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My gaze drifted to the distant trees and the hill on which we’d stood. There was nothing to see and yet… something was definitely coming.
And I had no idea if it was magic or something else.
Something like the basilisk, perhaps?
I licked my lips and glanced over to the trapdoor. “How far away are they? Because we really need to get out of here. I think we’re about to be attacked.”
“Jaqueline?” Ashworth asked sharply. “Or the snake beastie they conjured?”
“I don’t know. It just feels… wrong.”
Ashworth scanned the area, but if he sensed anything more than me, then it wasn’t obvious.
“I can hear them talking,” Aiden said. “They must be close.”
He walked over to the trapdoor, Ashworth and me two steps behind him. By the time we got there, the rope was jumping about lightly as someone grabbed it and climbed. I peered past Aiden’s shoulder and saw the top of Monty’s sweaty head.
He climbed over the shaft’s edge, stepped away, then undid the rope from his harness. “Well, that was a wasted effort. Did you have any more luck up here?”
“You could say that,” I said. “But in the process, I might just have endangered us all.”
“Well, we are dealing with dark mages, so that’s not surprising.” He bent and offered a hand to Eli, helping him over the edge. “I take it we need to hightail it out of here in order to escape said danger?”
“’Fraid so.” I glanced over my shoulder again.
Whatever it was, it was closer.
Tension rolled through me, and I flexed my fingers, sending sparks spiraling through the air.
Monty raised his eyebrows but otherwise didn’t comment.
Once Joel was out of the shaft, he wasted precious time undoing the ropes and closing the trapdoor. It was a good few minutes later before we headed off across the paddock, and I couldn’t help but think the delay would be costly.
But maybe that was pessimism speaking again, even if instinct said otherwise.
I hated instinct sometimes. I really did.
We quickly made our way past the broken stockyards and silent bunkhouse, hurrying toward the trees I feared would offer as little protection from what was coming as they did the sun.
Movement to our left caught my eye. My heart leapt and I stopped abruptly, but it was threads of wild magic twisting toward us, not a spell.
Not the basilisk.
Aiden stopped beside me, his gaze scanning the area. He couldn’t see the wild magic, but his expression was nevertheless concerned. “Something comes.”
“Yes, but the question is, what?” I raised a hand, and the threads curled around my wrist, briefly filling my mind with a chaotic mix of images.
“I don’t know,” Aiden was saying. “The earth trembles underfoot, but I’m not scenting anything.”
As the images slowed, Katie’s voice rose,You need to get out of there, now!
Why?I asked, even as my gaze moved back to the hill ahead of us.
That was the moment the basilisk erupted from the trees.
ChapterFourteen
It washuge.
