Chapter 30

Thirty

We make it through the next three rooms with varying degrees of difficulty. In one room we have to use light and dark magic to activate a secret compartment in the wall that reveals a riddle we have to solve in order to figure out which of two doors to go through. Thank goodness Titus is good with riddles; the rest of us had no clue how to solve it. For the most part, Talon seems okay after we make it through the first room, but every once in a while he jerks away from something that isn't there or stares at nothing for too long.

The next room after the light and dark magic room has a giant puzzle in the middle with missing pieces scattered throughout the space. Kiaro and I search for the pieces while Talon and Titus work on solving the puzzle. We must take too long like the game master warned us against doing, because halfway through solving the puzzle the room starts to fill up with freezing water. The water gets all the way up to our hips before we complete the puzzle, which reveals the location of the key we need to get out of the room.

The next room is like an icebox, literally. Clues to figure out a keycode to open the exit door are frozen in the middle of ice blocks. Stryder's fire magic would have been really handy, but since he's not with us we use brute force and body heat, which after being drenched in the previous room I don't have much of, to get to the clues. By the time we pull the clue cards out of the ice and decipher what turns out to be a cryptogram, I'm shivering badly, and the tips of my fingers are a little blue. Titus's bare chest is tinted blue as well, and it takes Kiaro three tries to punch in the correct code because he's shaking so badly he keeps hitting the wrong numbers.

When we pour into the next room, it's filled floor to ceiling with some sort of fog or mist. I wave my hand in front of me to try to clear some of it, but it doesn't do much.

"It's been an hour and twenty-three minutes," Titus announces, which means we only have roughly twenty minutes until sunrise. That's not a lot of time and who knows how many more rooms we'll need to make it through before we can escape the asylum.

It's difficult to see more than a couple feet in front of us, and so we cautiously explore the parameters of the new room. I have a hard time concentrating on much because violent shudders keep racking my body, but I do find a door. It's flat with no handles and looks like it slides into the wall like a pocket door rather than swings open.

Moving around the mist-filled room is disorienting. I lose sight of the guys more than once. Kiaro calls out that he's found a pedestal with a mirror on it that swivels and tilts, and soon after Titus announces that he's found another. I continue to check the walls and find the Chaos emblem painted on one of them. I turn to call out and announce what I've discovered, but my legs don't seem to be working properly and I stumble, face-planting into Talon's chest.

Talon's hands quickly clamp down on my arms to steady me.

"You're a block of ice," he says. Wrapping his arms behind me, he hauls me closer.

When I look up at him, he stares down at me with a frown.

At each room, I considered just waiting the rest of the trial out, but then I'd catch Kiaro watching Talon closely with a calculated gleam in his eye and I knew Talon would never make it through the next room without me. Talon has been trying to hide it, but his symptoms are getting worse. He's talked to himself more than once, and his gaze goes in and out of focus. But the effects of the shade ivy spores seem to come and go, and I can tell by looking into his clear gray-blue eyes that he's having a moment of lucidity.

"You're not much better. How are you not shivering?" I ask.

"The cold doesn't bother me much," he answers as he begins to run his hands up and down my back, trying to warm me. Unfortunately, it doesn't help much. Talon is just as wet and cold as I am, so my shivering just gets worse.

"How about you two stop trying to feel each other up and help us out?" Kiaro says, appearing out of the mist.

"Chill out," Talon snaps. "I could hear her teeth chattering from the other side of the room. She's practically hypothermic."

"So are all of us. Titus is half-naked, and snake shifters aren't exactly known to like the cold, so I'm not living my best life over here either. She needs to suck it up like the rest of us."

"Just give her a minute."

"We don't have a minute," Kiaro barks, but then melts back into the fog to keep looking for clues.

I sigh. He's a jerk, but he's not wrong. I try to pull out of Talon's arms, but he holds me tighter.

"Ignore the snake shifter. You won't be good to anyone if you can't stop shivering."

I should really step back, but Talon's embrace is actually starting to warm me up, so I can't make myself move. I'm not just cold, I'm exhausted as well. Giving up, I press my ear to his chest and close my eyes. His heartbeat drums steadily beneath my cheek.

Suddenly, heat starts to pour into me from Talon's hands on my back. I gasp, and pulling back slightly, I tilt my face up to look at him. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure I get you back to your princeling with all your fingers and toes intact," he says, and I go rigid.

Becks would freak if he saw me in Talon's arms like this, but then I remember this trial isn't being broadcasted and relax. This isn't anything. It's just Talon trying to help me warm up. It's nothing Becks needs to know about.

But even so, a speck of guilt lodges in my chest.

