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“Tell me about your friends who could help me.”
“You promise to keep an open mind?”
“No?” An incredulous laugh burst from Peri. “I’m not promising anything, until I have all the information.” A long uncomfortable silence followed, until she finally scoffed. “Oh, alright.”
“It’s the gorgons.”
“Why is everyone so obsessed with the gorgons?” She was feeling much less inclined to keep her promise about being openminded. “Is there really no one else in Hell that can help me? Nobody? Nobody at all?”
Bonegrundle shrugged. “None that I know of.”
These infernal gorgons would be the death of her yet. She knew of only a handful of tales concerning them, and none of them were pleasant.
The story she knew best, was the one her cousin Cylas had sobbed to their family one evening, when he’d returned empty-handed while out on an errand for Moloch.
He’d been walking through the forest of the Fauna Circle, when he’d come across one of them—her hair a terrifying nest of vipers, her eyes so callous he felt sure she could kill him with just one look. According to Cylas, he had turned to run the other way when she’d snatched him back to her, wrenching the small satchel of toadstool sprites from his trembling hands.
She’d opened the bag and released the sprites; which was already distressing enough, since they were something Moloch had specifically asked him to retrieve. But then the gorgon had turned the satchel to stone in her hand, whacked him sharply across the face with it, before striding confidently away.
Well, now that she reexamined the story, it seemed more like the gorgon just didn’t want anyone hurting toadstool sprites. And anyway, Cylas had always been a wet rag of a demon. Perhaps, she’d find they weren’t all that bad.
“How do I know they won’t turn me into one of their creepy art projects?”
“You could bring them a present?” Bonegrundle suggested. “Honestly, they’re easily won over as long as you’re not an ass.”
But what sort of present would gorgons want? Maybe it’d be better to focus on their snakes. Do the snakes on their heads even eat? Furthermore, what would snake-hairs eat? Likely some kind of insect… but what kind? She hardly had time to research the diets of small snakes that were technically hair and—
“Oh, right!” Peri ran to her desk. “I have their dice!”
“Their…” Bonegrundle made a coughing sort of laugh. “Dice?”
“I believe they’re dice the gorgons lost somehow. Somebody told me they’d come in handy, anyway.” She pulled open drawer after drawer, searching through them. Where had she put them? “I don’t remember exactly, but they’re weird snakeskin dice with twelve sides.”
Finally, she found them buried under her chaotic pile of notes on her desk and held them out to Bonegrundle. “They were in the Arcane Vaults, so I grabbed them in case I’d ever need them.”
Bonegrundle took them gently, holding them up to the light before handing them back to her. “These will do nicely.”
“Wait! I—are you certain this is enough? I’ve heard the gorgons are not… not exactly safe.” She was more than a little terrified of them, regardless of wanting to appear fearless and ready to do whatever it takes. Being alive was a rather good feeling and Peri preferred to remain that way.
Bonegrundle grinned, her pointed teeth glinting mischievously. “Safe? I don’t remember calling them safe.” She raised an eyebrow, as if daring Peri to say she was too scared to go.
Reason told her that if she was with Bonegrundle, nothing bad would likely happen to her.
“Shall we get going then? Your family’s out for the day so nobody would notice your absence.”
And so, drawing on whatever scraps of courage she had left, Peri gave a shaky nod, desperately willing herself to believe that everything would be all right.
The goblin’s moss-green lips curled in a smirk. “Now, let’s go. I am very much in the mood for some waffles.”
“Waffles?”
“Gorgons only eat sweet foods, and every eve of the new moon, they have big, fat, fluffy waffles.”
“Alright...” she said, trying to fit this new, bizarre fact in with everything else she knew of the gorgons. “Then lead the way to those waffles.”
Calling the gorgons’ home a ‘lair’ was an insult to the word itself. A lair conjured images of a damp, dark cave, filled with dripping stalactites and a cold, unforgiving floor.
Instead, their home was a cosy cabin awash in soft shades of pink. Rose-coloured handmade quilts hung over blush sofas; and the walls, painted white with just the faintest touch of pink, were adorned with abstract floral paintings framed in bright white. The floors were mostly covered with plush, ornate rugs, upon them were soft white-outlined magical creatures prancing.
