With the last of my strength, I turned my head to see if I’d gotten the damned monster. It was floating in the water, the ice spear through its middle. Not dead yet, but eventually.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the flat wooden deck of the boat. Hope flared.

I wasn’t on the bottom of the lake! The hard surface beneath me was the boat.

Though I had no physical strength left, I had my magic. I called upon it, more desperate than I’d ever been in my entire life. If I couldn’t make it work, I was dead.

Or something.

How many lives could I have? I’d probably go back to the Underworld, and I didn’t want to do that.

My magic sparked within me as I attempted to bring the boat back to life, allowing it to float again.

My magic resisted, too weak. Or I was too weak, unable to control it. I envisioned Draka, her comforting hand on my shoulder as she told me to believe in myself.

I didn’t realize it was working until the water began to flow by my face and a brighter glow appeared above me. We were rising! The boat was heading toward the surface with me aboard.

By the time the boat broke through, I was so desperate for air that I sucked it in too early, taking a mouthful of lake water. I coughed, rolling over and retching, until I could gasp the cold, clear air into my lungs. My vision cleared and strength returned to my muscles, though I shivered with such ferocity that it felt like my bones might snap. Snow still fluttered down, sticking to my wet clothes and hair.

As soon as I could move, I scrambled to my feet and shoved my blade back into the holster that was still clinging to my back. I spun in a circle, searching for Roarke.

“Roarke!” I choked out, my throat still raw from retching.

About ten yards away, the water splashed as two figures thrashed. I could just make out Roarke’s dark head and the slimy green figure of another lake monster. Roarke broke the thing’s neck, then flung it away from him. Another water monster’s body floated nearby. He’d killed two, so that made at least three. I hoped there were no more.

“Over here!” I waved my arms.

He spun to face me, his head bobbing above the black surface, then kicked his way toward me, swimming with powerful strokes. He climbed aboard, shivering as hard as I was. His dark hair was plastered to his scalp, and his skin was the color of flour. The black of his eyes stood out starkly.

“This is a problem.” He shuddered hard.

I sat hard on the deck, so cold that my muscles were unable to hold me.

“Yeah,” I said. We could freeze to death out here. Why hadn’t I stolen a fire demon’s power?

Roarke sat next to me, wrapping a long arm around my shoulders. The faintest bit of warmth flowed from him to me, but he was just as much of an ice block as I was.

“I really don’t want to have to go back and get warm clothes,” I said, unsure of whether or not we’d even make it back.

I looked around the boat, searching for the paddles. We had to get a move on, either way.

My heart dropped. “The paddles are gone. They must have fallen off when the boat capsized.”

“Shit.” Roarke rubbed his forehead.

We were stuck in the middle of the lake, two hundred meters from shore in either direction, and Roarke couldn’t even fly us out of here.

The water splashed off the bow and I stiffened.

“Another monster?” Roarke stood.

“I’ll beg your pardon!” An offended feminine voice sounded from the water.

I glanced toward it just as a beautiful woman climbed aboard. She wore a sparkling white dress and pearls in her long, dark hair. Without a doubt, she was the most gorgeous person I’d ever seen in my life.

And she was out for a swim?

I stood. “Who are you?”

“Morwena. I am a Morgen.” She roamed the boat, inspecting it.

I searched my mind for any memory of a Morgen. Were they some kind of water sprite?

“Normally I would kill you for daring to trespass on my lake,” she said. “But you’ve assisted me greatly by killing the Afanc.”

“Is that what those sea monsters were?”

“Yes.” She turned to face us, her green eyes blazing. “They’ve been a nuisance for fifty years. The lake is well rid of them.”

I shivered hard, hoping she would get to the point. We needed to get out of here. Somehow.

She stepped forward, holding out a hand. Her magic surged on the air, smelling like a rainstorm. Warmth radiated from her palm, drying my clothes immediately and sinking into my muscles and bones. They turned to jelly right away, the most amazing feeling in the world. I almost plopped down on my butt. It took all my strength to keep standing. One glance at Roarke showed that he was dry, too, his color no longer deadly pale.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You humans are so fragile about the cold,” she said. “Why are you upon my lake? No one has ventured here in decades.”

I pointed to the other side. “We need to go there.”

