Luvic narrowed his eyes. “Children. Snowmen are diabolical.”
Last scoffed. “Maybe for a weak Bard. Clearly, the answer is ice cream.”
I rolled my eyes.
The voice on the intercom said, “Snowflakes. Try again.”
I rubbed my forehead. “What’s white and black and red all over?”
“An orca attacked by a shark,” Luvic said.
“A newspaper,” Last said, her lip curling in disgust. “Don’t you know anything?”
“I’m stumped,” the voice said. “What is it?”
I leaned close to the intercom. “A baby panda in a blender.”
There was a long pause, and then the intercom went dead.
“I think you offended him,” Luvic said.
No. “He doesn’t get offended.”
The wall beside us swung open, and a small red fox stared out at us, its eyes reflecting in the vestibule’s light. He had thick autumn-leaf-colored fur, a fluffy white chest, brown fur socks, and expressive ears.
If you’re ever tempted to sink your fingers into his thick fur coat, you should stick your hands in your pockets and take a step back.
“Hi, Penrose,” I said.
The fox made a low yip-growl, sniffed the vestibule’s air, and then turned around and trotted down the long, dark hall. His bushy tail swung in the air like a torch in the darkness.
“Well. We’re in. Keep your eyes on Penrose.”
“Or else?” Luvic asked.
“Or else you fall into a Den of Depravity,” Justice said, sounding as if he’d like that very thing to happen. “And none of us will come rescue you.”
Luvic snorted. “Who says I’d want to be rescued?”
Penrose paused in the corridor and looked over his shoulder. He tilted his head, almost like a dog, impatient for us to follow.
We stepped into the passage, and the wall closed behind us. While outside was a sweltering, hideous oven, the dark corridor was musty, cave-cool, and eerily quiet.
Justice led the way, Luvic after him. Last followed, with me at the back. I kept my eyes on Penrose’s flashing tail. The walls of the corridor moved like the liquid sand art people buy at street fairs. They shifted, melted, merged, and reformed, creating pictures in the chaos. It was tempting to take your eyes off Penrose to look at the mesmerizing display. Who doesn’t want to watch colorful shifting sands? Notes struck off the walls, filling the corridor with a strange xylophone music. I knew for a fact, though, if you turned to look at the wall, you’d be yanked inside like a gnat swallowed by quicksand. Years ago, when I’d visited the Merchant with a brand-new slipshot, they hadn’t heeded the warning. The slipshot was there, and then he wasn’t.
Last’s shoulders twitched, and her face tilted toward the wall.
I wouldn’t say I liked Last. I would never, of my own volition, say that. But I also didn’t want her to end up in a Den of Depravity. She had enough of that living as a Clark. Granted, there was a part of me—Jagger’s part—that wanted to shove her into the wall and laugh as she fell.
I distracted us both from the lure of the walls by whispering, “You and Luvic are getting married?”
Her head snapped forward, and her back stiffened. “Does that bother you?”
“Does it bother you?”
Last hated Luvic. She hated all Bards. “Pretty songbirds,” she called them. I still remember how she’d shot her hand into the air and pretended to crush them.
“No.”
