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Paige winced, trying to determine the direction from which the noise came. “How big is a dwarf?”
“Mmm, about four times my size.”
“So, like big dog-sized?”
Dewey stared over at Paige. “Yeah, probably.”
“Great,” Paige growled. “That’s perfect. Creepy little pixies and now a dwarf dragon that’s the size of a big dog.”
“I’ll take on the pixies. You take on the dragon.”
“Are you crazy? I can’t take on a dragon.”
“You should have kept that sword from the fairy tale.”
Paige pressed her lips together, shooting Dewey an unimpressed stare.
“Anyway, I think we should go this way,” Dewey said, jabbing a finger at the fork on the left.
“Why?”
‘Two reasons. There is heat wafting from this tunnel, which means it’s likely leading farther into the heart of the cave.”
Paige bobbed her head up and down, taking a step toward the fork.
“And second, this is the direction the screech came from.”
She stopped mid-stride. “What? Then we should not go this way.”
“We should definitely go this way. The dwarf is probably down there stealing the wand right now.”
“Oh, wonderful. Maybe the wand is that way, and the dwarf is down there screaming because he went the wrong way.”
“Doubt it,” Dewey said, “but if you want to make it harder, we can go that way.”
Paige held up her hands in defeat. “No, fine. We’ll go this way. We really need to start bringing weapons with us on these trips.”
“Next time, we’ll bring Excalibur,” Dewey said as he flew down the tunnel next to Paige.
“We have Excalibur in the archives?”
“No, the Grand Archive does. But after we pull this off, we’ll have access to anything we want!”
“If we pull this off,” Paige murmured.
Dewey patted her shoulder. “Think positive, Paige.”
Paige refrained from answering as they wound deeper into the cave. The heat continued to rise. Paige tugged off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist. Sweat rolled down her back, pooling at the small of it. Her tank top stuck to her skin, soaked through.
“How much farther?” she said, beginning to feel weak from the heat.
The passage they traversed widened, spilling into a larger chamber. Intense red light glowed from within.
They stepped inside, scanning the chamber. Thick red lava flowed through the center, splitting the cavern in half. It bubbled up into the air, and flames shot to the ceiling from each burst.
“Wow, no wonder they call it the Mouth of Hell,” Paige murmured.
Stalactites and stalagmites poked from the ceiling and floor. A large teal tail with a purple leaf-life structure wrapped around one. A teal dragon, purple stripes painting his back, slinked around the large stone structure on all fours, his almond-shaped eyes narrowed at them. His purple horns wiggled in the air as his ears pressed back against his angular head.
