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“There!” she says, pointing toward the stables where the ducks are huddled outside the stable doors. My eyes widen, and I dash down the path toward the stables. The wind whips my hair around my face as I reach the bottom just as thunder rumbles across the sky followed by the deafening crack of lightning.

The ducks squawk and quack, flapping their wings as I step through them. I rush into the stables, almost slipping, catching myself on the stable door as I turn and peer inside. Relief floods me when I see Tyson chasing a baby duck between the stalls. He has it cornered and is trying to coax it out with a piece of straw.

“Tyson!” I breathe in relief, clutching my chest. My heart races so hard I think I might have a heart attack. At the sound of his name, he looks over his shoulder.

“Du, Du,” he cackles with laughter.

“Yes, duck, duck,” I chuckle as Tandi walks in behind me.

“There you are, little man. Gave us a fright,” she says, as I scoop him up off the filthy floor. The horses become spooked and start carrying on. Hay is blowing around the stables from the open doors, making the wind whistle loudly.

“Come on, we should get back before this storm hits. It won’t be long before the rains pelt down,” Tandi says as the wind chimes and buckets clang noisily, and the rafters creak, the tin roof groaning under the wind. The horses’ hooves on the floor are loud as we make our way back out.

“Du, Du,” Tyson says, squirming in my arms, wanting to catch the petrified baby duck.

“No, we can play later. Don’t you want to see mummy?” I ask him when we hear a bang.

“Heeelp!”

I stop looking back into the stables at the spooked horses.

“Did you hear that?” I ask Tandi. She looks around but shakes her head, and we head toward the doors.

“Help!” I hear the sound of choking coughs as we draw nearer to the last stall before the doors. I stop again, looking at the spooked horse inside.

“I heard that!” Tandi says before we hear a loud banging noise thump again. The horse jumps and goes up on its backlegs, knocking down some bales of hay that were stacked on top of each other in there with the horse, which I find a little odd.

“Help!” a voice croaks again before rapid, loud coughing.

“Tanner?” I call out, thinking I recognize the voice. Tandi opens the gate of the stall, causing the horse to rush past us. We barely jump back in time as it barges out of the stables and into the storm.

“Damn it!” Tandi curses, trying and failing to stop it.

“One of the guards will grab her,” I tell her.

“Down here!” A barking cough comes, and Tandi turns to look at the floor and the giant floor-to-ceiling stack of hay that covers the entire rear wall.

“Tanner? Is that you?” I yell out.

“Who is Tanner?” Tandi asks, kicking the hay around to see if he has fallen over in the ruined stall.

“The gardener and one of the stable hands,” I tell her when the coughing gets louder, and Tandi looks behind the bales of hay on the far wall of the stall when she steps on something hollow. She stomps her foot down, and I peer into the stall.

She bends down and sweeps her hand across the floor.

“Down here,” comes the barking noise again, and Tandi sweeps her hand furiously.

“Larkin?” she yells, and I place Tyson down to help her.

‘We can’t find him! Where did you go, Azalea?’Trey calls through the mindlink.

‘We found him,’I quickly tell him, having forgotten with all the noise and becoming distracted. I gasp when Tandi hits a handle and looks at me. “Is that a trapdoor?” I whisper to her, forgetting about Trey in my head.

Tandi pulls it, but it doesn’t budge. “Here, help me,” she groans, and I grab the other handle, and together we rip it open. I fall on my ass, tripping over one of the fallen hay bales. Tandi jumps back as it flings open.

“Ah, thank the Goddess!” Come Larkin’s croaky voice.

“Larkin?” Tandi says, peering down into the trapdoor. I get to my hands and knees and peek into the trapdoor, finding blue and purple lights. Larkin is tied to a chair that has fallen over. All around him are rows and rows of potted plants beneath the lights on tables. I sniff the air.