“Whatever for? There is nothing there anymore.”

“We need to get to the top.”

Her brows rose. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

Her tone made me nervous. “Why? What’s up there?”

She shrugged. “Nothing…lately.”

I waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. “Can you tell us more about what was up there?”

“No. But I can give you advice.”

“We’ll take it.” I nodded encouragingly.

She pointed to the strip of land that we wanted to reach. The mountain rose up steeply behind it. There were at least ten massive land steps where the mountain rose up, then leveled off. Then rose and leveled, rose and leveled.

“Do you see the stone ramps between each flat level?” she asked.

I squinted, finally able to make out the huge ramps made of slate. They were black, like the rest of the mountain, and hard to distinguish, but they were there. One ramp connected each of the flat areas of land, upon which sat old buildings. It looked like you could climb up the mountain by sticking to the ramps, getting higher with every level.

“I see them,” I said.

“Those ramps were built for the tram system that transported the slate and the workers. There are railroad tracks built onto them that would carry the mining carts. They lead all the way up the mountain. Follow the tracks. Do not deviate, or you will anger the Coblynau.”

“Coblynau?”

“Mining goblins. They used to assist the miners. Since operations have been shut down, they have been…bored. You do not want to provide them with a diversion, because I promise you will not like it. They can kill you with a touch, if they so choose.”

“With a touch?” I asked.

“Yes. Even you.” Her gaze was knowing. “Phantom.”

She must’ve seen me shift in the water.

“But nothing can kill me in Phantom form.”

“There, you are wrong,” she said. “The Coblynau’s touch is deadly to all. And you must not kill them. They will only multiply and become enraged.”

Kill me with a touch? Multiply? Yikes.

“Thank you,” Roarke said.

“Thank you for killing the Afanc.” She turned to the stern of the boat and waved her hand at the water. It surged, pushing the boat forward.

“That’s awesome,” I said.

She smiled as she directed us closer to our destination. “It is, rather.”

As the mountain loomed ever closer, the sheer size of the place became more apparent. The ramps were longer than football fields and at least twenty meters wide. The buildings on each of the flat portions of land looked long abandoned.

“All this for slate?” I asked. “It has to be the biggest mine in the world.”

“Not just for slate,” Morwena said.

“What else?”

She shrugged. “Other things.”

The boat beached, the bow shoving up onto the shore. I jumped down, grateful to be off the water, and turned back. “Thank you.”

She nodded. “Remember. Stick to the tracks.”

“We will.” Roarke jumped down beside me.

Morwena waved, then leapt off the boat into the water. She disappeared beneath the black surface without a splash.

“That was good luck.” I pulled the map from my pocket, unfolded it, and scanned the contents. “It mentions a Path Red as Rust. That must be the railroad tracks that Morwena mentioned. We’re supposed to follow it to the Great Black Mouth.”

“Great Black Mouth?” Roarke frowned. “A cave?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I turned to search for the tracks, finding them quickly on the bare beach. They were the rusty iron red of the ones in the woods on the other side of the lake, but there was nothing to obscure them here on the beach.

I set off toward them, Roarke at my side.

He looked up at the first ramp. “That thing is enormous.”

I nodded, climbing up onto it. The angle was steep—at least forty degrees—but the slate that had been used to build it was still well stacked. It was an incredible piece of architecture.

We began to climb. I leaned my weight forward so as not to fall backward, and kept behind Roarke who was faster than me. Soon, I was huffing and puffing, my lungs burning. Beneath my hat, my hair began to sweat. I pulled the hat off and shoved it in my pocket, grateful for the cool air on my head.

We made it to the first flat level, which was carpeted with yellowed grass. A building sat at the top of the ramp, housing a large piece of rusty machinery with broken metal cables hanging out of a massive wheel thing.

“That must be the pulley system that raised and lowered the mining carts,” I said.

Roarke nodded, then pointed to the rusty railroad track that turned left, heading toward another huge ramp that sat fifty yards away. “That way.”

I followed him, sticking to the track, which occasionally disappeared beneath the grass. We passed a couple more roofless and doorless buildings built of slate. I craned my neck to see inside, spotting rusty table saws that looked like they could cut through my motorcycle. Scooter wouldn’t like that. But they must have been for cutting the slate before sending it down the mountain.

