Jaxon steps forward and says, “Move back a little and let me try.” Then he spreads his legs and places his hands out, like he’s going to physically move a bed or something, but focuses on the wall about five feet in front of him.

“Oh, this I’ve got to see,” Hudson snarks and positions himself beside his brother. “Baby brother is going to start moving rock…in a tunnel.”

His words don’t register until I feel the ground start to rumble, small pebbles and dust falling from the ceiling all around us.

“Stop!” Macy shouts, and thankfully Jaxon does. “I don’t think it’s safe for us to try to break this wall down, Jaxon. It may be an illusion for the dragons, but it is very real to the rest of us. You might end up causing a cave-in.”

“So how are we going to get through it, then?” Xavier asks.

“Now, I’m just spitballing here,” Hudson says as he wanders over to the wall and leans a shoulder against it. “But it seems that maybe the best way to take out a magical wall is with…magic.” He cocks one brow at me. “If only we had a witch handy…”

I stick my tongue out at him because, really, sarcasm is what we’re missing right now? Then I turn to my cousin and ask, “Macy, do you think you can break through the wall’s magic?”

Her eyes narrow as she thinks about it, but then she squares her shoulders and says, “You bet I can.”

She pulls her backpack off her shoulder and starts rummaging through it. “Grace, can you help me with these?” she asks as she pulls out eight candles and places them equidistant in a large circle. “Okay, everyone, stand inside the circle.”

Once we’re all inside the protection of the circle, she casts her spell, and the candles begin to burn. Once she’s satisfied with their flames, she points her wand at the wall and calls the elements. The wind comes slowly, blowing softly and gently down the tunnel. Macy starts to chant, her voice getting louder and louder with each line of the spell. The wind picks up, and at one point, I even feel a fine mist of water spray across my skin.

The wind picks up again, the flames on the candles growing higher and higher, and the very earth beneath our feet starts to tremble.

That’s when Macy raises her wand, her arms open and face raised to the ceiling, and says, “Illusions great. Illusions small. Find a door within this wall.”

The wind picks up even more, howling through the passageway so hard and fast that I’m sure it’s going to knock us down. The flames on the candles shoot straight up to the ceiling.

“Good job, Macy.” There’s a grudging respect in Hudson’s tone that’s usually absent when he talks about my cousin—or about anyone, for that matter. And that’s before she lifts her wand above her head and points it straight up as she chants so low and fast that the only words I can make out are “heat,” “cleanse,” “burn.”

All of a sudden, lightning flashes down, and I scream as it connects with Macy’s wand. But my cousin doesn’t even flinch. Instead, she just stands there, seconds ticking by as her wand absorbs every molecule of energy the lightning bolt can deliver.

Only when the lightning has dissipated and the wind and rain and fire have died down does Macy point her wand straight at the part of the wall where Eden and Flint say the Dragon Boneyard should be. And with a flick of her wrist, she unleashes every ounce of the power she’s just absorbed.

The ancient stone rumbles and creaks as it trembles under the incredible power Macy is directing at it. For several seconds, I think the ancient dragon magic is going to hold, but then the first rock falls. Soon, the entire wall starts to crumble away, huge pieces of rock and stone raining down around us.

As the first stone threatens to hit us, Eden and Flint throw their arms up to protect their heads. But Macy’s magic is too strong, her power resonating throughout the entire passageway and sealing the circle—and everyone in it—from harm.

More rocks and stones fall, littering the ground all around us. But not one pebble makes it through Macy’s barrier; not one stray rock so much as touches the fire that encircles us. And when the lightning finally dissipates, when Macy’s spell finally winds down and the dust from the falling rocks finally clears, the wall is gone.

And in its place is the opening to a giant glowing cavern.

82

Ride or Die

Macy quickly closes the circle with a gratitude to the elements, and then we walk through the craggy opening in the wall that Macy just created.

“What the hell is this place?” Xavier demands as we all look around in a combination of fascination and horror.

“Salvador Dali’s wet dream, apparently,” Jaxon answers, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me close.

“Right?” I agree. “I’m just saying, the second I see one of those creepy clocks, I’m out of here.”

