Chapter 96
Savage
This is so exciting I think I’m going to pee my pants.
But I won’t, because Lyle is watching me closely so I have to behave at least a little bit, and we don’t know what monsters we’ll meet in the other world, so I better save it.
Lyle wants to pack a bag, so we give him a minute to do that while Scythe and Aurelia talk to the Devi pack to update them.
Minnie is desperate to come as well but in the next breath announces herself as the surrogate guardian of the academy while we’re gone.
But if we’re going through the secret door to under the school, then we’re not really leaving it, are we? I don’t know how the magic works, but it all makes sense to me.
I prepare myself by warming up with a lap around the academy and some push-ups before explaining things to Eugene.
He needs to look after Stacey because I think she needs him most after her mate proved himself an asshole for a second time.
Henry is coming with us; I think the more the merrier for this quest.
Once I return to the pack suite, everyone is dressed in simple clothes and ready to go.
Lyle and Xander have backpacks with water, food, and clothes.
Everyone has very serious expressions on and I think I’m the only one who’s actually excited, so I decide to lead the way to the library, singing a new song.
We’re off to the portal.
We’re off to the portal.
Everyone cheer!
Everyone cheer!
I ignore Xander’s useless comment about it not rhyming because it doesn’t need to rhyme while I’m dancing.
I also need to keep my mind off the new red mark my regina has on her arm.
When Lyle asked her about it, she simply said.
“I did it. And it means my father will die.” She doesn’t act like it’s sore, but I’ve been wanting to lick it better for ages now.
Lyle gave me a deathly look when I said I wanted to, so I have to contain myself.
Minnie waits for us in the library, wringing her hands like a nervous ninny. I want to tell her that she defeated Titus, so she really shouldn’t be nervous about anything after that, but I’m too excited and there are too many thoughts in my mind so all that comes out is, “You’re a badass, Minnie.”
She rolls her eyes at me before grabbing my regina by the arms. “Don’t eat anything no matter how good it looks, and promise you won’t spend too much time there.”
“This is a time-critical mission,” Lia says seriously. “I don’t want to be there any longer than we have to because you can bet your bottom dollar Serpent Court won’t waste any time either.”
“We have eyes on them on the northern roads,” Xander says, nodding to Minnie’s phone. “And they’ll arrive in a convoy, so you’ll get an alert when the guards see them coming from hours away.”
“I’ve got this,” Minnie says, nodding seriously. “I’ll defend this place with my life.”
I skip past the Titus-killer towards where the secret door sits on the wall.
The light is dimmed this late in the day, and it makes the door look like something from an old dragon’s dungeon.
Everyone slowly gathers behind me, and the fat gargoyle who sits on top of the door stares down at us all with this old timey look.
“You must be really old,” I say.
He blinks down at me. “Quite.”
I feel my regina take a deep breath, and her exhale tickles the back of my neck. My little chompy is nervous, so I’m going to have to be brave for all of us. I turn around and thrust out my palm, face down. “On three, say Team Boneweaver!”
Xander gives me a pained look that says he’s above team bonding activities, but when Lia smiles shyly and places her hand over mine, everyone else has no choice but to follow.
I beam at the team as Xander puts his hand over Scythe’s. Now I’m really giddy. “One, two, three!”
“Team Boneweaver!” everyone cheers.
Henry chirps his part from Lia’s shoulder. “You always make me feel better,” she says in my mind, just for me. I get to pinch her smiling cheeks before sweeping my arm out to tell her the floor is hers. She steps forward more confidently than before, looking up at the gargoyle.
“My lady,” he says formally, like he knows something’s up.
“We’re ready to go through, Ashfang,” she says. “Let us in, please.”
“Very well. May the Wild Goddess save your souls.”
Dramatic old gargoyle. No one’s saving my soul except my regina. Aurelia casts a dark look over her shoulder as the door swings open and I nod encouragingly. We all surround our regina, Lyle putting his arm around her waist like he’s scared it’s going to slurp her in.
That strange magic circles in the air as the door opens, and it feels like being tickled by a windmill, but it’s pulling at us all. “Ready?” I say in my chompy’s ear.
She takes a shaky breath. “Let’s do it.”
We all edge towards the darkness, right up until I’m pressed against the hinge, sniffing to see if I can sense what’s on the other side.
“Oh, there’s a passageway,” Aurelia says, her eagle eyes enlarging her irises.
“Do you want me to go first?” I say excitedly.