We began the hike up the second ramp, then the third and fourth. Despite the light snowfall, I was sweating like an old guy in a sauna, my jacket unzipped and my scarf shoved in my pocket.

“Think we’re almost there?” I wheezed.

Mist shrouded the mountain above, lending it a threatening air.

“Not even close,” Roarke said.

An eerie laugh sounded from a building to our left. I spun just in time to see a sheep run out of the building, hurtling toward us on spindly black legs. I dodged, barely missing its fluffy body, and stumbled in the grass.

“Del!” Roarke grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the tracks, but it was too late.

The laughing sound increased, followed by the scuttling of footsteps on the slate around us.

“The Coblynau,” I said, just as twelve gobliny-looking creatures jumped out from behind piles of slate.

They were about four feet tall and horribly ugly, wearing old-time miners’ clothing. Their eyes and fingertips glowed green. Was that their power to kill with a touch? And Morwena said they would multiply if we killed them. Crap.

“We can’t hurt them.”

“Run,” Roarke said.

We set off down the tracks. I sprinted behind Roarke, my muscles burning. The climb up nearly killed me, but the Coblynau were slower than us because of their short legs. Just barely.

When I turned back, we were nearly at the top. I leapt onto flat ground just in time to see another group of Coblynau pop up on the hill above. They stood on a massive pile of discarded slate right overhead.

Their laughter grew as they began to push and kick the slate. It slipped and slid.

My heart leapt into my throat. “They’re trying for a rockfall!”

“I’ll shift.”

But there was no time. Before Roarke could call upon his magic, the massive pile of slate began to slide down. There was a tiny round building right in front of us. It had massively thick walls and was the only building we’d seen with a roof still remaining. The roof itself was a domed shape, formed by slate that was several feet thick.

I shoved Roarke toward it, diving inside behind him just as thousands of pounds of slate crashed down around us, cutting out all light. Dust billowed in from the entrance to the little hut. I coughed, then sat up.

I called upon my Phantom magic, using my ghostly blue glow to illuminate the building. It was even smaller on the inside, a tiny round space that barely fit the two of us.

“Quick thinking.” Roarke stood. Mostly. He had to crouch because the ceiling was so low.

“Maybe,” I said, suddenly doubting my actions. What if I’d trapped us forever?

“What the hell is this place?” Roarke asked.

I inspected it, catching sight of something on the ground. I knelt to get a better look, discovering an old fuse for dynamite along with a wire that led out of the building.

“I think it was a blast house. I’ve read about these.” I pointed to the equipment. “They’d blow up parts of the mountain to get at the slate. But they’d hide in here while they did it, so they didn’t get crushed.”

Roarke reached up and touched the ceiling. “Glad this place held up, then.”

“Yeah.” I stood and went to the entrance. Jagged pieces of slate formed a wall of indeterminate thickness. Who knew how big this pile of rock was?

“I’m going to walk through it in my Phantom form,” I said. “Maybe I can move the rocks.”

“No.” Roarke’s voice was sharp. “Morwena said the Coblynau can kill you even in your Phantom form. You wouldn’t have time before they got to you.”

“Then what do we do? Do you think you can blast us out of here?”

Roarke shrugged. “I’m going to have to try.”

I flattened myself against the back wall, and Roarke went to the entrance. His magic filled the hut, the taste of wine and the smell of sandalwood growing strong, which just made me think—what I wouldn’t give for a mug of my boxed wine and a few hours on my couch right now…

The tornado of black mist formed around Roarke. A moment later, he stood transformed, his clothing gone and replaced with an expanse of dark gray muscle and massive wings. Though he folded them in toward himself and crouched down, there was still barely enough room for the two of us.

He spoke in his gravelly demon voice as he turned to me. “If we manage this, be ready to run. It’s not going to be quiet, and the Coblynau will notice.”

I nodded.

He turned back to the entrance. His magic surged again as he heaved his fist back and then punched the wall of slate. The stone exploded outward, and my heart leapt.

But no daylight flooded in.

Roarke walked into the hole he’d created, but it was barely anything at all.

“Too much slate to go that way,” he said.

