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The leader wrinkled her pixie nose and tossed the tiny phone toward Paige.
Paige stomped on it, crushing it easily under her heel. “Come on. Pony up the rest.”
Tiny phones littered the floor as they tossed them down. Paige crushed them all before she skirted around the army of pixies, her eyes never leaving them, and grabbed Emma’s limp hands. She dragged her across the stone floor and wrinkled her nose while she struggled to slide her up the stairs.
“You wanna help out here?” she huffed at Dewey.
Dewey grabbed Emma’s feet and fought to raise them in the air as they finished ascending the stairs. After a few minutes of laboring, they made it back to the entrance.
Paige carefully propped Emma against the wall before she unzipped the carrier. The pixie flew out and zipped away from her, hurling a line of insults as he went.
“He really needs to stop talking,” Paige murmured while they hurried toward the camels.
Tarik rose from a crouch as they approached him. “Did you get it?”
Paige tugged the crystal from her waistband and stuffed it into her tote. “Got it.”
Tarik nodded, unfastening the first camel’s lead. “We should go.”
“Wait,” Paige said, brushing a lock of hair from her face as she glanced back toward the tomb. “Emma got knocked out by the pixies. I left her at the tomb’s entrance. I feel bad. Someone should probably take her to her tent.”
Tarik glanced toward the tomb, then into the desert. “All right. I will go, but you must start back on the camels. We cannot risk you being caught here.”
“Okay,” Paige said, untying her camel.
Tarik coaxed Paige’s camel down as Dewey hopped onto his. He turned the camel and started it walking before handing Paige the reins.
“I will catch up,” he promised before jogging back toward the camp.
They spent the first part of their ride in silence as Paige mulled over the events. The recollection of the odd false memories about her mother flitted across her mind.
“Hey, Paige?” Dewey asked after a few moments.
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
Paige nodded as the moonlight shone down on the desert sands. “Mmm-hmm. I’m okay. You?”
“I’m fine.” Dewey eyed her sideways as his camel meandered alongside hers. “I didn’t mean just physically for you.”
Paige wrinkled her brow. “I’m fine mentally, too.”
“Are you sure? What happened when you touched that glass box? You said you saw your mom?”
Paige sucked in a deep breath as she swayed with the camel and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. That box put me in some kind of trance or something. I was in this big house with my mom. And there were pictures of us. I guess I had grown up there with her. I guess the box showed me what it thought would make me happy.”
“And did it?”
Paige snapped her gaze at him. “Make me happy?”
Dewey nodded.
“I guess. Until I realized it wasn’t real.”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t, Paige.”
She reached for his paw and squeezed it as Tarik caught up to them. They rode through the night and arrived at the airstrip when hints of daylight streaked across the sky.