“No, I’ve got the eyes—”
Xander prods everyone aside. “No, I’ve got the eyes, regina.”
He has no eyes at all, actually, so I don’t know what’s going on, but I let the dragon go first with narrow eyes, and Aurelia holds onto his belt loop.
We all go in a long chain, but when I hold my hand out to Lyle behind me, he looks at me disapprovingly, taking out a torch from his backpack instead. I just shrug and follow my leader.
Xander’s eyes light the way through the passage, and it’s wide enough that Aurelia ends up walking side by side with him.
There are black stone walls and the same cobbly-stone floor as Lia’s rabid cave in the animas dorm.
It feels old and dusty, like there should be cobwebs and ghosts floating through here.
The floor slopes downwards, and we’re clearly heading underground, the air feeling heavy on my chest and shoulders.
Suddenly, both Aurelia and Xander jump backwards like they’ve been tripped up. “Stop!” Aurelia exclaims as they both stumble back into me. Henry tumbles off Lia’s shoulder but rights himself in mid-air.
“What is it!” I shout excitedly.
“It’s the floor,” Aurelia says, showing me with the toe of her trainer. She presses on the floor, and it tips inwards like a trick panel.
“It’s a massive trapdoor,” Xander mutters. “What the fuck is underneath here?”
“How we get to the other side is the better question,” Lyle says. “We need to keep moving. Allow me.”
We make way for the lion, and he shoves at the trapdoor with his telekinesis and shines his torch on it.
The floor slides away from us, moving on a hinge three or four metres down the path.
Beneath the trapdoor is a darkness even deeper than the corridor.
When Lyle shines his light into it, there’s nothing at all to see.
Only shadow. Lyle levitates himself across the trapdoor to the other side, pointing his torch left and right to show us that it’s a dead end.
Aurelia snorts. “It wants us to go down.”
Lyle sighs dramatically. “We don’t know what’s down there. I’m getting flashbacks of Naga House.”
Aurelia shifts, and when a tiny head pokes out of her fallen clothes, I gasp in wonder.
She’s a blue rosella. So cute with her tiny red chest and face, bright green wings, and round black eyes.
She gives a little chirp, and Henry chirps back, flying around her in circles.
Scythe picks up her clothes as she hops to the edge of the trapdoor and peers down before she and Henry flit into it together.
“Quick, Lyle!” I cry, falling onto my ass and dangling my feet through the trapdoor.
With no choice at all, Lyle wraps me in his telekinesis and sends me down into the all-black.
The others follow with some grumbling, Lyle’s torch beaming yellow over me.
He lowers us boys slowly into the shadows until there’s nothing all around us and it feels like I’m in outer space or something.
The smell of salt hits my nose just after my brother says it. “It’s brine,” Scythe says. “There’s a lot of saltwater down there.”
Aurelia and Henry let out chirps again, and I feel my regina shift. There’s a flash of white skin before a plonking splash. Henry chirps in dismay by my ear.
“Let me down, Lyle,” Scythe says. “But take my clothes first.”
We’re all lowered down to the surface of some choppy water. Sea spray brushes my toes, and I grin down at the black waters beneath me, lowering my fingers to dip them in. Scythe splashes into the water a moment later, and Lyle levitates next to me, gathering up his clothes into the backpack.
“Can you guys see anything?” Xander asks irritably into the group chat. “Where else would we be expected to go?”
“It’s almost as if this journey was made for a Boneweaver,” Lyle says. “Telekinesis, flight, now swimming.”
We hear nothing from our marine mates for a moment, and just when I think Scythe and Aurelia have eloped, Scythe says. “There’s a light far down here. I think we need to go through it.”
“Gods help me,” Xander moans.
“Don’t worry, my dragon,” Aurelia says. “I’m going to bubble shield you non-aquatics and then Lyle can shoot you through.”
“Brilliant idea, regina!” I say, fist pumping the air.
Lyle’s torch beam finds Aurelia’s dorsal fin when it appears above the water, and I feel her gentle magic surrounding me like a doona of love. The air around me changes as the bubble closes over my head, and Xander and Lyle go quiet as they feel it too. Henry lands on my shoulder for comfort.
“Ready!” I say, bending my knees into a squat and bracing myself.
Lyle lowers the three of us into the water, and I grin from cheek to cheek as we sink into the new darkness, and my regina’s pretty shark face snaps her sharp teeth at us.
Her tail is so cute as she and Scythe swim down past where Lyle’s torch light can see.