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Stheno slapped a bloody hand over the largest wound. “Do some healing spells or something,” she told him. Pulling her hand back, she flexed it a few times and then covered the other wound.

Instead of a long row of sharp teeth, Scylla’s heads had two long, curved fangs, like a snake’s. Bracken’s face was a mask of pain, but the wounds began to close. When his eyes opened, they were a bright, glowing green.

“I’m all right, my dear. No need to look so worried. I’ll heal.” He shuddered in pain and turned away, his gaze on the rock wall hiding Scylla and the turbulent waters spinning around Charybdis. “Perhaps we should return to Coco’s idea?”

Coco looked like a deer in headlights. “What idea?”

“I believe,” he gasped, a hand trembling on his stomach, “that our only way out of here is over the tops of them. That, though, will require you shifting and flying us to the far side of the cavern.”

Coco studied the two-foot-wide lip of rock we were standing on. “Do you understand how big dragons are?” She shook her head. “Could I shift without being dragged under by the whirlpool? Yes, I could do that. Could I load you three on my back without being dragged under? No.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’ll have to be in the water to get you.”

I couldn’t believe I was suggesting this, given my issues with heights. “Could you stay in the air and grab us with your claws?” I wondered. “Then you wouldn’t have to get in the water.”

She smacked the wall beside us. “There’s no room for my wings. I couldn’t get close enough to pick you up. And honestly, I’d be so preoccupied with the rock wall, I’m worried I might gore a couple of you on a claw.”

“Not excited about being gored.” I muttered. Blowing out a breath and kneeling at the water’s edge, I slipped my hand under the surface. “The pull isn’t too strong here. We were able to swim to the edge a few minutes ago. You’re much stronger in your dragon skin.”

“Sure,” she said, “and I take up a lot more space. They took it easy on us by dropping us at the edge of the lake. Look how hard the water is swirling forty feet out.”

“I doubt you want to hear this,” Stheno cut in, “but Charybdis can move. The longer we stand here discussing it, the longer he has to slide this way. When the center of the whirlpool has us pinned in this corner, we’ll be out of options.”

Coco ripped off her backpack and handed it to me. “Don’t let anything happen to this. I mean it.”

I strapped it onto my chest and watched as Coco ran in the opposite direction. When she came to the end of the rock lip, she jumped into the air and erupted into a ball of fire that unfurled into a massive dragon. One of her wings scraped hard against the wall and she shrieked in pain. She flew over Charybdis to the far side of the cavern before circling back. A couple of Scylla’s heads popped out to watch Coco.

I searched the ceiling of the cavern, looking for the tunnel we’d been in before being dropped here. All traces of the tunnel were now gone. We’d been thrust into a new journey, and the Underworld was not allowing us to return to the old one.

Coco flew back and then dropped into the water near us and was almost immediately swept away. Roaring, she fought the pull until her claws were able to grip the rocks beside us.

“Go, go, go!” I shouted, scrambling over her claws, running, and leaping onto a waterlogged wing. Climbing onto her back was tough, but some of her scales had pointy edges that curved away from her body. I used them as footholds.

Stheno was right behind me. Bracken, though, had been knocked down when Charybdis yanked hard enough to dislodge one set of Coco’s claws.

“No!” My brain stuttered to a stop as I watched my injured great-uncle roll toward the edge of her wing and the dark water beyond.

Chapter 13

I DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING

Coco must have felt what was happening with Bracken because even in the midst of being dragged by Charybdis, she lifted her wing and rolled him back toward her body. I jumped down and got him up, showing him the hand and footholds. Once all three of us were on her back, I screamed, “Go!”

We had a hell of a time trying to hang on. At one point, Stheno started to slide off, but she dug her claws into Coco’s back and clung with all her might. What we were going through, though, was nothing compared to the war Coco was waging. Her great wings were flapping, trying to get lift off the water, but the whirlpool was dragging her body down.

She turned her head on a roar, sending fire into the heart of the whirlpool. The current lost force for a moment and Coco beat her wings hard, finally lifting up into the air. My stomach dropped as we flew high. Clinging fiercely to her back, I tried to choke back the terror making me lightheaded. Once Coco was high above, she spat fire into the eye of the whirlpool again as we flew over the top.

When Scylla moved out of her hiding spot, Coco sent a burst of fire her way too. All six heads—one quite mangled—screeched horribly. The echo was painful, but Coco turned toward the opposite side of the cavern and then hovered.

“What the hell is she doing?” Stheno yelled.

I shook my head, unclear on what was happening. On the downbeat of Coco’s wings, I saw the problem. Charybdis had shot a tentacle up at Coco and it was now coiled around her clawed foot, dragging us toward the sharp teeth in the center of the whirlpool.

The tentacle yanked and Coco screeched, her body straining against the pull. A fresh wash of blood bloomed across Bracken’s stomach. We were all getting tossed around, desperately trying to stay on her back. She breathed fire into the watery vortex and then strained up. With a loud snap, she was free and flying straight at the rocky ceiling, looping around in midair before we crashed.

When one of Scylla’s heads shot out to grab at her, Coco shot a ball of fire down the open mouth of the snakelike head and flew, low to the water, to the far side of the cavern. She flipped sideways, throwing us onto the path before she crashed into the stone wall.

With a flash of fire, she shifted back to human and then rolled into the water. I jumped up, my right knee very unhappy with the fall, and ran to her, reaching out over the teeming water to grab her hands. She had to fight through the water to get to me. Luckily, Charybdis had slid farther to the other side of the lake to pin us in. Had the eye of the whirlpool been closer, there would have been no way for Coco to fight her way through the pull of the undertow.

Bracken stood beside me, his fingers moving, and the water quieted just enough for a lone woman to slice through the waves and make it to the rocks at the edge. I grabbed her wrists and hauled her up. “Coco, are you okay? Are you hurt?”