When the tremor settled, Jasmine rose slowly to her feet. “You won’t find my father here. He left a long time ago, and he never came back.”
A fountain of fire erupted in the city hall building, spewing wiggling ribbons of flaming debris onto the street. As sparkling ash rained down, the three backed toward the statue to avoid the embers.
“Merlin predicted this,” Sapphira said, swatting at the ash. “We have to get you out of here before it’s too late!”
Jasmine sneered. “I should have known Merlin had something to do with this. He has been plotting to kill dragons all along, and now he has arranged our apocalypse.”
“Merlin set up the way of escape!” Sapphira grabbed a fistful of Jasmine’s sleeve. “This place is about to burn! What’s it going to take to get you to change your mind?”
“Truth!” Jasmine shook away Sapphira’s grip and pointed at Naamah’s body. “She killed that so-called dragon messiah with the same dagger that took her own life. A dead messiah cannot save anyone from this God-forsaken place. It is hopeless. There is no way out.”
“Really?” Sapphira narrowed her eyes. “Then how did your father leave?”
Jasmine nodded at the statue in the garden. “He wandered over there in sort of a daze, saying something about a red glow, but Brogan and I never saw anything. Then, he just vanished.”
“And he became human.” Sapphira clasped her fingers together. “He rejoined your mother, who also took a human form, and they had two children, Gabriel and Ashley, your brother and sister.”
Jasmine’s expression softened, and her voice lost its sharp edge. “So, they’re a happy family now, I suppose.”
Sapphira shook her head. “A slayer killed your father and mother, but Billy risked his life and resurrected your mother from a dragon graveyard.”
Jasmine glanced at the hangman’s noose. “Billy resurrected her?”
“Yes. She’s alive now and is a dragon again, but your father’s spirit is missing.” She nodded at Gabriel. “That’s why your brother is here looking for him, and we were hoping you’d want to help.”
Jasmine’s lip trembled slightly, but she quickly firmed it. “Of course I want to help, but there are a couple of important obstacles.” She extended a finger. “First, I’m dead.” She extended another finger. “Second, apparently you have to trust in a human to get out of here, and I haven’t seen any good reason for doing that.”
Gabriel stepped up to Jasmine and stood toe-to-toe. “I’ve been listening to you jabber long enough.” He extended his own finger. “Our father was dead, too, and that didn’t stop him from coming back to life.” He flashed all four fingers and began lowering each one as he continued. “This Billy guy is human, and he died trying to save you. Merlin’s human, and he sent Billy in here to save all the dragons. I’m human, and do you think I’m going to gain anything by risking my own life to argue with a stubborn dragon?” He lowered the last finger and formed a fist. “And Sapphira’s human, and she has more love than all of us combined. Without her, I would have been dead, Billy couldn’t have come here to rescue dragons, and you wouldn’t be getting another chance to crack your cold heart of stone.”
The ground suddenly lurched. Sapphira fell on her seat, and Jasmine toppled backward into the garden. Gabriel kept his balance, flailing his arms as he rode out the bucking cobblestones. When the quake settled, Gabriel helped Sapphira up, but the entire garden area broke away from the street and began to sink, taking Jasmine and the statue with it.
Gabriel dove for the edge and reached down into the growing chasm. “Jasmine! Grab my hand! I’ll pull you up!”
Jasmine struggled to her feet and jumped, but her fingertips merely brushed against Gabriel’s. With her second jump, her hand passed several inches too low.
Sapphira dashed along the chasm’s perimeter, jumped down toward the statue, and landed in the rider’s lap. Grabbing the hangman’s rope attached to the horse’s neck, she screamed up at Gabriel. “Catch the noose!”
Gabriel reached both hands. “Toss it!”
Sapphira slung the noose upward. The rope smacked Gabriel in the face, but he managed to latch onto it before it slipped away. “Got it!” he shouted, wrapping it around his wrists.
Sapphira clambered down to the pedestal and extended her hand. “Up here, Jasmine! We can still climb out from the top of the statue!”
Jasmine bent her knees, but the ground suddenly crumbled. She fell forward and grasped the bottom of the statue’s pedestal as it dropped, and her momentum drove the pedestal against the sloping wall, wedging it there.
The weight dragged Gabriel’s body farther out over the pit. He strained against the load, every muscle in his face quivering, and he let out a roar. “The rope’s cutting my wrists!”
“Hang on!” Sapphira yelled.
As Jasmine dangled over a deep pit, purple fumes rose from the blackness, smelling of camphor and garlic, then a voice filtered upward. “Roxil. Come and join me. I have been waiting for you.”
Jasmine twisted her neck and looked down. “Goliath?”
“Yes. Just let go. I will catch you, and we will live together in the true Dragons’ Rest.”
Jasmine spun her head back toward Sapphira, her wild eyes darting all around. The statue lurched down a few inches, jerking one of Jasmine’s hands loose, but it suddenly halted, teetering over the black pit.
Gabriel slid farther. Puffing and grunting, he let out a loud, wordless moan.
Stooping carefully, Sapphira grabbed Jasmine’s wrist. As she pulled, her vision sharpened. Far below, the skeletons of several dragons lay scattered in the midst of a black fog. A huge red dragon stood among the bones and called out, “Please do not abandon me!”
“Don’t listen to him!” Sapphira reached for Jasmine’s flailing arm. “Give me your other hand!”
Gabriel screamed. “I can’t hold on much longer!”
The voice erupted again. “Roxil, I need you! Do not trust the humans. If you climb into Makaidos’s arms, you will be in his clutches forever.”
Sapphira glanced up at the statue’s horseman. Its open arms seemed ready to welcome the company of another rider. As the pedestal tipped further, she reached her free hand down as far as she could and shouted. “You have to make your choice right now!”
Jasmine looked down one more time, then swung up and grabbed Sapphira’s hand. As Sapphira pulled, tongues of fire erupted from the pit and swirled around Jasmine’s feet. With a final grunt, Sapphira hoisted her, and they scrambled up to the side of the rider. With their feet planted on top of the pedestal, they clung to one of his arms.
A huge plume of twisting fire shot up from the depths and swirled around the statue, creating a tall, spinning cylinder of flames. The hangman’s rope ignited and burned to a charred thread, and the statue slid down the side of the chasm wall.
Pushing her snowy hair from her eyes, Sapphira looked through the circular opening at the top of the fiery cylinder. Several feet above her head, Gabriel clung to the lip of the chasm, digging his shoes into the slope.
Sapphira cupped a hand around the side of her mouth. “Gabriel! Jump! It’s your only chance!” As hot wind from the whipping fire snatched her words into the cyclone, the cylinder’s opening squeezed shut. With a loud crack, the statue plunged downward.
Suddenly, Gabriel burst through the wall of fire. He caught the horse’s head and swung up to its back in one motion. Now riding in front of the soldier, he took Sapphira’s hand. “Are we in a portal?”
Sapphira squeezed his fingers. “I think so!”
“Did you make all this fire?”
“No! I have no idea who did it!”
Dry air and streaming flames flowed upward all around. Jasmine locked an arm around Sapphira’s waist, and Gabriel slapped the thigh of the sculptured rider behind him. “Ready to hunt for our father?”