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Like I could have escaped the circle anyway. The Knights were now standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder, and each of them was holding a weapon.

“It’s not an attack!” I shouted over the next shriek that cut through the room.

“Then what is it?” Ainsley asked.

I pointed up at the ceiling. “A misbehaving smoke detector.”

They all looked up at the small, round device attached to the ceiling, and it let out another screech. The Knights relaxed. Eris even laughed.

“So how do we…” She winced when the smoke detector beeped again. “…turn it off?”

Everyone looked at Altair.

“I’m an Alchemist, not an electrician,” the orange Knight grumbled, squaring his shoulders. “I craft complex magic. I don’t fix shoddy household appliances.”

The smoke detector shrieked, as though in protest for being called ‘shoddy’.

Ainsley massaged her temples. “Wouldsomeoneplease turn that blasted thing off before my eardrums melt out of my ears?”

“As you wish.” Nala flickered her sword, and it transformed into a very long spear.

Altair joined her as she positioned herself under the smoke detector. “It probably just needs a new battery.”

“Killing it will work too.” Nala gripped her spear, preparing to hurl it at the annoying device.

The other Tournament Knights gathered around her, their eyes locked on to the screeching smoke detector like it was a ferocious beast they were preparing to take down.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I told them. “Someone is going to get electrocuted.”

“It will be fine,” Nala assured me, her muscles tensing for the throw. “We do things like this all the time.”

“You do battle with household appliances all the time?”

Beside me, Kato snorted. He hadn’t joined the others under the smoke detector.

“No one is getting electrocuted. The power hasn’t worked in this building for years,” Altair said.

If the building had no electricity, I wondered how the fancy door lock worked. But then the answer came to me. Magic. Of course it was magic.

Nala angled her spear for the throw.

“Nala! Nala! Nala!” the others chanted, and for a moment, I almost forgot they were all-powerful Knights. They sounded just like normal teenagers cheering on a teammate in a sports match.

The Knights burst into applause when Nala’s spear hit its mark, and the smoke detector latch popped open. But their applause cut off almost immediately, when something dark and odious poured out of the open device.

CHAPTER3

TRIBE VS. TRIBE

It was spiders—hundreds and hundreds of spiders. They must have been living in the roof and when they’d wandered into the smoke detector, they’d set it off.

Now that Nala had made them an escape hatch, they were streaming down from the ceiling, thousands of hairy legs entwined into a dark waterfall.

Jareth’s sword flashed, then split into two swords. He rolled back his wrists, warming up his arms.

Nala summoned her spear. It broke free from the smoke detector and shot back into her hand.

Altair was holding a pair of those grenade-looking things in his hands.