We’re standing in a small alcove at the edge of a cliff overlooking a massive cavern. The cavern itself is about three hundred feet across and appears bottomless. And if that’s not terrifying as fuck, it’s also super dark. But there’s just enough light coming from whatever is beyond it for me to see the sharp and craggy rock formations jutting out from both sides.

“You definitely don’t want to fall into that,” Mekhi comments as he peeks over the edge.

“Not even a little bit,” Macy answers.

I step closer to the edge, too, and something about the change in perspective makes me realize that the glowing area across the cavern is actually an island and the cavern is a bizarre kind of moat surrounding it.

More, the island itself is filled with massive—and I mean massive—white bones. Which is creepy, yes, but what else do you expect when you sign up to go to a Dragon Boneyard? But what’s really fascinating about the whole thing, what has all of us staring at it like we can’t believe our eyes, is that the bones are so huge that they provide an enormous reflective surface when the dim light hits them. It is that reflection that makes the island look like some kind of paranormal nuclear reactor.

It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

“The Boneyard is right there,” Flint says, as if the giant skeletons aren’t enough of a tip-off.

“I’m okay as long as there are no rats,” Macy says, stepping a little closer to the edge of the deep, yawning abyss in front of us as she strains to see across it. “Tell me there are no rats.”

“Pretty sure if there were rats, they would have fallen in by now. And been, you know…” Xavier mimes being impaled, complete with tongue hanging sickly out of the corner of his mouth.

“Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Hudson comments dryly.

“Pretty sure we could have done without the visual aid,” Eden says to Xavier.

“I don’t know. I think it adds a certain je ne sais quoi,” Mekhi jokes, right before he picks up a large rock from the ground and throws it as hard as his vampire strength will let him. It barely makes it a third of the way across the divide before falling down, down, down…

We wait silently to hear it land, but it just keeps falling. Which isn’t concerning at all.

Then again, I suppose it’s no more concerning than the long, sharp rock spikes protruding from the walls and, presumably, the ground.

“So, you know what I’m thinking?” Xavier says as he claps Flint on the back.

“That you really don’t want to fall in?”

“Obviously. But I’m also thinking that it’s finally the dragons’ turn to save the day.”

“Finally?” Eden shoots back. “Don’t you mean always?”

Flint holds his hand up for a fist bump, which she delivers…right before she shifts in a colorful shimmer of light. Flint follows suit only a few seconds later.

Dragon riding absolutely solves the problem of crossing the divide, but it leaves the area where we’re standing right now really, really crowded. I’m currently uncomfortably close to the edge, and that discomfort is growing exponentially, considering the added weight of the dragons is cracking the ground beneath our feet and making the edges crumble into oblivion.

Then again, that’s probably the point.

“Who’s riding which dragon?” I ask even as I inch toward Eden. Not that I mind riding with Flint, but one fall from this height above the craggy floor will mean certain death, and he’s a bit too much of a daredevil for my current liking.

Before anyone else can pick their ride, we all turn as one just to the right of the island as we hear a high-pitched howling that chills my bones. The noise gets only louder until a huge gust of wind races across the cavern and knocks me back a few steps. Macy stumbles, too, and teeters next to the edge.

My heart jumps into my throat as I dive for her, but Xavier gets there first, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her forward, away from the edge, in a yank-and-swoop move for the record books. All that’s missing is the backward dip and kiss, but judging from the looks on both their faces, it isn’t far behind.

“What the hell was that?” Mekhi demands, looking at the ravine like it’s suddenly been possessed.

“Wyvern wind,” Jaxon and Hudson answer at exactly the same time.

I start to ask what that means, but the truth is I’m not sure I want to know. Especially since it comes again about forty seconds later, clearly circling the island, just as Jaxon is helping me up onto Eden’s back. It slams into me, has me grabbing on to Eden’s neck in a desperate effort not to fall off.

“There’s no way we’re going to make it before the next gust of wind,” Xavier says, looking out across the chasm.

Flint snorts like Xavier’s personally insulted him.

“I’m just saying, man, it’s a long effing way.”

Flint snorts again, and this time it’s obvious he is very insulted.

“I think they’ve got it,” I say, wrapping my arms tight around Eden’s neck as Jaxon climbs up behind me, followed by Mekhi. “We’ve just got to time it right.”