Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

C esnia's kid was blue.

Bright cobalt blue with eyes that changed from green to gold to red to black in the space of an instant. Titus's eyes varied color, though not so rapidly, but neither he nor Drake were blue.

I'd have to think about that.

The small dragon flapped on my tattered shirt, gazed into my eyes, and shouted, "Maaaaaa."

Then it wrapped its little dragon wings around me and held me tight.

The luminescent dragon in the wall went crazy. She swirled and danced, her laughter echoing. A wing came down the stone behind me, the closest she could reach.

I sat up, pried Baby Blue from me, and held it nearer to the wall. The little dragon hopped from me to land vertically on the stone. Gripping the sheer wall with its claws, it tried to hug the white dragon as it had done me.

"Janet!" Gabrielle's warning screech tore me from the touching reunion .

I jerked around to see that the Phantomwalkers had broken apart again, spilling around us to strike.

I grabbed Gabrielle's outstretched hand and wrenched myself to my feet. Gabrielle's enormous power came to me with a slap, bubbling like an impatient volcano. That was my sister.

Another hand found mine. I looked down to see slim but strong fingers, skin the same color as mine, gripping hard. The young Ruby Begay gazed at me with Grandmother's eyes, her defiance and beauty a heady combination.

Nash had finally convinced Carl to retreat along the passageway, with Colby protecting them.

We three ladies lifted our hands. My voice and Gabrielle's joined Grandmother's, though I had no idea what we were singing. Ruby's magic surged through me, joining mine and Gabrielle's into a force that could shake down mountains.

We threw this power into the Phantomwalkers, who screamed, writhed, and began to smoke. Without discussion, the three of us pushed them back into the wall, where they did not want to go.

Cesnia tore herself from her child and swirled to meet them.

Janet. Cesnia's voice, musical and sweet, whispered in my head. Take good care of her for me.

Her?

I didn't dare snap my gaze around to the little blue dragon who wailed when Cesnia swirled away. With a few flaps of tiny wings, the little one launched herself up, and landed, out of breath, on top of my head.

The Phantomwalkers, in glee, drew together to shoot a streak of light straight at Baby Blue.

"No you don't!" I yelled.

I directed our collective magic to bat the lightning out of the air before it reached us. The bolt slammed into the ground, sending up an explosion of rubble. Then, my fury joined by Grandmother's and Gabrielle's, we threw the Phantomwalkers into the wall.

Cesnia closed on them with dragon-focused rage.

Dragon fire and their magic hadn't been able to dent the Phantomwalkers, but Cesnia had moved beyond such things. Perhaps, in her ghostly state, she had become like the Phantomwalkers herself, no longer purely dragon. She might have the power to destroy them all.

Go , Cesnia commanded me. I will do the rest.

I jerked my hands from Gabrielle and Ruby. "Time to leave. Cesnia's going to eat them, and we should be elsewhere."

Gabrielle understood the gist if not the entirety of what was going on. She bravely seized Grandmother's shoulder and tried to turn her around.

Grandmother shook her off. She dropped to her knees to the floor, her cane falling away, and lifted the dead Nitis into her arms. Grandmother shuffled into the passageway, leaving her cane behind, her form shrinking into its older version as she went.

Gabrielle grabbed the cane and ran after her.

I stood for a few seconds longer, Baby Blue still on my head, and met Cesnia's glittering gaze.

Thank you, Janet.

The words touched me like a cool breath of air. Blue cried out and Cesnia dipped a glowing wing down, trying to reach her. I held the little dragon to the wall, letting Cesnia and Blue touch one last time.

Cesnia nodded at me, her eyes glittering with light, and made herself pull away.

Blue seemed to understand. She climbed onto my shoulders, clinging to me as I retrieved my jacket and the bowling bag and walked down the dark, dry passageway. I felt Blue twisting her head to keep Cesnia in sight as long as she could, before we turned a corner, and darkness swallowed the cavern.

Behind us, a dragon roared with all the rage, pain, and grief the Phantomwalkers had caused her. The cave we'd just left filled with fire.

I heard screaming, the thin wails of the Phantomwalkers as Cesnia showed them exactly why you didn't mess with a mama dragon.

The cave imploded. Eons of sandstone cascaded like a waterfall into the beautiful slot canyon in which we'd stood. Dust and debris flew after me as I sprinted toward the exit, gasping for breath.

Except, the exit wasn't there. I found, not sunshine and cool breezes, but the cluster of Carl, Nash, Colby, Gabrielle, and Grandmother examining the blank wall that stood where the way out should have been.

"What the hell?" I blurted.

"The entire canyon has changed," Nash said, tight-lipped. "Nothing is where it was."

The Phantomwalkers had moved reality once we'd gone in. Maybe the entrance had been part of their otherworld, luring us to them.

"Colby," I said. "Can you blast a way through it?"

"Eventually." Colby ran his hands along the stone as though testing it for weakness. "But we'll all get a little singed."

Blue drew in a large breath and belched a stream of fire. It was small, almost cute, but barely warmed the stone. It would be a while before she grew into her dragon might, I guessed.

Which brought up the question, who was going to raise her. Me? Watery panic lashed through me.

Drake would want her back. Or Titus. Or would they? They hadn't expected the dragon to be a girl. Maybe female dragons had to be raised by females. I had no idea.

The dragon council would want to weigh in, including the ice-cold Aine.

No way was I turning over this adorable and vulnerable little dragon to the council. She'd stay with me until Mick and I figured things out.

Mick was out there. He'd get us free.

The instant I formed that thought, sparks burst under Colby's fingers. He snatched them back, hissing in pain.

He hadn't created the fire, I realized. It came from the other side of the rock. As we stared, more and more rivulets of blue-white streamed into the stone, sparks showering. A very straight white-hot line formed in the sandstone.

Colby jerked Gabrielle back, as Nash did to Carl. Grandmother, still cradling Nitis, retreated more slowly.

I made sure we were all well out of the way before the outer wall gave. Behind us, deep in the cave, came the rumbling booms of the cavern collapsing.

A large chunk of stone crumbled away before us, letting dust and sunlight stream in. Framed in the opening stood Mick, bare in the sunshine .

Next to him was Maya, in armor. Not armor, I realized after one startled moment. She'd donned a welding jacket and helmet, gauntlets on her slim hands. She pulled off one glove to turn off the flame on her plasma cutter, lifted her face shield, and glared at us.

"Well, are you coming out of there?" Maya demanded.

We complied in a hurry. Mick bathed me in a wide, warm smile, his face and body abraded, his hair a dusty muss.

"Hey, baby," Mick said tiredly. "Miss me?"

For answer, I flung myself into his arms. Blue climbed from my head to his, where she settled down with a contented blurp .

Nash and Maya started arguing right away. Maya stomped toward the truck, with Nash after her. Gabrielle and Colby bumped shoulders then hurried off to find Colby's bike.

Behind us, the solid monolith of the sandstone hill and the slot canyons it contained crumbled into oblivion. Rock and dust hurtled into the clear sky as rumbling shook the earth.

Mick hustled both me and Grandmother forward, taking us past the bulwark of the box canyon and into the open desert.

Boulders rattled down the canyon walls to settle where they'd lay for the next decades, maybe centuries. Dust floated on the air to coat us all in pinkish powder.

The surrounding mountains held their stance, refusing to bend, but I knew that the slot canyon, the sculpture of nature the rocks had hidden, was no more.

Cesnia had saved her child for good .

After that, all was silence, except for the quiet sobbing of Ruby Begay, who knelt on the desert floor, cradling the body of Nitis, and weeping.