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“Give me that wand,” Paige said through clenched teeth.

“Never,” Drucinda shouted back as she struggled against Paige.

Dewey buzzed by them, trying to tug the wand from her hand.

“Thorn! Might you handle the tiny terror?” Drucinda called.

“My pleasure,” he snarled, stalking toward them before leaping into the air and flying after Dewey.

“Look out,” Paige shouted seconds before Drucinda landed a slap across her cheek, knocking her sideways.

Dewey fluttered as quickly as he could with the larger dragon hot on his tail. Paige scrambled to her feet, but Drucinda swept her leg at Paige’s ankles, knocking her over again.

She landed in a heap, a stalagmite scraping her cheek as she fell. She grasped at her stinging skin tinged with crimson blood.

Drucinda focused her attention on double-teaming Dewey, trying to activate the wand again as a weary Paige pushed herself to her feet.

With her hair sticking out wildly from her ponytail and dirt and blood staining her cheeks, she stormed toward the other woman and grabbed her by the ponytail, dragging her backward.

“Give me that wand.”

“Thorn!” Drucinda shouted.

The larger dragon whipped around, abandoning his pursuit of Dewey and barreling toward Paige.

A high-pitched squeal suddenly shot through the air. Paige squeezed her eyes closed as the noise threatened to make her ears bleed. Thorn stopped flying abruptly, his ears flattening while he struggled to hover in the air.

Dewey squashed his paws over his ears, and Drucinda clapped her hands over hers.

“I’m glad I got your attention,” a tiny voice shouted after dropping a teeny whistle from her mouth.

All eyes turned to the contingent of Shrieking Pixies buzzing at the entrance to the cavern. Surrounded by two archers on either side of her, the tiny pixie flitted farther into the chamber, poking a black nail at Drucinda.

“Give me that wand,” the pixie demanded.

Paige backed away from the woman, pressing herself against a wall next to Dewey.

“Uh-oh,” Dewey whispered.

“This may work to our advantage,” Paige noted. “And look, two of the pixies in the back are carrying that piece of Holigramium.”

Dewey craned his neck, staring at the group of them. “I see it.”

“If we get the chance, grab either of them.”

Dewey held his hand over his mouth as he spoke. “If we get both, run.”

Paige nodded as they continued watching the exchange between the pixies and their rivals.

“I don’t think so,” Drucinda answered when Thorn landed and slinked next to her. She waved the wand in the air while she studied the pixie. “I quite like it. I think I’ll keep it.”

“No, you won’t. You promised it to us. We’ve already paid you for it!”

“Yes, you have,” Drucinda said, cocking a hip and drawing more attention to her shapely body. “A pity it’s in untraceable cryptocurrency. I think I shall keep that, too.”

“The wand’s useless to you without the crystal or the Holigramium,” the pixie continued.

“Not really,” Drucinda said, her eyebrows rising. “I could destroy you one by one with it.”