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“More than,” Sofie muttered, glancing over her shoulder.
Belatedly, Ryshi realized that the darkness had followed, threatening to swallow them before they could escape.
Not giving himself time to consider what was destroying the maze, or even what might be waiting for them on the other side, he squeezed Sofie’s fingers. If she’d been a human he would have crushed her bones, but she was a vampire and she didn’t even flinch as she returned his grip, pressing against his side as they leaped directly into the hedge.
* * * *
Levet scratched his snout, studying the sky above his head. He’d seen many strange things in his very long life. Unicorns. An ogress who turned out to be the Queen of the Merfolk. The return of the Backstreet Boys. But he’d never seen a big hole that appeared to be sucking in the nearby stars. It wasn’t a portal. Or a gateway. Or any other magical means of being transported that he’d used. It wasn’t even a rip that could happen when mortals used magic to move between dimensions.
“I am not exactly certain what that is,” he at last conceded.
“Neither are we,” the minotaur next to him said in harsh tones. “It appeared almost a century ago.”
“A century?” Levet grimaced. That was a long time to have that hanging over your head. Literally.
“At first it was nothing more than a pinprick of darkness.”
“What did you do to stop it?”
“Nothing.” The male shrugged. “We assumed it was a passing aberration.”
Levet flapped his wings in disbelief. “You ignored a hole in your sky?”
The minotaur’s features settled into a defensive expression. “We didn’t ignore it. Obviously, we kept an eye on the thing. But it didn’t appear to pose any danger to my people.”
Levet clicked his tongue in disapproval. “I thought it was ostriches, not cows, who stuck their heads in the sand.”
“Excuse me?”
The male stiffened, his hand lifting to touch the crown on his head. Was it a silent warning that he was in a position of authority? Or maybe he feared he’d lost it on the way to the balcony?
Levet didn’t care either way. His thoughts were currently lost in the image of a minotaur sticking their head in the sand.
“It would be more difficult for you, right?”
“You aren’t making any sense,” the male snapped.
“Your horns. They would get caught in the sand.” Levet sighed at the male’s blank expression. Obviously, the minotaurs weren’t blessed with a sense of humor. “Maybe we should return to your explanation of your holey sky.”
“The darkness began to spread, consuming the stars. We feared it might destroy our homeland.”
Levet glanced toward the rolling fields. He couldn’t see any rot or disease. “It does not appear to have done any damage.”
The heavy scent of bull swirled through the air, making Levet’s snout wrinkle in distaste.
“Only because we discovered one means of keeping the darkness sated,” the male said.
“How do you sate the darkness?”
Without warning the male lifted his hands and loudly clapped them together. Levet flinched. He wished they would stop doing that. It hurt his ears. Maybe he should buy them a bell. Or a gong. Anything had to be better than the clap, clap, clapping.
Levet’s thoughts were scattered when the sound of footsteps echoed from beneath them. Leaning forward, he watched as a group of minotaurs appeared from beneath the balcony. They were attired in the same outfits that the performers had been wearing and their horns sparkled in the moonlight.
“More dancing?” Levet was surprised, and more than a little relieved at the unexpectedly simple solution to the problem. He assumed that it would be something awful.
“No,” the minotaur swiftly burst his pimple.Non. Not pimple. Bubble. “Not dancing.”
Levet continued to watch the creatures below him. They’d reached the center of a sunken garden and were spreading out to form a circle around a large, flat stone. From his angle it looked like a dinner table.
