Radley's Labyrinth for Horny Monsters, Annabelle Hawthorne [smart ebook reader TXT] 📗

taking charge of both of them. While he’d had total control over Sofia’s restrained body, he realized that maybe he hadn’t had total control of himself.

Carmina, breathless from flying at full speed, had announced to them that there was good news and bad. The good news was that she had found Tink. The bad news was that she was being held in a cage at the center of the Labyrinth.

It had taken some digging, but Mike had gotten Carmina to spill that she was the captive of someone referred to as the lady of the Labyrinth. Carmina and Olivia floated ahead of them now, taking them on a secret route to the lady’s chamber, while Cerulea sat on Mike’s shoulder. Mike and Sofia had decided that the best plan of action was to sneak in and appraise the situation for themselves, to which the fairies had revealed that there was a small tunnel that overlooked the room. They used it often to spy on their captor in hopes of finding a way out.

The fairies stopped, then quickly doubled back.

“Why did we stop?” Sofia asked.

Olivia and Carmina hovered over by the wall, their lights illuminating a rough stone in the wall.

“We can slip through here,” Carmina said.

“But you will need the button,” Olivia finished.

Sofia gave the stone a shove, and a side passage opened without a sound, a narrow fissure that revealed a circular tunnel that also went uphill. Mike and Sofia moved into the tunnel, and the wall closed behind them.

The tunnel soon became steep enough that Mike spent most of his time watching his footing. Sofia seemed to have no trouble, though he did see occasional flashes of light from her eye and she would change direction. Mike followed behind her, wary of more than a few loose stones on the path. He knew that a tumble would result in a downhill slide, and some of the sharper stones made him wince at the thought of cutting himself up in the fall.

The glowing moss on the walls suddenly vanished, plunging the tunnel into darkness. Cerulea and Carmina lit the path ahead, and Mike stayed in Sofia’s shadow. Olivia landed on Sofia’s shoulder, then flew back to land on Mike’s.

“We’re getting close,” she whispered.

Mike nodded, trying to breathe a little more quietly. Olivia’s light went out, and Carmina led them the rest of the way, floating close to the floor. The tunnel now curved dramatically onward, like a spiral staircase. A golden glow from ahead lit the tunnel, and Carmina extinguished her own light before landing on Sofia’s shoulder to sit with Olivia. Mike followed the cyclops, who was now crouching as the tunnel grew smaller. Soon, both of them were hunched over, walking carefully. The stone floor had smoothed itself out, and the ceiling dropped again. They were both crawling when holes in the stone wall appeared, revealing a view of a giant chamber beneath them.

Up above the chamber, an enormous yellow gemstone the size of a garden shed floated, held to the ground by several thick chains that hooked into natural stone towers at the chamber’s edge. Mike could feel the gemstone’s warmth, making him think of a sunny day on the beach.

Lily. The thought of her came unbidden, triggered by his own memory of how they had met. Trapped inside a dream and surrounded by the literal ocean of his mind. He wondered if she was doing okay. Shaking his head, he shifted his thoughts to Tink and Abella, who needed him now. He didn’t know if Sofia would ever apologize for getting them into this mess. Then again, if he had come with them, maybe he would have fallen prey to the traps in the Labyrinth. In fact, if not for the fairies, he would probably have died long ago. Whatever they had done to make Emily so mad, they didn’t deserve to be locked up here.

The glowing gemstone illuminated the chamber. Piles of treasure had been shoved in the corners like junk, chests of coins and gemstones alike. Several areas contained long tables with implements that made Mike think of a mad scientist’s laboratory. The chamber seemed to be equally divided in two. One half had a large structure toward the back. It looked like a miniature version of a pagoda, maybe something that would be seen on a miniature golf course, about twenty feet tall. A long table covered in food made Mike’s stomach grumble in protest. He felt like he was looking into someone’s dining room.

“There,” Sofia said, elbowing him and pointing. At the end of the table was a small metal cage. Huddled inside it was Tink, legs pulled to her chest, face buried in her knees.

“Whoa!” Sofia yanked Mike back into the tunnel. Without realizing it, he had drawn the dagger, sliding through the hole before them. “I know you’re feeling heroic, but it’s a twenty-foot drop from here.”

“Take us down there,” he whispered.

Cerulea hopped off his shoulder to walk in front of him. The tunnel they were in dipped down in several locations, and Cerulea led him to one that seemed lower than the others. Upon a quick inspection, he estimated that it was maybe fifteen feet from the edge of the hole to the ground. Mike lifted up the fairy and put her back on his shoulder.

“I’ll lower you down,” Sofia said.

He turned around and grabbed onto Sofia’s hand. The cyclops held tightly to him, lowering him from the opening. She slid out of it to lower him farther, and he pressed his feet against the stone wall of the chamber in order to better control his descent. He was about six feet up from the ground when he let go and landed in a crouch, his heart pounding.

Sofia pulled herself back into the hole and disappeared into the darkness.

Mike crossed the huge chamber, seeking shelter behind piles of gold. Moving closer to one of the tables, he saw a crystal orb on a pedestal sitting next to a