Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

Immediately the canvas sack opened. But when I said opened, I don’t mean the zipper unzipped on its own—I mean the sack blew apart—ripping itself to shreds that exploded outward, leaving Griffin and me suspended only on the cloth base of the hammock, which still swung precariously between the two dead tress.

It was full dawn now and I blinked my eyes, trying to get adjusted to the light. I had a confused impression of people running and shouting and a huge dark shape in the sky casting its shadow over the proceedings.

“Megan—the trees!” Griffin said urgently. “They’re coming down!”

I saw that he was right—the dead trees that held up the hammock were beginning to tilt inwards towards each other. Looking down, I could see why.

Remember how I said that sinkholes are a thing in Florida? In fact, they can be a real problem. Well, a sinkhole the exact size and shape of the Hallowed Glade had suddenly opened beneath us and the trees were barely hanging on by their roots to the little soil that was left. As I watched, it crumbled away completely and the trees tilted inward as we began to fall down into the darkness.

I didn’t even think this time. I wrapped my arms around Griffin and shouted, “Up!” as loudly as I could.

And then, somehow, we were flying.

77

Well, not flying exactly, more like hovering in the air. We were as high as the tops of the trees—the ones that hadn’t fallen, anyway, and I had a much better view from up here.

I could see that the whole interior of the Hallowed Glade was gone now and all that remained of it was a deep hole in the ground that seemed to go down forever. The perimeter of thorny vines was still there around the edge of what had been the glade, but they were much more colorful than they had been.

“Roses,” Griffin breathed in my ear. “They’ve bloomed.”

He was right and I thought I had never seen so many roses in my life. They were all as red as blood, so thick and full that you could scarcely see the vines they were attached to anymore. Even from where we were, floating high in the air, I could catch their sweet scent on the cool, early morning breeze.

“The prophecy,” I murmured and remembered the single red rose I had seen in Avery’s scrying bowl after the picture of the Witch Queen and her Blood Knight had faded.

“What prophecy?” Griffin asked, frowning. “The one you heard the Rattcliff witch talking about?”

“Exactly,” I said but there was no time to explain right then. Speaking of Winifred Rattcliff, she was standing defiantly at the edge of the roses and pointing a finger at Avery, who was tied to a tree just outside the ring of thorny vines. Emma and Kaitlyn were tied in a similar fashion to other trees outside the ruins of the Hallowed Glade. I saw tear tracks on my coven-mates’ faces but they had their chins raised defiantly as they stared up at me and Griffin.

“We have to help them,” I said to him urgently. “She looks like she’s threatening them!”

In fact, that was exactly what Winifred Rattcliff was doing.

“No closer!” she screamed up at me, her face an ugly mask of hate and envy. “Come even an inch closer and I’ll lay a death curse on him!” She pointed at Avery who glared back at her.

“Don’t listen to her, Megan!” he shouted. “Do what you need to do—I’m not afraid!”

“Listen to me!” the senior witch insisted, “Go now and never return to Frostproof. If you don’t, I’ll kill all your friends—every last one of them—slowly.”

I’d had about enough of her threats. Since I seemed to be hovering in mid-air without any problem, I thought that disarming Winifred Rattcliff, so to speak, shouldn’t be too hard.

Squeezing my thumb for another drop of blood, I said,

“Hands at your sides and mouth shut tight.”

A look of surprise came over Winifred’s face as she suddenly snapped to attention like a soldier, her arms straight at her sides and her mouth shut in a white line. I saw her trembling, trying to break my hold on her, but clearly she couldn’t move.

Well good, that was how I wanted things.

“Little witch,” Griffin murmured in my ear. “If you’re quite done flying, I think it would be a good time to land. We are not the only ones in the sky.”

I looked to see what he was talking about and saw the huge, dark shadow I had glimpsed earlier still soaring above us.

“Is that a…dragon?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around the idea. The thing was immense.

“I believe it is,” Griffin said dryly. “And since we don’t know its intentions, I think we should land and possibly take cover.”

“Bigger than a barn,” I heard the Academy Healer mutter in my head, “And some of them breathe fire!”