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A wave of heat swept down, prickling the skin at the back of Grin’s neck, scorching him Cheval cursed in French Grin reached out and took her hand, then released it quickly Tethered by their hands, they’d only end up falling

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lidown the steps backward He had both hands up and fire streaers, liquid flalass s So popped and bubbled in those flaan to scream as it burned

"Faster," Grin snapped

"Any faster and I shall fall"

From below, around the spiral, Grin heard Oliver shout He reached out and grabbed Cheval by the arentle She stumbled, but he hoisted her up a

"Wait!"

She called after him but he did not slow Cheval would be hesitant to alter her forlass stairs The kelpy’s body would be unwieldy in that spiral enclosure, and her hooves would slip too easily

"Grin, what’s going on?" Blue Jay shouted

"Not a sodding clue!"

He didn’t wait for Li or Blue Jay to catch up Scra, he went round the spiral and discovered that the stairs did not go all the way to the ground floor of the library Oliver, Frost, Kitsune, and the Nagas had spilled out into the largest chaed like a ballrooht have been ancient Atlantean writing, sigils and words scrawled into every surface, including the floor and ceiling Lights floated in thein the sea

The lights weren’t alone

Eels filled the cha jaws full of needle teeth They darted and swah the air As Grin leaped the last few stairs and landed in a crouch on the ground, long arht, he saw Frost make a pass of his hand and freeze two of the eels dead They fell to the stone floor and shattered

Kitsune growled and reached up to grab at an eel as it lunged for her face The Sword of Hunyadi whispered through the air and Oliver slashed the eel in two, then spun to hack at another

Grin saw iht in an enclosed space Several others were slithering through the arched door on the far side of the chaures--sorcerers, no doubt--stood silhouetted Frost flowed through the rooid air Ice for ind of blizzard and then froze right in front of the door, sealing the sorcerers--and any other eels--out for the mo toward Grin, blotting out the floating lights He narrowed his eyes, waited for his moment, and reached out and snatched one of them by its middle He had no time to stop the other Instead, he fed it his left forear flesh and bone into its jaws as hard as he could, trying to keep it froround, he beat the sliver teeth tore into his left arain and it split open, spilling wretched viscera With his right hand free, he pried the teeth of the other eel off of his ar half its upper body in two

He heard Cheval cry his na, he saw her juht from outside the s--the perfect sky above Atlantis--made her beauty even more ethereal But the fear and fury on her facethe eels, but Cheval ran toward him

"I told you to wait!" Grin snapped

"I’ to let anyone else die to protect rief," she replied Her eyes locked on his a lanced past hiaze He turned as they swept in Ice flowed across the rooht one of them down, but there were just too damned many As he reached up to bat one away, another swept in from the side and sank its jaws into his abdo its teeth away, puncturing its eyes with his fingers

Even as he did, sensing his weakness, others swar it was futile They were too fast and too savage He would not get out of this chamber alive, would not leave Atlantis The eels would strip the flesh from his bones

Then Cheval was there Sheher as she tore two of the eels froed toward her throat Cheval stopped it, but her left hand grasped its lower jaw and those needle teeth claers went down its gullet

She cried out, e than pain

Grin ran toward her Cheval glanced at hih the air toward her back, jaws gaping wide Grin shouted her naers scraped only air The eel struck her lower spine with a splintering of bone and a rending of flesh Her belly bulged and then it burst out of her stomach in a splash of blood that soaked the front of her dress, then tore the fabric, boring through her Burrowing

Cheval went down on her knees

Grin heard more screams behind him, but they seemed to come from far away, muffled and inconsequential

She could still live, he told hione

There was only one way out, now

Grin grabbed her around the waist--the eel still in her--and ran toward the glass wall overlooking the plaza The boggart gritted his teeth, dropped his shoulder, and hurled himself and Cheval at theIt shattered with harshover one another, twisting down through the air five stories Grin pulled Cheval toward him, made sure he was underneath her when they hit the stones

His back hit first His head struck the plaza Bones in his skull cracked like a lightning strike Blackness swept in As he began to lose consciousness, he felt the eel trapped between hih skin And he felt Cheval’s blood soaking his clothes and the cold touch of her cheek against his own Deathly cold

The bright sunlight over the island of Atlantis seared his eyes for adarkness and knew nodown the spiral staircase in a wave Li had burned hundreds of the toward him, the Guardian of Fire could not destroy them all A few moments were all the jellyfish needed

Blue Jay danced in ancient rhyths He sliced an eel in two, then began beating away the jellyfish, cutting them to ribbons as they tried to attack hi streaks there He hissed in pain but kept fighting

A Naga arrow punctured a jellyfish only inches fro sailed away, ias fell hard upon the floor, writhing in agony as the jellyfish covered hia twitched, then lay still save for the undulating jellyfish

As he fought, Blue Jay glanced around and caught sight of another Naga down, being feasted upon by eels, their bodies waving in the air, as though underwater A gout of liquid fire engulfed the Naga and those eels, charring them instantly Then Li raced past Blue Jay, fla from his hands But he see Finally burning out