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The wind picked up as Mal kept moving forward, but she didn’t stop.
Mal pulled her jacket tightly around her and shouted up at the gargoyles. “You don’t scare me! I’ve seen worse. Where do you think I grew up, Auradon?”
The wind howled around her now. She took another step, motioning for the other three to move behind her.
“Are you crazy?” Jay shook his head, sliding behind her.
“Mal, seriously. You don’t have to do this,” Carlos whispered, ducking behind Jay.
“Definitely crazy,” Evie said, from behind Carlos.
“Me, crazy?” Mal raised her voice even higher. “How could I not be? I go to school in a graveyard and eat expired scones for breakfast. My own mother sends me to forbidden places like this, because of some old bird and a lost stick,” she scoffed. “There’s nothing you can throw at me that’s worse than what I’ve already got going.”
As she spoke, Mal kept pressing forward. She had crossed the halfway point of the bridge now, dragging the others right behind her.
The wind roared and whipped against them, as if it would pick them up and toss them off the bridge itself, if she let it. But Mal wouldn’t.
“Is that all you’ve got?” She stuck out her chin, that much more stubborn. “You think a little breeze like that can get to someone like me?”
Lightning cracked overhead, and she started to run—her friends right behind her. By the time they reached the other side, the bridge had begun to rock so hard, it seemed like it would crumble again.
Only, this time it wouldn’t be an illusion.
The moment Mal felt the dirt of the far cliff safely beneath her feet, she stumbled over a tree root and collapsed, bringing Carlos and Evie down with her. Jay stood there laughing.
Until he realized that he wasn’t the only one laughing.
“Uh, guys?”
Mal looked up. They were surrounded by a crowd of goblins—not unlike the ones who had chased them through the goblin passages of the Forbidden Fortress. Except these particular goblins seemed to be of a friendlier variety.
“Girl,” one said.
“Brave,” said another.
“Help,” said a third.
“I don’t get it,” Evie said, sitting up. Mal and Carlos scrambled to their feet. Jay took a step back.
Finally, a fourth goblin sighed. “I think what my companions are trying to articulate is that we’re incredibly impressed by that show of fortitude. The bravery. The perseverance. It’s a bit unusual, in these parts.”
“Parts,” repeated the goblins.
“It talks,” Evie said.
Mal looked from one goblin to another. “Uh, thanks?”
“Not at all,” said the goblin. The goblins around him began to grunt animatedly—although Mal thought it might be laughter, too. Carlos looked nervous. Jay just grunted back.
The fourth goblin sighed again, looking back at Mal. “And if you’d like our assistance in any way, we’d be more than happy to help convey you to your destination.”
He looked Mal over.
She looked him over, in return. “Our destination?”
He suddenly became flustered. “You do seem far away from home,” he said, adding hastily: “Not to presume. It’s a conclusion I draw only from the irrefutable fact that neither you or your friends seem, well, remotely goblin-esque.”
The goblins grunt-laughed again.
