Ensnared (Splintered, #3)(34)

“Stop it!” A voice—grinding, like stones clacking together. “Stop it at once!”

My chin drops.

“That’s no way to make a first impression,” the voice speaks again.

“Yes, to make an impression, you really should have a chisel,” a second, less peevish voice, adds.

Two faces appear on the mountainside, one of them made of soil, the other of stone. The stony face is the cranky one and has large bulging eyes. The other—the dusty face—has a squinty, almost humorous demeanor.

Dad drops the duffel bag and takes a seat on it. His left eyelid is twitching as fast as the second hand on a clock.

“It’s okay, Dad. I got this.”

Nodding, he rubs a hand through his hair.

Stepping across some loose pebbles, I make my way over to the squinty-eyed face. “We need to get inside.”

“Ohhhh, sorry,” says the stony, grumpy voice from behind me. “Only the master can open the door.”

“Yep, sorry.” Squinty-eyes looks at me sympathetically. “So sorry, in fact, my heart sinks for you.”

The ground beneath us quakes and we start to sink into the ocean. Dad gathers the duffel bag, and together we climb as fast as the ocean rises around us. All the times I went rock climbing with Jeb come back to me, and I have the added advantage of wings. Dad does, too, with the griffon cane.

“We’re going to have to fly!” I yell. “Before the peak is submerged!”

Dad gets knocked off balance when the duffel bag and dagger slide from his shoulder. He catches them at the last minute but loses the cane. It shuttles down the moving mountainside and plops into the rising waves. When it surfaces, it’s the griffon. It screeches, wings flapping as it flails, then melts bit by bit until it’s an oily puddle of floating colors.

Dad and I stare in disbelief, oblivious to the waves ebbing at our ankles.

“Allie, go!” Dad shouts, the first one to remember that the mountain is dropping.

Climbing in time with him, I try to coax out my magic. My mind is racing so fast, my imagination can’t catch up. I draw a blank. “Stop!” I screech to the mountain out of desperation.

The movement pauses. White froth laps my shins. “Your master would want you to help us,” I say, hoping to coax the faces back into view.

“Is that so?” The dirt one appears at the mountain’s tip. “Well, there is another way in.”

Panting, Dad and I exchange hopeful glances.

“Okay. What would that be?” I ask.

“A horse. A special horse. He can get you inside. All you need is to shout his name at the top of your lungs.”

Something tells me I’m going to regret asking, but I do anyway. “So . . . what’s his name?”

“I can’t say it for you, bony fool.”

I scowl, holding back the urge to stomp on the dirt clods making up the face’s lips. “Then give me a hint. The letters of the name . . . an anagram. Something!”

“All’s I can say is it’s a horse.”

The other face appears on the edge of a golf ball-size stone, the features scrunched up to fit the smaller surface. “A horse without legs that can move up and down and forward and backward . . . A horse without a saddle that can cradle the most fragile rider . . . A horse without wings that can sail with the grace of a bird.”

I slide my palm down my face. “Are you kidding me? Another stupid riddle?”

The stony speaker curls his mouth to a frown. “I’d rather tread water than listen to your bellyaching. You have only one guess, so be sure you’re right!” Then, rocking back and forth until his stone loosens, he rolls into the water with a kerplunk.

Squinty-eyes looks up at me and crinkles the sprig of grass that makes up his nose. “Best you figure it out fast. Because your ingratitude has me feeling very low.”

The mountain starts to sink again. Within moments, the waves lick our thighs.

I groan. “Dad, what do you think?”

He rubs his twitching eyelid. “Not sure. Maybe a rocking horse?”

I consider the clues. It does seem to match, mostly. “What about the sailing part? Rocking horses don’t sail. Maybe a carousel horse. They’re suspended on a pole, so that could count. They move up and down. But they don’t move back and forth, really. And they have legs . . .”

The water reaches Dad’s abdomen. “Allie.” His expression is the one he gives me when he’s about to lay down the law. I don’t want to hear what he’s thinking, because I already know.

“You’re going to have to fly,” he says as the water laps at my sternum. “Go while we still have ground to stand on.”

“No! I’m not going to let you get hurt!” Not like I did Mom.

Her face comes back to me, the desperation in her eyes as the mome wraiths snatched her away and dragged her into the crumbling rabbit hole along with Sister Two and all her soul-filled toys. I couldn’t hold on, no matter how I tried. Tears burn along the edges of my lashes.

“Dad, I summoned the creatures that took Mom away. I’m responsible for the danger she’s in. If she’s gone forev—”

“Alyssa Victoria Gardner.” Dad catches my hands in his. “Don’t even say it. Whatever you did, it was because you had to. Mom knows that. She’s strong, and she’s okay. And we’re going to find her.”