The beast wheezes out a fireball aimed directly at Cadence. She holds out the bowl like a shield. My breath jams, and I lunge, my foot catching on something. I slam down on one knee just as the flaming sphere reaches Cadence. Noise vanishes as fear drills into my skull. I roar her name.
In slow-motion, the fireball thumps into the bowl, making Cadence stumble backward, then ricochets off and boomerangs toward the monster, whopping it square in its scaly chest. The odor of scorched reptile and rotten egg leaks out from the glowing crater.
“Holy hell.” I climb to my feet. “It can’t handle its own fire.”
“That’s it, Adrien!” Cadence yells excitedly. “That’s how you defeat him. With fire! With its own fire.”
Adrien’s mouth is moving. I concentrate on his lips, discover he’s speaking words that sound like Latin. The spell?
“Mori. Ad inferos daemonium. Mori. Ad inferos daemonium.”
The beast chuffs, its wings lifting as though readying to take off.
“Prof, I don’t think your spell’s—”
Something hisses, and it’s not the dragon. The salt liquifies and binds together in a glowing, smoking circle. When the wispy veil drifts into the creature’s face, its lids slam shut, then open, slitted pupils growing thinner. It rages, rolls its sinewy body, lowers its head, then charges straight for Cadence.
Her skin goes bone-white beneath her war paint.
“Run!” I yell.
She takes off, nimbly leaping over debris. I snapExcalibur’s sister off the wall and sprint toward the beast with my brandished weapon just as his curled horns slam into an invisible wall that sends it hurtling backward.
Cadence stumbles to a stop, lips parting around hectic breaths. “The salt worked!” Her chest lifts and falls almost as fast as my own.
Adrien speaks the incantation louder. The beast agitates its head as though the spell is causing it physical pain. It snarls and turns to Adrien, opening its mouth.
“Adrien, catch!” Cadence yells, frisbeeing the bowl at him.
Her aim is perfect and yet he fails to catch it. The bowl glances off his rigid body, spinning like a shiny top above the rubble.
“Fuck!” I dash toward him and pick it up.
Theguivrespits out a jet of flames, arrowing straight at the professor.
I pop up in front of Adrien, shielding him with my body and the bowl. I lock my elbows and steady my gaze on the incoming fireball, praying for the Quatrefoil to have mercy.
The smoldering orb, like the dragon’s horns earlier, pounds against the invisible salt barrier, before bouncing back and streaking toward the beast, chewing right through its right wing. The monster shrieks and thunders, then breathes out more fire, which knocks into the magical wall, before charging the beast’s belly. And then his other wing. The smoke thickens and the place stinks like a prehistoric barbecue.
Bit by scaly bit, theguivrecremates itself. When the oily smoke clears, all that remains is a heap of ash.
I squint, trying to make out a glimmer. “Do you guys see the leaf?”
Cadence’s eyebrows jolt together. “Non.”
“I think you have to go dig through the ash, Prof.”
Wordlessly, Adrien seizes the bowl from my hands and crosses the ring of salt—perhaps because it’s gone, or perhaps because the repellent magic doesn’t affect the spellcaster. He kneels and sets the bowl down. Like a kid in a sandbox, he gathers the ashes and dumps them inside.
“The lid. There was a lid.” He gazes around the bareboned house with the despondent look of a soldier who made it out of battle alive while his entire regiment was defeated. “I’m going to need it.” His toneless voice fills me with pity.
“You mean this?” Cadence pulls a cone-shaped silver lid out of the rubble. It’s adorned with runes and narrows into a chimney-like spout. He nods and Cadence walks over to him, but the wall, which hadn’t affected Adrien, keeps her out.
Good.She shouldn’t get too close to a piece that isn’t hers.
Adrien gets up to retrieve the lid, his arm sliding right through the transparent boundary. He plucks it out of Cadence’s hands, then returns to his bowl and plops it on top.
He whispers, “Ad inferos daemonium,”on a loop, until a thick ribbon of crimson smoke coils out of the pinhole-chimney.
