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“You should have drunk the tea, Paige Turner.”
Paige stared at the woman as her limbs began to feel heavy. Her vision glazed, and she blinked a few times to clear it. The woman’s wrinkled face and gray hair morphed, twisting into a hairy creature before shifting again into the chiseled face of a man.
Paige blinked again as she stared at the rectangular face with its dark stubble and the two dark-brown, almost black, eyes.
A tear rolled from the corner of her eye, streaking down her cheek, as her body slid to the floor, and the world around her went black.
* * *
Paige’s eyelids fluttered open, and the world around her came into a blurred view. The scent of dampness assaulted her nostrils. In the distance, water dripped in a steady rhythm. Cold, hard stone poked into her shoulder and hip. The room spun a little, still blurred.
She sniffed sharply, shooting up to sit, bracing herself with her left arm.
“My glasses,” she whispered, squinting at her surroundings in a desperate attempt to locate them.
“Paige!” Dewey’s voice called.
“Dewey?” she questioned. “Where are you? I can’t see a thing. I lost my glasses.”
“To your left, Velma.”
Paige felt around on the rough surface beneath her, her fingers catching the arm of the spectacles. She grasped them and shoved them onto her face, glancing around.
“Where are we?”
“The dungeon.”
“Dungeon?” Paige repeated.
She scanned the surroundings. She sat on a cobblestone floor. Black bars rose in front of her from floor to ceiling, preventing her from escaping the windowless cube. A stone wall closed her in on two sides. On the third, another row of bars rose floor to ceiling. A small, teal dragon stood gripping them with his front paws.
“Dewey!” Paige shouted as she scrambled to the bars on her hands and knees. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” he said in a shaky voice.
A little purple gash above his eye marred his face, leaving his eye partially swollen.
“Are you hurt?”
Dewey winced as he rubbed a paw against the wound. “Just a scratch. How are you? They injected you with something. I don’t know what.”
“I’m okay. I’m a little woozy, but it’s passing. Who are they?”
Dewey squashed his lips together into a grimace. “Shape-shifting werewolves.”
“What?”
“That’s how he looked like the little grandma. Probably associates of that rideshare driver. And we fell right into their trap!”
“That’s just my luck,” Paige lamented, rolling from her hip to her behind and hugging her knees to her chest. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“It’s not your fault, Paige. They’ve been after you since you left the library. They must be involved in the mirror acquisition.”
“Maybe we can find a clue to the mirror’s location here.”
“Sure. If we can get out of the dungeon.”
Paige glanced around the dark, dank cell, lit only by a pair of yellow lights flanking the stairwell leading up. “Who has a dungeon in their house?”
