Page 70 of Cruel Daddy Dragon

“Should do,” Lena says, “I think this is Gram’s drawing, but even if it’s not, I think she’ll have noted down the sigils anyway. She was very thorough—it’s because of her that I know there was more than one witch here anyway.”

Suddenly, Kaius calls out:

“Milo! It’s Julie!”

Milo whips around, and I look around at Kaius. He’s got his hand on Julie. Julie’s staring at nothing, her hand on the engravings.

Milo jogs over to the pair of them, but he only gives Julie a cursory observation before he smiles at Kaius.

“She’s just having another vision—don’t worry so much.”

“Yeah, okay,” Kaius replies, “It just freaks me out sometimes. She looks so scared…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Milo says again.

Julie blinks and comes back. She looks around herself, and both Milo and Kaius smile at her.

“Hey,” Kaius breathes gently.

“Welcome back,” Milo says, “What did you see?”

Julie grins widely, her cheeks flushing a soft pink. She looks back to the engravings.

“This cave used to be part of a meeting place that the Greyson Ridge witches and the dragons used to use,” Julie says, “Our ancestors used to meet here a lot. I’m starting to think that this was after the dragons left Greyson Ridge—they used to meet secretly down here.”

“I wonder why the dragons left to begin with,” Kaius says.

“Yeah… do the engravings have a clue about that?” Milo asks.

“Um, I’m not sure,” Julie answers, “I’ll need to keep looking at it for that.”

“I might have an idea,” Orion calls out.

I look over to him, and so does everyone else. I don’t know exactly what Orion’s been doing while we’ve been looking around, but he’s on his knees by the far wall, his fox-like face close to the wall.

“I can smell something odd here,” he declares, “It might be Naga.”

“What?!” We all seem to gasp at once.

“It’s very faint,” Orion says quickly, “To be honest, I’m sure I can only smell it because this cave has been sealed off for so long. The scent might be as old as the cave is.”

“So, Doctor Tom wasn’t the only Naga who found his way here…” Milo murmurs.

“CreepyTom, you mean!” Lena snaps.

There’s a rumble of uneasy laughter from everyone. Everyone except Sarah, who is standing right next to me.

I glance at her to see her smile—but she’s not smiling.

She’s got this light frown on her face, watching something. Except when I follow her gaze, I just see the wall opposite her. I walk in front of her.

“Sarah?”

She doesn’t answer. She just keeps staring intensely at the wall.

“Sarah? Hey! Can you hear me?”

Again, no answer. She just keeps staring intensely at the wall.

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