It was hungry.
Rexi shrieked from behind me. I blindly threw a flame in her direction. The resulting explosion took out the door and crumbled most of the wall. I staggered and caught myself with one hand on the ground. The flames were dancing in front of my eyes, turning the world to bright green.
Behind the barrier of rubble, Rexi was throwing a temper tantrum. From the crashing sounds, she would be out here soon. The dogs on the ground weren’t stirring yet, but I heard more claws scratching their way up the staircase. Those puppies would be normal again and fully lethal in a matter of minutes, and if my dimming vision was any indication, I didn’t have enough juice to take them all on.
There was no time to track down Verte or my parents, and I suspected they weren’t here anyway. I had to get out, and there was only one exit point and I only had a slim chance of surviving. I climbed through the hole and called for the one who had made it. “Kato!”
A blast from behind forced me off my ledge and into free fall.
Seconds went by, and I wondered if I would have been better off fighting my way through the puppies.
A streak of brown shot from around the side of the tower, and Kato snatched me out of my descent.
For a moment, all I could do was memorize his features, from his whiskery chin to the ice water in his eyes. “That is the right color blue.”
I laughed when his face crinkled up in confusion.
We were gaining altitude when the top of the tower seemed to explode outward.
“Dorthea!” Verte stood in the center of the blast. “Hurry!”
Kato angled to make the turn back and swoop her up, but I stopped him.
“It’s not her.” My heart shattered all over again.
“How do you know?” Kato flapped his wings just enough to keep us in place, like treading water.
“She called me Dorthea,” I whispered sadly.
“Pum’kin, I’ve missed you.” Now my father stood in the center of the room.
Oh Grimm, this hurt. This treachery was worse than being drugged, betrayed, and burned—it was the loss of hope. I nudged Kato. “Let’s go, please.”
As he turned, I saw my mother blink into place where my father had been. “You come back here right this instant, young lady!”
I buried my tear-stained face in Kato’s fur. I couldn’t bear to see any more. He put his back to them and started to fly away.
“No!” Rexi screamed from the tower, and I looked up just in time to see the explosion of feathers as Kato’s wing was obliterated in a flash of lightning. His face screwed up in anguish. The remaining wing flapped furiously to make up for the loss of its pair, but it was no use.
Once again we were falling. We had flown far enough away from the island that we were over the water. Usually crash-landing in water is better than solid ground. Except my life depended on my hair not getting wet.
“Get ready!” Kato called and banked left.
“For what?” I flipped over and saw what he was aiming for. There was something floating in the water that looked like alphabet letters. But we were diving too fast. We were going to miss them.
“You can’t mean to…”
“Yep,” he said and dropped me as we passed over.
I landed with a squish and my hair sizzled against the slimy letter C. Seconds later, Kato hit the water with a giant splash. The drops rained down on me, making my hair crackle more, taking my breath away.
With effort, I pushed up from the C and looked forward. The letter B blinked while the A was sideways, like a snout. I must have been riding BeC, the mythical ABCserpent. Though I was pretty sure it was imaginary and shouldn’t really exist.
Wonder gave way to panic when Kato didn’t resurfaced.
No, no, no, no. He couldn’t die now. I’d finally figured out that I liked him—the “more than my shoes” kind. “Excuse me.” I patted the C insistently to get the serpent’s attention. “Helllooo?” I knocked harder.
What were my options? I couldn’t just jump in the water. According to Crow, if the flames went out, I’d die. I considered a swim anyway.
“What?” The voice gurgled and sounded like it came from underwater.
My voice was breathy, and I was practically jumping out of my skin. “My friend. Please use your snout and pull him out of the water.”
The serpent turned away from the spot where I had seen Kato land. “No. Why?”
“Because he’ll drown.” I panicked. It had to turn back—I had to make it turn back. I let the flames return to my hands. “If you don’t pull him up I’ll…”
Kato flew up from out of the water and landed with a wet squish on letters D through L.
The voice spoke from under the water again. “No. Y.” It shook the Y at the end of its tail. “No need for threats.”