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There are so many dead surrounding them that it’s hard to distinguish one from the other. But at my scream, pink smoke and lightning surge around me, and all those dead turn too, as if they suddenly are energized.
And then they attack.
Traders scream and try to run. They grab for weapons, but there’s nothing to shoot. Nothing to slash their knives at or attack at all.
Some of them turn and rush at me.
They don’t make it more than a few steps. The dead tear into them, knocking them to the ground and ripping at the traders as they scream. Others try to make a break for the door to escape the carnage, only to be driven back by the dead waiting there. I stride through the chaos quickly, heading for Ghastly and Zeb’s cage, and the ghost girl and several others come with me.
“Ghastly?” I wait but he doesn’t move. “Zeb? Please, answer me.”
Nothing.
I lash out at the lock with my lightning. Before it even reaches the metal, the energy breaks apart, pink electricity snarling over the bars but changing nothing, like it can’t get inside.
Within the cage, Ghastly doesn’t stir.
Desperate, I turn to the ghosts. “Can you open it?”
The ghost girl doesn’t waste a second, instantly shattering the lock on the door. I want to lunge forward to reach Ghastly right now, but I make myself pause long enough to check that the bars don’t burn when I go near them.
But like the cage I was in, the defenses on this one seem to have died when the gate opened.
I rush inside. “Ghastly.” I press my fingers to his neck and then gasp with relief to feel his pulse fluttering weakly beneath my fingertips.
If he was dead…
I can’t tolerate the thought, not even for a millisecond. Quickly, I place a hand to the side of the stump of his severed tentacle, murmuring a spell under my breath.
The bleeding slows, but my body shakes hard with a chill as if from a fever.
I’m helping the ghosts and expending magical energy to help Ghastly too. Attempting to do both feels like trying to balance two cups of water on top of each other. I’m only going to end up losing one of them.
But I’m not on my own, either.
“Get Phineas!” I tell the ghosts, pointing. “There!”
The dead race over to him and break open the door. Shifting back quickly from Beastly into his Jekyll form, Phineas stares like the door is possessed.
“Puck too,” I call.
The Hyde is out the door the instant the dead break the locks. Both Phineas and Puck spare a fast look around like they can’t see any of the ghosts helping us, but they only bother to worry about that for a moment before they’re rushing across the room and past the bodies of the fallen traders to my side.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” I assure Ghastly.
Phineas arrives at the opening of the cage.
“Heal him,” I beg as I move to the side to give Phineas space to reach into the cage. “Please.”
He doesn’t hesitate. Cupping a hand over the severed stump on Ghastly’s back, he murmurs spells under his breath.
Relief floods through me as the wounds seal, the slow ooze of blood tapering off entirely. I carefully lift the tentacle where Zeb’s arm would be and loop it over my shoulders, trying to lever him upright without causing him more pain.
Ghastly groans, but after a moment, several of his tentacles move to help push him away from the ground.
But he’s so ashen. A sheen of cold sweat covers his skin wherever it’s not also coated in drying blood like black ink.
Phineas takes over when I emerge from the cage, hoisting Ghastly’s tentacle and holding him upright.