I don't know what kind of magic Talon is using to warm me up. I've heard of fire-welding shifters being able to create and transfer heat into another creature, but never a vampire. I'm too spent to pick it over though. All I care is that whatever he's doing, it feels amazing.

It takes less than a minute for me to stop shivering, and when he releases me I can finally feel all my fingers and toes again.

"Thanks," I say, and force myself to look into his eyes. There's some emotion simmering below the surface of his gaze, but I can't put my finger on what it is.

"I found something else," Titus announces, cutting off anything Talon was about to say.

"Me too," I call, remembering the Chaos emblem I forgot to tell them about when I stumbled into Talon.

We all meet in the middle of the room. Titus holds up a Chaos coin, exactly like the ones we looked for in the first trial with the emblem stamped into it. I tell them about the Chaos symbol on the wall and the door I found, and Kiaro lets us know he came across two more pedestals with mirrors, so four in total. All the mirrors are attached to a base but can be twisted and angled in different directions. That has to mean something.

"Where did you find the coin?" Talon asks, and Titus answers that it was lying on the ground. We split up, Titus and Talon looking for more coins, and Kiaro and I trying to figure out where they go.

I come across a pedestal and take my time inspecting it. The mirror up top has an ornate gilded frame. There are crystals and flowers etched into the wood, and it swivels and turns just like Kiaro reported. Next, I drop down to inspect the pedestal it sits on, which is a long thin column also painted gold with the mirror perched on top and a wider base. It's when I get to the bottom that I notice the coin shaped indent.

"I think I found where the coin goes," I call out, and Titus shows up first.

"I found another coin," he says, and then Talon and Kiaro appear.

"I found two as well," Talon says, but then he jerks back and swipes at something only he can see on his shoulder.

Unease grows in my gut, but I do my best to ignore it.

"Someone give me a coin," I say, and Titus drops one into my palm. Bending down, I place it in the indent, and it fits perfectly. The moment the coin settles in its slot, a laser shoots down from the ceiling, hitting the top corner of the mirror and bouncing off in the opposite direction.

"Each pedestal needs a coin," I say, and Talon and Titus take off to place them.

Soon, there are four different-colored laser beams shooting toward the mirrors and bouncing off in different directions, but now what?

"Did you guys see this?" Titus asks as he looks at one of the mirrors, and we all move closer to see what he's talking about.

Very faintly in the mirror's reflection is a light purple design, the color matching the laser reflecting off of it. Three interconnected swirls.

"Isn't that one of the symbols on the Chaos emblem?" I ask, and Kiaro jets off to another mirror.

"There's another symbol here. A starburst."

"That matches the emblem. Let's see if the other two match as well."

Sure enough, the last two mirrors have a zigzag and two interconnected circles.

"Quick, point them at the Chaos emblem on the wall," I say, getting an idea.

I have to go to the wall and direct their angles because they can't see the emblem through the heavy fog, but eventually we manage to get three out of the four lasers hitting their respective symbol.

I'm trying to direct Talon, who's working on the last symbol of the starburst, when I hear Kiaro tell him he's useless and to shove off.

The shade ivy spores are definitely affecting Talon, and for his sake I hope this trial is almost over or he's not going to make it.

It only takes a few adjustments to get the last laser pointed in the right direction, and when it connects to its symbol, the light in the room changes to purple and the emblem glows. There's a grinding noise and Titus calls out that the door is opening. I quickly join the rest of them and together we watch the door slide open. Some of the mist clears from the room, and light from whatever is beyond shines in, giving us a little more visibility. I don't see anything much past the door except a white hallway, but that's new. Each room so far has dumped us into a new room.

Titus looks down at his watch. "Eight minutes. We gotta go," he says, and then takes off.

Kiaro starts to follow him, but then Talon shouts and starts backing up, swinging wildly at the fog around him.

"Talon!" I call, and try to go to him, but I can't get close without getting hit as he fights an imaginary foe.

I'm trying to decide what to do when the purple light goes out. I swing around to see that Kiaro has moved one of the mirrors so that the laser is no longer properly aligned, and then a thump tells me that the door has slid closed again.

"What are you doing?"

Kiaros' gaze is fixed on a thrashing Talon when he says, "Bettering my chances for a win," and then flies at him, tackling him to the ground.

Talon tries to fight him off, but he's also fighting imaginary demons in his mind and can't fend off Kiaro's fury of punches.

"Kiaro, stop!" I scream.

Running over, I try to pry him off an almost defenseless Talon, who's now hardly moving under the onslaught of Kiaro's attacks.

