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We’d gonethree miles and were almost halfway around the lake when Mom walked off the path to head inland. We’d passed several groups of hikers along the way, but I doubted we would see any more. There wasn’t any hint of a trail now, and if anyone else had been leading, I would have asked if she knew where she was going. But Rocket bounded ahead of us, apparently knowing where we were going. And Mom had warned me we were taking adetour.
My fingers strayed to my necklace and the cat figurine again. I could still sense the dragon. Now that we’d turned, he was dead ahead of us. He seemed to be staying in one position. Maybe he’d caught a raccoon and was enjoying a nice appetizer before the main course arrived. Did dragons eat humans? Ordogs?
“You might want to have Rocket stay close,” I warned. “The dragon who wrecked my Jeep is a couple of miles ahead ofus.”
Mom frowned over her shoulder. “What’s he doinghere?”
“He neglected to file his itinerary withme.”
“Is hehuntingyou?”
“I hope not.” I wasn’t cocky enough to believe I could have bested him if he’d truly wanted to kill me. My charm might keep me safe from fire, but he had all kinds of alternative magic he could hurl my way. Not to mention those fangs and talons. “Honestly, I don’t know why he would be. I’m not here to ki— deal with anyone. Just ask some questions of your mysterious acquaintance. How far away are wenow?”
I tried to make that question casual and not let on that I was nervous about going deeper into the woods with the dragon out here. Not that we’d be safe if we made it back to the parking lot and the car. As I wellknew.
“Not far. There’s a tunnel upahead.”
“A tunnel? Like a lavatube?”
“Originally, I’m sure it was. Now it’s being used as apassageway.”
“By youracquaintance?”
“Amongothers.”
Before I could comment on Mom’s deliberate vagueness, Rocket zipped past us, planted his paws on a tree, and barked at a squirrel. The squirrel chittered back at him from the safety of a branch thirty feet up. Rocket waved his tail vigorously, barked again, and looked over atus.
“I think he wants you to do your part and get that squirrel for him,” Isaid.
“Squirrels are a lot of work to skin and debone for not muchmeat.”
“Gross. I wasjoking.”
“You’ve eaten squirrel before. Remember that stew we used to have when you were akid?”
“The one you used to make on a campfire made in a sawn-off oil drum? Yes, and now I wish Ididn’t.”
“Those were tight times. Sometimes, squirrels and asparagus scrounged along the roadside were all we had.” Mom kept talking, wandering off into some weird nostalgia territory, which had to be for her lost youth because she couldn’t possibly miss being broke and living in a bus, but something twanged my senses, distractingme.
Thedragon?
No, I sensed more than one magical aura this time, spread out across the woods ahead of us. None of them were as significant as the dragon’s, but the number of them was disturbing. Ten?Twelve?
“Hold up, Mom.” As I stopped, Rocket caught up withus.
He bounded past, but then halted, nose in the air. His hackles went up, and he ran back to Mom’s side, growling at the routeahead.
And itwasa route, I realized, noticing that we’d gone from tramping along unbroken ground to a trail again. Not one as substantial as the hiking path around the lake, but there were prints in the dusty earth, showing recent use. Some of those prints had been made by boots, but others had been made by large canines and still others by what at first I thought belonged to bears. But they were more similar to human prints,largehuman prints. Nobody on Earth had a foot that big. Were there trolls or orcs outhere?
“What is it, boy?” Mom rested a hand on the dog’sback.
Rocket whined and growled at the sametime.
“What species is your acquaintance, Mom? And is there a whole pack ofthem?”
“She’s a golem, and no. Thereisa village up here with a lot of the magical livingtogether.”
“Such as werewolves?” The large humanoid prints could have been made by a golem, but not the canine prints. Those were too large to belong to the coyotes that roamed these forests. Even wolves wouldn’t have left prints that big. Notnormalwolves.