Damn.

“Come here.” He gestured to me.

I stood and walked to him. He scooped me up in his arms, clutching me to his chest.

“What the heck?” I asked.

“We’re going through the roof. But you have to come with me, or you’ll be crushed by the falling rock once the roof is destroyed.”

“I can just go through as a Phantom,” I said.

“I know.” His brows drew together and he hesitated. “It’s just that…when I’m near you—touching you—my power is enhanced.”

“What?” That sounded crazy.

“I don’t know if it’s because of what you are and the fact that I’m the Warden of the Underworld, but contact with you increases my power.”

That was weird. I’d have to unpack and examine that later. “Um, okay, then. But do you think busting out through the roof will work?”

“I hope so.”

It was better than me trying to fight off the Coblynau while trying to dig him out, so I nodded and curled up against his chest, trying to make myself as small as possible.

Roarke crouched low to the ground, his wings wrapped around us so that we formed a bullet-like shape, then pushed off with a massive surge of force.

We hurtled upward, crashing through the roof and up into the sky. The blast of slate was enormous, scattering the stuff all over the mountain. When we began to fall, Roarke extended his wings, a groan of pain escaping him as he did so.

I looked up, catching sight of his wings, torn and tattered. Blood poured down his forehead and dripped from his wings.

Oh shit.

His wings slowed our descent to the ground, but there was no way he could fly. I just hoped he could walk. We landed with a thud, Roarke stumbling to his knees.

I leapt out of his arms and knelt in front of him, tilting his chin up. His face was covered in blood. His wings were a broken mess behind him.

“I thought magic protected you when you broke through things like this!” I cried. “You tore through Tintagel Castle with no problem!”

“It protects me…mostly.” He swayed on his feet. “That was a lot…of jagged slate.”

Laughter sounded around us, growing louder and closer. I glanced up. The Coblynau—a dozen of them, at least—leapt out from behind piles of slate and slid down the loose rocks toward us.

“We gotta go,” I said.

Roarke staggered to his feet, but was slow.

One of the miserable little goblins was nearly to us. My skin chilled. I couldn’t let him touch us!

I shot him with an icicle. It threw him back about twenty feet, but when he finally stood, another Coblynau appeared right next to him.

The doubling that Morwena had mentioned.

Damn it.

“Can you run?” I asked Roarke as I shot another Coblynau, willing to duplicate a few of them if it meant keeping them off us long enough for Roarke to recover.

He nodded, straightening and stretching. “Yeah, let’s go.”

We sprinted off, tumbling and sliding down the pile of slate until we found the metal tracks again. We raced along them and up another ramp, into the mist that shrouded the very top of the mountain.

The Coblynau followed, their eerie laughter attracting more of their kind. It was hard to see them through the mist. It was hard to see anything. Visibility had been cut to only twenty feet.

We gained speed as Roarke recovered, sprinting up the last bit of ramp and turning left, following the track.

For fate’s sake, I hoped we were near the top! I knocked on my head for good measure, nearly missing the fact that the track disappeared into thin air in front of us.

Roarke grabbed my arm, yanking me to a halt.

“Shit.” My eyes popped out as I took in the old iron track disappearing into empty space. The ground beneath the track had fallen away at some point, leaving nothing but air. The track had followed, and now hung eerily off into nothingness. Forty feet away, the ground started up again. I could even see a bit of track on that side.

But there was no way to get there. Just a massive pit in the middle from a rockfall.

I glanced at Roarke, whose wings hung limply behind him.

The Coblynau’s laughter grew louder.

Double shit.

“I can try to fly,” Roarke said.

“We’d fall out of the sky.”

It was one thing to bring a boat up out of the water. It was entirely another to bring back a mountain. That was too much. Far too difficult.

An idea sparked.

It was only forty feet across. I could do this. I had to do this.

Ice was just a Cat 2 power. Easier to manipulate. It would work.

I knocked on my head, then called upon my ice power, letting it fill me with its shivery cold. When I felt full to bursting, I pressed my hand to the track and sent a blast of ice outward, envisioning a bridge.

Let it goooooo! I sang in my head as the glittery blue ice shot across the open air, forming a bridge with the other side. It was a few feet wide and at least as thick. It would hold.