With a growl, Kiaro swings toward me, abandoning Talon to his temporary madness. He comes to his feet, and I back up, apprehensive of the unhinged look in his eye.

"I'll deal with him in a minute. You and I have unfinished business."

"This is stupid. We're running out of time. Just tilt the mirror back and leave."

"Oh, I intend to. But not before I get a taste," he says, and then lunges at me. But I'm ready for him and twist out of the way before he can touch me.

He licks his lips with his split tongue, and I have to suppress a shudder. He truly is vile.

"I'm going to enjoy this," he says with a lecherous grin, and then springs at me again. I spin out of the way a second time, already familiar with his moves from the time we faced off in the cages. But unlike the time we faced off in the cage, Kiaro can now use his magic. The third time he makes a move at me, the ground below my feet shakes and I lose my footing and go down.

I pop to my feet, but Kiaro is already on me, all hands as his fingers skate over my body. With a scream I rear up, headbutting Kiaro right in the middle of his face, breaking his nose. He falls back with a roar, cupping his face, and I scramble to my feet, trying to figure out what to do next.

I chance a glance at Talon, but it's hard to see him through the mist. I think he's unconscious in the corner of the room. I don't know how to get us both safely out of this room and away from Kiaro.

Kiaro lumbers to his feet, throwing obscenities and curses at me the whole time.

"No more playing around," he says when he faces me, the lower half of his face covered with the blood from his broken nose.

He gathers his power and fear shoots through me when I realize what he's about to do. There's nothing I can do to stop him before he shifts into a snake. But Kiaro doesn't turn into just any snake. He shifts into a giant, white-scaled anaconda.

I back away from his coiled body, my muscles going weak with fear.

Snakes. I can't handle snakes, especially ones big enough to swallow me whole.

My back hits the wall and I look for somewhere to flee, but there's nowhere to go.

I've moved far enough away from Kiaro that I can't see him through the mist anymore, which is a mistake, because now I don't know where he is, even though I can hear his slithering over the floor.

I have to move. I can't just stand here and offer myself up as prey. I don't know where Kiaro is, but I think I hear movement to the left, so I jut to the right. I only make it two steps before Kiaro flies at me, his body cutting through the mist and then winding around my legs.

He takes me down easily, but I'm not giving up. We're close to one of the pedestals so I grab the thin column and drag myself forward a few feet. But it doesn't help. Kiaro just manages to wrap more of his lean body around my own. Letting go of the pedestal, I try to squirm out of his hold, punching his scaled body that's twisted around my legs and midsection, but Kiaro just squeezes until I'm sure he's going to crack a rib.

I cry out; the snake hisses, and I swear Kiaro is laughing at me, and that makes me furious. I'm done with creatures treating me like I'm weaker than them.

Reaching up, I grab the pedestal again. They're secured to the ground, but I pull with all my might, yelling out my anger and frustration, and the top-heavy pedestal teeters. Kiaro must realize what I'm doing because he quickly uncoils.

That's right. This pedestal comes down and none of us are getting out of this room .

Before he has a chance to stop me, I give it another yank and the whole thing tips over, the mirror shattering on impact. Kiaro makes a furious hissing sound and darts at me before I can reach for a piece of the glass.

Throwing my hands up, I catch his triangle head before he can put his mouth over my face. I try to reach for a piece of broken glass to defend myself, but I can't let go of Kiaro without leaving myself vulnerable.

Hands suddenly appear out of nowhere and close around Kiaro's narrow skull.

Talon.

Black shadows seep out of Talon's palms, sink into Kiaro's head, and the next moment the giant snake goes limp.

Talon drops Kiaro and falls to his knees.

"Are you hurt?" he asks, his gaze half-lidded as it runs over me. He's fighting to stay present.

I do a quick assessment. I'm sore, but I don't think anything's broken, so I shake my head at him.

"Is he. . . ?"

"Not dead. I just knocked him out the same way I knocked you out in the cage. He'll be fine in an hour or so," he says, and then his eyes cloud over.

Before he can fall back into the hallucination, I grab his face, holding it between my hands, and force him to look at me. "It's in your head, Talon. There's no one here but you and me."

His gaze clears again, and he nods then looks at the broken mirror. "How are we going to get out of here?"

I search the mirror shards on the ground. Finding a large one, I grab it and stand. "We still have a chance. We only need to get that door open. Go to the emblem and direct me," I say, holding up the piece of glass until I find the laser. I'm not sure if this will work with the mirror broken, but it's worth a try.

It takes us a couple precious minutes to get the angle right, but eventually we get the laser pointed back at the wall. The purple light appears, and the door reopens. "Go," I tell him, and he stumbles toward the door.

