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“No.” Nitsa straightened. “You’re not going in there alone. That you’d even say such a thing proves you’ve taken leave of your senses. We go together.”
Theron nodded firm.
“We just need a plan,” Nitsa finished. “We can’t wake him up. For gods’ sake, no matter what happens, we cannot wake him up.”
Jason stirred. Blinking awake, he moaned. “Oh, gods, what happened? What did—? Ow.” He lifted his elbow, grimacing at the cut down his forearm. “Did you drag me?”
“We had to,” Nitsa replied. “Unless you would’ve preferred to keep napping next to the cyclops.”
He grinned. “The only place I want to sleep is next to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Get up and help us. We’re working on a plan to get that key.”
Nodding, he got to his feet and joined us. We thought up a plan, going back and forth until it was solid. Then, we reached a new threshold of bravery when we picked up our feet, and madefor the cave mouth. The cyclops slept peacefully inside. He was so massive, the giant would’ve towered over the Empire State Building.
My mind couldn’t conceive of his size, but it could conceive the fact that I could never run fast enough to get away.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Take your places.”
Slowly, we fanned out. Theron and Jason took position next to his face. Nitsa and I approached his hand. In a flash, Cow Nitsa was next to me, blinking with those moon eyes. I climbed onto her back, balancing carefully as she brought me as close as possible.
The cyclops’s pinky, just his pinky, was so big, I needed the extra four and a half feet to reach the hairs on his knuckles.
Taking a deep breath, I clutched the dagger in one grip, my fear in another, his rope-sized knuckle hair in the last, and climbed.
Below me, Jason scattered flowers as fast as he could conjure them—spreading them in and around the giant’s nose. Impossible to know how much of a dose was needed to get a being of this size climb-the-walls high, but waking up slightly tipsy and goofy was leagues better than enraged and ravenous.
I bit hard on my lip, penning in my grunts. My boots found toeholds in the grooves of his skin, aiding my climb to the top of his finger. I stood up and almost flew off—knocked sideways by a blast of breath.
“Agh,” I choked, eyes watering.His breath. Dear gods, his breath.
Clapping my hand over my mouth, I ran. I was a daughter of fate. I knew when it shouldn’t be tempted. I wasn’t hanging around, taking my time, or lingering on the literal hand of death.
I ran through his forest of arm hairs, taking me up to his elbow where it sat just beneath the ledge. I jumped, strainedto reach, missed, and dropped down hard—landing flat on my back.
“Egh,” he grunted, shifting in his sleep. His elbow popped up and threw me clear.
“Ahh!” I crashed on his altar of candles, pelts, and coconut dolls, and everything went to shit.
One of the dolls tipped forward and landed against the candle, going up like a flash-fire. I reacted on instinct, kicking the flaming thing away, and flinging it right on him.
His eye snapped open, taking in a frozen Theron, Jason, me, and a cow.
“AHHHH!”
I blew off my feet, slamming into the cave wall. Pressure and pain like I’ve never known caved in my eardrums—stealing sound and throwing me into an echoing, muffled chamber like being underwater.
My vision spun. Through the twisting and white spots, I saw my friends peeling themselves off the ground. I sawhimbegin to rise. We were out of time.
Ripping off the key, I jumped off his arm and slid through the hair jungle like a water slide. Up I popped off his knuckle and landed on Cow Nitsa. Jason leaped up next to me, splaying stomach-down on her back.
“Go!”
At least I think I shouted go. It sounded less like a word, and more like a foghorn blast.
Nitsa must’ve understood anyway, because she took off. She clomped out of the cave mouth, landing hard on the craggy, moss-covered rocks and tramped the way down—getting clear as fast as possible.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