I hoped.

I stood. “Let’s do this.”

Roarke glanced doubtfully at me, then shook his head and started across, leading the way. After the first few tentative steps, we started to run. I slipped once, nearly plummeting off the side, but Roarke caught me. The Coblynau’s laughter echoed behind us, bouncing off the mountain and echoing.

Goosebumbs prickled my skin and fear chilled my blood. There was nothing below us except open space and jagged rock a thousand feet below. Just my magic.

Sweat broke out on my skin as we sprinted the last half. When my feet finally hit solid ground, my knees turned to rubber.

Roarke turned, kneeling and raising his fist. He punched the bridge with one big fist, sending his magic through it. The ice shattered, sending the Coblynau plummeting.

He turned to me and we ran, racing along the track. We reached another ramp and scrambled up. The eerie laughter of the Coblynau grew. They climbed out from crevices in the rock from all around us. More and more. The whole mountain was teeming with them.

There would be no fighting them. Only running.

I thought my heart would explode by the time we reached the top. A decrepit iron mining cart sat there, long abandoned after carrying its last load of slate down the tracks to the lake.

I dodged around it, catching sight of the mouth of the cave in front of us, perched on the cliff.

We’d made it! The Great Black Mouth. A cave, just like Roarke had guessed.

The Coblynau’s laughter and their scrambling footsteps sounded louder.

“Hurry,” Roarke said.

We hurtled toward the cave entrance, darting inside. I spun around to look out. The Coblynau crested the top of the ramp and caught sight of us, their eyes brightening.

Shit!

I called upon my magic, nearly drained, praying that I had enough. As the Coblynau sprinted toward us, the ice filled my chest and limbs. I touched the cave wall near the entrance, willing the ice to fill it like a wall. It grew outward from the rock, glittering and bright, closing us in like that weird circular door on the spaceship in the movie Independence Day.

The Coblynau reached us just as it closed. They beat their fists against the ice, but it was at least two feet thick. I lowered my hand, panting. I’d used up almost every ounce of magic I had and was running on fumes. I’d need to rest to regenerate.

Somehow, I doubted I’d have the opportunity.

“That should buy us some time,” Roarke said.

“Yeah.” I stepped back, sticking my tongue out at the goblins.

They shrieked, enraged, their eyes and fingertips glowing green. I turned, joining Roarke, who still looked like hell covered in blood with tattered wings.

“Now what?” He wiped some of the blood off his face with his hands, but it didn’t help much.

I pulled the map out of my pocket, unfolded it, and read by the light that flowed through the ice wall.

“They wait in the darkness broken only by the fall of the water,” I read.

“That’s obscure.”

“No kidding.” I started forward. “Let’s go figure it out.”

We set off through the dark. A faint blue glow shined from the black slate walls, just enough that we could see where we were going.

“Thanks for getting us out of that blast house,” I said.

“No problem.”

“Sorry you got so badly hurt.”

He grinned and looked down at himself, hoisting his wings up a bit. He winced at the motion, but said, “This? It’s nothing.”

“Yeah, sure.” Nix and Cass were right. He’d more than proved he had my back. I should trust him with my secrets.

We walked in silence for a while. The tunnel was about as wide and tall as a school bus and very uniform. Eventually, splattering water sounded in the distance.

When we walked out into a massive cavern lit by a silvery blue waterfall, my jaw nearly dropped. The water glowed, shedding a hazy light over the cave. Blue lights glittered against the ceiling high above. Gold ore was piled high against the walls, thousands of pounds of it. My dragon sense lit up immediately, making my fingertips itch to go touch the stuff.

Touch it. Hell, I wanted to dive in it like Scrooge McDuck.

“Whoa…” I murmured. “They weren’t just mining slate.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Roarke strode to the pool of water and knelt beside it to wash the blood from his face.

I explored while he cleaned up, desperately trying to ignore the gold while looking for the exit. There was none.

Which meant this was our destination.

But no one waited here.

I pulled out the map and consulted it again. There was nothing new on it.

When I looked up, Roarke was mostly clean and had shifted back into his human form. Thank fates he was powerful enough that his clothes had reappeared. I was already starting to get cold again now that we weren’t running for our lives.

