Page 15 of Monster's Melody

Jahrdran burst into shadows and streamed through the trapdoor.

Kasi launched after him, Shadow in her wake.

“I don’t know about this,” Mikaela said nervously, staring down into the darkened pit.

A loud click sounded from down below and the space lit up.

“Come on, Mikaela!”Kasi called up.“It’s just another tunnel.”

“Here.”Elliot helped her climb down onto the ladder and a few moments later, she called up, “Okay, I’m down.Come join us!”

I glanced back at Vorzak.

He was so focused on the dragons, he’d never even noticed us, which was pretty much par for the course when it came to Vorzak and me.Still, I felt a little guilty, leaving him all alone with the clearly unhappy dragons.

Then again, he’d chosen to come here, for some weird, unknown reason and was even now, still trying to cajole the dragons into accepting his presence.

Why did he even care?

“Come on, Jasmine,” Elliot said.

So, with a shake of my head, I followed Mikaela’s path, then waited at the bottom with her as Elliot climbed down to join us.

The next two hours were stressful, but also amazing.

First, we got lost in the tunnels.There was just one tunnel to start, but then it branched off in five directions and then each of those branched off into more directions.

We got completely turned around and then ended up right back where we started.

“Did we just walk in a circle?”Jahrdran demanded.

“I think we did,” Elliot said.

At that moment, the trapdoor above us popped open and Vorzak dropped down into the tunnel.

Mikaela gasped and stumbled back, ducking behind Elliot, clearly in an attempt to avoid being seen by Vorzak’s headful of snakes.

Vorzak straightened and jerked in surprise when he saw all of us standing there.

“What are you doing here?”We both demanded at the same time.

He grinned at me and said, “Jasmine, I presume?”

I only caught a glimpse of his grin, though, because the moment they heard my voice, his snakes snapped around to face me and started dancing and weaving, blocking my view of Vorzak.

“I’m Vorzak,” he said as he pushed his snakes to the side.He held out his hand and waited patiently.

Great.

Just what I needed.

It was like the entire universe was conspiring against me.I’d finally gotten over this man and now he was in my face every time I turned around.

Worse, he expected me to touch him.

Well, there was no way I was doing that.I might not be the smartest student at the Academy, but I was smart enough to know to avoid touch.

Ignoring his hand, I turned to my friends and demanded, “So, what’s the plan?”