Page 22 of Ascension of the Pack

He laughed until he was almost bent double. ‘Aw now, you’re a narcissistic one, aren’t you,cariad? The world doesn’t revolve around you, dearie. According to prophecy, this is the day that we will recover the hammer of Arwen. Soon, we’ll have it back.’

‘So that’s what we’re getting for you from her hoard?’

‘Cracking. That’d do nicely.’

‘What does it look like?’

He gave me a flat stare. ‘Like a hammer.’

I glared right back. ‘And what if there are fifty hammers down there?’

He snorted. ‘Lady She-Dragon isn’t into DIY, Queenie. You just march down, grab any hammer you see, plus whatever you’ve come for, then you march right out. We’ll be waiting for you here. The tunnel is all set – you won’t be able to miss it.’

That set off more gales of laughter; it was obviously an inside joke.

‘It’s by two trees,’ another dwarf wheezed between gasps of laughter.

Ok-ay, then. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure,’ I said tightly. ‘We’ll see you later – with the hammer.’

Osian looked at me with gleaming eyes. ‘Fair play,’ he said. ‘You rightly will.’

Chapter 14

We soon discovered the reason for all their snickering. Hidden as it was by witchy runes, we just couldn’t find the entrance to the damned tunnel, even with a clearly drawn map to guide us to the precise spot.

Very funny, guys. One of the pricks could have shown us the way, but I took this as some sort of test – and I freakingexcelledat tests.

I reached down to the magic pooling in my stomach and pulled it up. Using my piping magic, I spoke to the trees around me and explained that I needed to find the tunnel. Connected as I was to them, I felt their irritation. The tunnel had disturbed their roots and the dwarves had lined it with sharp metal struts that prodded them.

The trees tugged me forwards to a spot between two of them but, try as I might, I still couldn’t see the damned entrance. I tried walking forwards but noticedimmediately that I wanted to walkaroundthe area. I tried to ignore the urge without success; I needed Plan B.

I shifted onto four feet and Esme put our nose to the ground. Our eyes might not have been able to see past the illusion, but our nose should. We closed our eyes to minimise our confusion and trotted forward until the scent of dwarves grew stronger.

‘Esme!’ Greg called. ‘Back up!’

We opened our eyes and all was dark. It took a few beats for me to realise that we had indeed found the tunnel – and walked right into it. The panic in Greg’s voice told us that we’d disappeared, been hidden by whatever illusion the witches had painted there. We retreated slowly until we were back in the light.

Now that we knew where the tunnel was, the illusion had lost its grip on us and we could see the entrance clear as day. I shifted back to human. ‘I can see the entrance now, can you?’

Greg and the others shook their heads. Next to me, Ben was looking around with visible agitation. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ I nudged him with my hip. ‘You don’t have to come into the tunnel with me if you don’t want to.’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m coming.’ He made a conscious effort to still himself and offered me a strained smile. ‘It’sjust that right now I’m rather a long way from being a lawyer and my day revolving around chargeable hours.’

‘I hear you.’ I grinned. ‘I promise you’ll get used to it. Soon you won’t want to get back to tracking your billable time.’

He shot me afaux-scandalised look. ‘Bite your tongue,’ he retorted and I snickered.

‘Okay,’ said Greg. ‘Lucy, I need you to lead me into the tunnel. We’ll go in and set the charges. After ten minutes Debbie, Wakado and I will set another much bigger charge as far away as we can to draw the brethren to us. Geneve is reportedly still at Caernarfon but be on your guard because she may have other dragon shifters nearby.’

I looked at my brother; he’d said that in his dream there was a dragon and I really wanted it to be the ice bitch herself. He was keeping his face blank, trying not to give too much of the future away lest he fuck with the outcome we wanted.

‘No clues, huh?’ I murmured.

He sighed unhappily. ‘I’ve already given you a damned blueprint. I can’t do any more. I think I told you too much – something isn’t as it should be.’

I grimaced; that wasn’t good. ‘We’ll carve our own way.’ I tried to sound upbeat but Ben looked unconvinced. ‘Cheer up,’ I said. ‘The worst that can happen is that we all die in a fiery inferno.’

He glared at me. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re shit at cheering people up?’

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