just you wait.” The enormous tentacles kept spilling out of the hole. “Just wait.” There was a pause. “I really should get this entrance widened one day.”
“Come, sea hag!” Donovan roared again. “I will have your head!”
This was stupid. I heaved a sigh. “Stop.”
“What?” The sea witch’s voice echoed out from deep within the cave.
“Not you,” I called out. “I’m talking to my companions.”
Donovan turned his head and glared at me furiously. Cress didn’t move. Her huge eyes were fixed on the open doorway, watching the enormous monster’s tentacles spill out and unfurl like intestines falling out of a stomach wound.
