Page 88 of Enchanted Shadows
“Mud is nothing but watered dirt, is it not?” Fern answered just as sharply.
She dried the mud, sending the water shooting toward a Team One member who got a face full of water, and was now looking quite pissed. The key sticking into the ground was easily found after that.
Fern walked over to it, picked it up and said, “Shall we finish this thing, then?”
“Damn,” Pippa laughed, finding joy in the team member who looked like he wanted to shake them.
Grinning, I turned back to Kessara’s team. I was supposed to bewatching all of them, but dammit if I didn’t want her to do well after forcing them to go last.
Kessara’s shadows ended up being such an advantage that they made it to the exit door without any major wrong turns. Only to find out they needed a key.
“I saw one,” Sam admitted. “When the three creeps chased us. Just before that, I turned a corner and saw something shiny, but I didn’t have time to figure out what.”
“But what are the odds it’s still there?” Molly asked.
“We have to try,” Kessara said as she led them back that direction.
I looked to the area they were talking about to find that Magnolia’s group had just found the key Sam had seen. For a fleeting moment, I felt worry in the pit of my stomach. Kessara needed this. She could lead this team, have an excuse to stay in Wylan. I wanted that for her. She couldn’t be out at the very end like this.
If she didn’t pass this trial, I couldn’t save her. Not from this.
And not only that, but I had paired her with Molly and Sam. Two huge pieces of this team. I wasn’t sure there was a team without the three of them in it. Had it been a mistake making her go last? What if in an effort to not play favorites, I had given this group too much of a disadvantage?
When they made it back to the men waiting to chase them, Kessara hid them in shadows. They walked right on past without them even knowing.
“It’s gone,” Sam cursed. “I’m sorry, guys.”
“That only lost us a minute,” Kessara told her. “Think. Where else would there be a key.”
“Where the two tall balance beams were,” Molly offered. “We took the one without a dead end. But Kessara said there was another. The dead ends aren’t really dead ends. Not all of them. They’re the keys.”
Internally I was clapping. They could still do this. They were only nine minutes in, so they still had plenty of time. Pippa’s team had just made it out. Two groups passed, two to go.
Without delay, they sped around corners; Kessara’s shadows seemed to understand what they were looking for and were leading the way, reaching out and guiding them.
They had to go back across the tall balance beams, to get to the fork in the maze where they had seen the dead end with the other balance beams. But at that one, after a step up to an even higher balance beam, there was a key suspended in the air in an orb.
Molly tried to use her Enchantment to move the orb holding the key, but it didn’t budge. Kessara tried with her shadows, but no luck. Little did they know, there were three members of Team One assigned to make sure that key and orb held.
Kessara stalled for only a moment, looking to the Team One guys as if wondering if she could just knock them off the wall. “Screw it,” she said as she headed for the beams. Though I wouldn’t have faulted her for messing with Team One, she had decided to do this fairly.
“You’ve got this,” Molly told her.
She gracefully ran across one beam, hopped up on the other, and that was when Allen from Team One moved the orb holding the key slightly higher. Kessara was going to have to jump.
I wasn’t annoyed with the move, but for Kessara’s sake, a muddy landing below her, I hoped she got it on the first try. Having to remove the mud before trying again only wasted precious time.
With a deep breath, she launched herself into the air, snagging the key from all the magic, and dropping the orb.
Molly realized she would fall and put out her power to catch Kessara.
“Thanks.” Kessara landed in a net of turquoise, somewhat surprised, and mud free.
“Good work,” Sam stated.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Kessara said. “And hope this is the right key.”
“It is,” Sam responded confidently as they broke into a run. “If it hadn’t been, they wouldn’t have made you work for it.”
