Magda locked her arms around Kaelan’s chest again. “There has to be a way out of here.”
“I believe I can help you with that.”
From his perch on her shoulder, Hero hissed.
Near Kaelan’s knee a little man had appeared wearing a brown silk suit and a pert expression on his walnut face.
“Kirk,” she spat. “You traitorous little—” She grabbed for him, but he disappeared and reappeared on Kaelan’s other side.
“I’ve been sent to assist you,” he said imperiously.
“Just like you assisted me with the Enneahedron? Where is it?”
“It is quite safe.” He winced and grimaced as another dwarf fell, dead, next to him. “But I do believe we should go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I should murder you! You—”
A splintering crack, like lightning, interrupted her. A huge chunk of ceiling crashed. Dwarfs and Elves fled, but not all of them made it clear. A black scaled snout that made Anqa’s beak look like a sweet little canary’s thrust through the hole. A snort of smoke shot from the dragon’s slitted nostrils, filling the hall with sulfur.
“Oh shit,” Magda muttered.
“No more time to argue,” Kirk said. “Hold on.” He placed his hands on Kaelan’s leg.
A jet of violet-white flame funneled down through the hole.
Wrenching, piercing cries filled the hall. A sound she knew too well—the screams of blood spilling.
A wolf’s fangs bore down on her. Two ice blue eyes trembled before her. A low growl rippled out of the beast’s throat. Hero darted down her shirt, balling at the small of her back, digging his claws into her skin.
“Thank you, Kirk,” Python said as he stepped forward.
The brownie bowed. “Yes, Master.”
Python placed a hand on the wolf’s head, which came up to the oracle’s shoulder. Two slate-gray wings stretched from the wolf’s back... not a wolf after all.
“Semargl,” she said, hugging Kaelan’s shoulders tight. He groaned softly, but didn’t wake. “I thought they were extinct.”
Python ran his hand over the top of the semargl’s head. “If the Elf King had his way, all of the wolf breed would be.”
Kirk had magically transported them to a rough-hewn stone chamber. Behind Python and the wolf-semargl, a yawning opening as big as a double garage showed the star-soaked sky beyond. On either wall, torches guttered against the salty ocean breeze. The crash of water breaking against rock churned somewhere nearby. Just when she was about to speak, the call of the dragon pierced the night, echoing from a distance.
She swallowed hard, resisting the urge to skewer Python with her dragon blades. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
“No,” Python said, smiling sadly. “I do not make the future, I only see it.”
She laid Kaelan’s head gently down on the stone floor and rose. The semargl’s wings flexed again, his head and ears lowering, his icy eyes never leaving her.
Python stroked the creature’s head. “You’ll have to forgive my friend. He does not trust Elves.”
“All this time, you knew I would come back here?”
“No,” he said. “I only hoped you would. So many visions I’ve had, so many paths that could be, but you are our best chance, our only chance.”
“Chance for what?”
“To bring an end to the Elf King’s tyranny.”
“You mean for him to bring an end to it,” she said, gesturing to Kaelan. “Is he really who you say? An...”—her jaw locked up for a second—“Elf Prince?”