I calculate the distance from the door to where I am, and I think I can make it. No way am I waiting in this room alone with Kiaro. I don't want to be anywhere near the psycho when he wakes.

Dropping the mirror shard, I sprint toward the door, squeezing through it right before it snaps shut.

I lean up against the hallway wall and close my eyes, giving my heart a moment to recover. When I open them again, Talon is resting against the wall across from me, his gaze glazed, but he's conscious at least.

There's a door at the end of the hallway that we both move toward. When I reach it and turn the knob, it swings open easily, revealing the overgrown garden behind the asylum.

We did it.

But the sky has already started to change from a dark blue-black to a deep purple, and even lighter on the horizon line. How much time before sunrise? Minutes? Seconds?

We can make it. We just need to get to the gazebo in the middle of the garden. I can even see the roof from where we're standing. It can't be more than a hundred yards away.

"Come on, Talon, we're almost there. We gotta go." But when I look back at him he's sliding to the ground.

Reaching down, I manage to get him on his feet by urging him to loop an arm around my neck. I go to move forward, but no matter how hard I try I can't make myself step out of the building.

At first I think we're stuck in a magical trap of some sort, but then I realize what it is—the unbreakable bond Talon put on me when we made our agreement. My body won't let me move any farther because I agreed to fail out of this trial, and if I keep moving forward I'll pass and move on to the next trial. But Talon can't make it to that gazebo on his own. The only way he's passing this trial and moving on to the next is with me.

I let out a growl of frustration and twist toward Talon. Propping him up against the wall the best I can, I drape his arms over my shoulders to keep him upright. His head lolls forward as he only just holds on to consciousness.

"Talon, you have to free me from the bond so that I can help you finish the trial."

He mumbles something I can't quite hear, and so I lean in. "Talon, say you release me from our bond or else we both will be disqualified from Chaos," I try again.

With effort he shakes his head. "No. You'll get hurt," he all but slurs.

"Then I guess you're okay letting Shadow Striker go to Titus or whoever else wins Chaos, because you're not making it to that finish line without me."

Talon's eyes flare before drooping again. "Can't . . . lose."

"Well that's what's about to happen. The sun is going to be up any minute now."

Anxiety claws at my chest when Talon groans and tips his head back against the wall and then lets his eyes slide shut again.

Part of me wants to drop it, to wait these final moments out and let Talon deal with the consequences, but I know if he were in his right mind he'd be fighting tooth and nail to get to that gazebo. Talon and I are friends, or maybe not friends exactly, but this whole ordeal has bonded us in some way. I can't just let this be the end for him.

Or you , a small voice inside whispers.

"Talon," I say, trying to shake him fully awake, but that doesn't work because it's super hard to shake someone you're also trying to hold up, so I slap his cheek. His face scrunches like he's trying to figure out what just happened, then his eyes open and focus on me.

"I need you to pull yourself together."

"Okay, okay. I'm awake. No more slappy-slappy."

"Release me from the bond," I order.

A lazy smile kicks up the corners of his mouth. "You're even cuter when you're feisty."

You've got to be kidding me. Now he's hitting on me?

"I love your freckles, Freckles. I wanna kiss each one of them."

I ignore the way my face heats. "Yes, I know I'm just adorable, but you need to do as I say. Now!"

When his eyes start drifting shut again, I give him another slap and they pop back open.

"Ouch."

" Talon ," I warn.

"Okay, okay, bossy. I release you."

I don't feel any different, but I don't waste any time pulling a half-conscious Talon toward the door. I hold my breath as I step forward, but this time I pass over the threshold with ease.

Yes! It worked!

But we're not out of the woods yet. We still need to get to that gazebo before the sun crests the horizon.

"Come on," I say to Talon, who isn't really paying attention to me.

His body weight on me is heavy as I practically drag him through the overgrown garden as the sky lightens overhead.

"A little help would be appreciated," I grumble after we almost go down when I snag my foot on a root.

When the gazebo comes into view, I keep my eyes fixed on the peeling white paint as we get closer and closer. Titus is standing there already, and he stiffens when he sees us struggling to reach the steps. It looks like there are three other competitors with him, but I don't waste time worrying about who they are as I channel all my focus and strength to hauling Talon to that finish line.

I look up when we are about twenty feet away and notice the clock hanging in the middle of the gazebo. There are only eight seconds left.

"Drop him and run," Titus shouts.

For a split second, I consider it. With Talon out of the picture I'd have a much better chance of winning Shadow Striker, but I can't do it. It's not who I am. So digging deep for whatever wellspring of strength I still have, I force Talon and myself into a stumble-jog as the final seconds drain away.