“Where are they?” I asked. “No one is here.”

“This is the end?”

“Yeah.” I paced, searching for any sign of life. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.”

The waterfall tumbling into the little lake was glorious. So was the general feel of this place, all misty and blue.

But that it was empty except for the gold.

And I had basically no magical juice left to bring this place back to life and see what had once been here. There was no way I could turn back time right now. Not the way I was feeling. My magic was just dregs. I continued to pace, eyeing every inch of the cave like it held the secrets of the universe.

“What do you think those look like?” I pointed to four big slate rocks on the other side of the pool. They were roughly square.

“Pedestals?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” I walked closer to the water to get a better look. My gaze caught on three dark blue spots deep in the pool. I squinted at them. “Did you see those earlier?”

“See what?” Roarke joined me and peered into the water. “I just see water.”

“Really? Not dark blue orbs?”

“No orbs.”

Huh. They were definitely orbs. I pulled the sword off my back and stripped out of my jacket, then toed off my boots. “I’m going in. But you’re not allowed to look.”

“Not allowed?”

“I’m not gonna wear my clothes in, crazy.” I shivered at the memory of being soaking wet on the deck of the boat.

“What if something happens to you in there? I can’t exactly let you jump in a magical pool alone.”

“Sure you can. Anyway, I’m the only one who can see them. And I have a feeling that if this is some kind of challenge, then I need to be the one to complete it. Isn’t that how quests work? I’m seeking the answers, so I have to pass the test.”

He nodded. “Yeah, fair enough. But I at least need to know if you need help.”

“Fine. I’ll wear my underwear. No staring.” At least I was wearing conservative stuff. I wasn’t the sort to go on quests in scratchy lace underwear.

Anymore. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

He grinned. “Deal.”

I stripped down to my simple black bra and underpants. Roarke kept his gaze on the water, but I couldn’t help but blush. Today really wasn’t going the way I’d expected.

Scratch that. The details might be a bit off, but the reality was—standing here in my underwear in a weird cave, clueless and cold, wasn’t that much of a surprise.

I adjusted the straps on my sword sheath and strapped it over my back.

“You’re taking that underwater?”

“Never know when I’m going to need it.” Though I now had the ice magic to help out, I was running on magical fumes.

I poked a toe in the water, grateful to find that it was at least temperate, then plunged in. With a deep breath, I dove deep. The water sizzled and bubbled around me, hot at my back. When something molten dripped onto my skin, I shrieked and thrashed, tearing my sword sheath off.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the metal of my sword melting out of the sheath, dripping to the pebbled lakebed.

Shit!

I kicked for the surface, breaking through and gulping air.

“What the hell was that?” Roarke demanded.

“My sword melted!” Damn it. I’d loved that sword.

“Get out of the water.”

“No.” I had to get those shining blue spheres. I was certain of it. “I have to do this, Roarke.”

His gaze hardened. “I will come in and get you.”

“You better not.” I peered into the water, taking stock of my location in relation to the orbs. I was close to one. Right over it. “I’m going back down.”

Before he could say anything, I dove deep and opened my eyes. Everything was sparkly and blue. I kicked downward, heading toward the closest blue orb.

It sparkled as I neared, a perfect sphere of glass. I poked it with a finger. When it didn’t burn or shock me, I picked it up. The thing had to weigh thirty pounds if it weighed an ounce. My lungs burned as I kicked for the surface. When my head broke through, I gasped, then swam for the closest shore.

It was the one opposite where Roarke stood, with the pedestal-like things.

I heaved the orb onto the shore, then returned to the water twice more, retrieving the other two orbs. I was panting by the time I crawled out of the water, ready for a drink and a nap.

As I staggered to my feet, I studied the four pedestals. If only there had been four glass orbs. It’d have been obvious to put them on the four pedestals. I approached the pedestals anyway, catching sight of indentions on each one.

Might as well try. I made quick work of stacking an orb on each pedestal. When the last was finally in place, the air in the cavern vibrated.

“Whoa.” I stumbled back from the pedestals, up to my ankles in the water.

The air vibrated so strongly that the glass orbs shattered. Blue mist exploded from them, coalescing to form three massive figures.

Phantom dragons. As big as a house and right in front of me.