As we continued to look for the jerseys and
get ready Isabel came up to give us a five minute warning. Blake had vanished
around five, simply saying that he would meet us there. Sir Robert had given
him his ticket before he disappeared so he would be able to find us.
Ever since that night at camp when he got
wasted and he put me under some sort of hypnotizing spell which almost made us
kiss, which was seriously ridiculous as he despised me, he’d been acting like
his old self; arrogant and a total dick. Something about Blake being wasted and
for some reason always wanting me, was really freaking me out…but it also made
me wonder about a lot of things he was hiding and maybe that those things only
came out when he was truly drunk.
I shook my head and the thoughts of Blake
washed away as I grabbed my bag and followed Sammy to Sir Robert’s old Sedan.
The drive wasn’t that long and I gasped when
Sir Robert pulled into the parking area in front of a giant mountain. There
were at least a million cars already parked in neat rows and the noise coming
from inside the mountain told me that it must be the location where the Warbel
games took place.
Crowds of people wearing different colored
jerseys, caps and scarves huddled around. Some even carried flags and I saw a
yellow flag with a huge hornet on top of what looked like a raider.
Raiders were flying objects that made me
think of an enhanced skateboard.
Everywhere in Paegeia’s parks, and ports,
people flew on them. You needed a special license for one and I tried so hard
to suppress my laughter when Becky told me that her next try would be her
fiftieth or so to get hers. Becky wasn’t one of the safest drivers out there. I
still wondered every time I was her passenger if the inspector that gave hers
hadn’t been smoking weed or something.
We climbed out of the car and a feeling of
excitement rose inside my chest as I followed the Leafs into the opening at the
bottom of the mountain. It was dark as the only light came from tiny globes
mounted in the wall. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the soft glow of
the lights as we piled into another tunnel.
People pushed and shoved us as we tried to
make our way to our seats. The pace we moved was reasonable for such a big
crowd, but it was still too dark and too cramped up for my liking. We finally
stopped when the people in front of us didn’t move. I hated every second we had
to wait for whatever held up the crowd to pass. I was feeling jumpy and took
huge breaths as the heaviness on my chest came back, mixed with a shot of
adrenaline.
“Are you okay?” Sammy asked softly and I
realized that I was squeezing her hand really tightly in my own.
“Sorry, just crowded. What’s happening at the
front?”
“It’s normal, we are close to the check-in
point.”
I flinched as a huge horn blew right behind
me. It echoed off the wall and sounded like an archangel announcing doomsday.
The crowd barely moved now, and I felt like
punching the guy when he blew on it a second and third time. The other people
thought it was funny, and I wished that I felt the same spirit inside of me,
but this dark passageway seriously was starting to creep me out.
After a few minutes, I could finally see the
outline of what looked like five cubicles and people moving into rows. We took
the one closest to us and waited until it was time to present our tickets. Ours
had blue dots on them and I still had no idea what I was going to find myself
at tonight.
It took a couple of seconds for my eyes to
adjust as we entered toward a lighter room. Six black elevators, three on a
side opposite one another, made my heart jump a bit faster.
In Paegeia, an elevator wasn’t just an
elevator. It was how the people of Paegeia traveled around the world, if you
were a dragon, and inside Paegeia, if you were human. I hadn’t experienced it
myself and had only seen them once inside their funny looking tubes when we
went to fetch George at the Wall when he’d come back from the other side.
“Are these the same elevators they have at
the Wall?” I spoke softly.
She laughed at the small shake in my voice.
“No, Elena. They are normal elevators.”
People surged forward again as they maximized
the elevator’s weight limit and I saw Sir Robert pushing the blue button. He
wore a black t-shirt with a pair of jeans and a baseball cap. Wrapped around
his neck was a green and black stripped scarf.
Sir Robert Leaf was Sammy and Blake’s father
and, The Greatest King That Ever Lived, King Albert’s dragon. He looked nothing
like the figure inside the museum of Etan, and he was nothing like I’d
imagined. He was kind, always friendly and no matter how much Blake pissed him
off, he would give me a soft look and a friendly smile. It was hard to imagine
that he was Chromatic, a Night Villain, and one of the vilest dragons that
roamed this world. The people of Paegeia didn’t address him as Sir Robert
anymore. Some of them even thought that he’d had something to do with betraying
the King, but I knew better. He missed his Rider every single day; he missed
his Dragonian.
His wife, Isabel, stood next to him with her
arm wrapped in his. She wore a parka with a green and black striped beanie. A
huge smile, along with pure excitement, was written all over her face. She was
the spitting image of her sister. She had a twin sister who I was very familiar
with. The first time I saw her I’d thought for a second that Constance, the
doctor at the Infirmary was Sammy and Blake’s mom.
Sammy had doubled over with laughter when she
saw the expression on my face when I first met Isabel. She was a Swallow Annex
just like Constance and I was sure if you put them together, you wouldn’t be
able to tell them apart just by looking at them. She was also just as kind as
her twin and made me feel at home the first moment I stepped inside their
house.
The elevator screamed as we ascended into the
peak of the mountain. It felt like forever and a million things that could go
wrong filled my head. The door finally opened and we all had to get out so that
a couple at the back could exit.
When the door opened for about the fifth
time, we spilled out.
