Page 5 of Leda's Log

“I need you to lure all the sparkle beasts over there.” I pointed to the other side of the throne room—far, far away from the door. “Meanwhile, I’ll make a run for the lab. Ok?”

And for once, my cat actually cooperated instead of doing whatever the hell she felt like doing.

“Hey, what about us?” one of the soldiers asked me as Angel trotted over to the sparkling tangerine dragon.

“You guys back up Angel,” I told them.

“She wants us to play backup to acat.”

“This is a new low.”

“I’m never going to get promoted at this rate.”

“Stop your bellyaching and get to work,” I snapped in my best Nero imitation. “Distract those sparkling things by whatever means necessary. The fate of this world may very well depend on it.”

My Nero voice must have worked because the soldiers all hurried off after Angel.

“Here, ducky, ducky!”

“Get over here, you squirrelly squirrel!”

“You call yourself a dragon? I’ve seen more intimidating puppies!”

The soldiers’ childish taunts did the trick. The sparkling creatures immediately rushed over to them, leaving me with a sliver of an opening in the fog.

I’d take what I could get.

I sprinted toward the door, dashing and ducking, slipping and sliding. I made my way between belching frogs and snapping dragonflies, sliding under buzzing bees, leaping over growling wolves. And, finally, I reached the lab at the end of the hallway.

I spotted the source of the chaos immediately: a machine about the size of a refrigerator. The machine had no doors or latches or levers that I could see, but there was a pretty sizable hole punched into the side of it. Thick mist oozed out of that hole, pouring to the ground in an odious, pulsing stream.

“Well, there’s our problem,” I commented, moving toward the machine.

I had to jump back when the mist solidified into an army of bright red rats. They scurried past me, drawn toward all the banging and booming coming from the throne room down the hall.

I turned my attention back to the machine—and that big hole. There had to be some way to seal it.

“How about a little shifting magic?” I waved my hands in front of the hole, trying to coax the raggedy metal edges together.

The machine rewarded my efforts by pumping out fog even faster and thicker than before.

“Ok, so no magic.”

Magic must be what had caused this problem in the first place. I searched the room for some other way to plug the hole.

“I wonder,” I said, eyeing a roll of duct tape that lay on the counter.

The machine let out a sound that sounded suspiciously like a belch. It was never good news when creepy machines started burping. More sparkle-smoke monsters were sure to follow.

“Enough wondering, Leda. More doing,” I chided myself, snatching the roll of duct tape off the counter.

I wrapped it round and round the machine until the tape roll was empty, the hole was sealed, and my fingers were numb and sticky. The machine let off one final, pitiful whimper, then shut off.

“Ha! Got you! Leda: 1, Creepy Machine: 0!” I gave it a smug smile.

“Pandora.”

The sound of Nero’s voice stirred up a few happy, loopy butterflies in my stomach. I turned around. And there he stood, looking so perfect, his gaze sharp, attentive—and one-hundred percent on me.

---