Page 123 of A Drop of Anguish
The beast stands on two hind legs, and it’s tall enough for his head to be higher than the stone barriers—at least fifteen feet. It has horns not unlike Jarron’s and fur on its legs. Is this thing from their world?
“It’s a minotaur,” Janet whispers.
A minotaur. Wonderful. I don’t know much about them, if I’m honest, but I know it’s not something I want to fight.
I look back over my shoulder to find Jarron screaming, pounding and clawing at the force field. His rage rattles the very stone, but he can’t break the shield. He begins throwing that shadow magic at it. It will take him several minutes to break it down—we don’t have minutes. This thing is going to charge any second.
The cauldron is a clue or a puzzle piece I need to work out. Maybe the potion inside will take down the minotaur? It’s unlikely it’ll be that easy, but there’s something here for me to do. I just have to figure it out.
“Lola,” I whisper.
She sucks in a trembling breath.
“I need you to use your sleeping powder.”
“What?” she squeaks.
“On the minotaur. I need you to fly up and use that pixie magic to put him to sleep.”
“I—I can’t.”
“You can. You need to. I can do this.” I point to the cauldron. “I can figure this out, but I can’t fight that thing at the same time.”
“You’re stronger than your family thinks you are, Lo,” Janet says through panicked breaths.
“You’re smarter. And you’re braver. You’re better than all of them combined.”
“Yeah, Lo,” Janet says. “You got this.”
Lola flutters up and hovers in front of my nose and puffs out her chest. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Yeah, you will!”
She soars up, and immediately my stomach sinks.
“Be careful, though!” If anything happens to that girl, I will riot. I send a pitying glance to the demon form of Jarron, who is still frantically slamming his magic into the wall and roaring desperately.
With no time to spare, I sprint over to the cauldron and up the two concrete steps beside it so I can have a good look at the contents inside. The pink liquid is hot—so hot it’s uncomfortable to even get too close. The streaming smoke is acrid and bitter.
A heavy helping of purple dust drops down over the monster behind me. That thing is huge, though. Will little Lola have enough power to take him down? She failed to put a troll to sleep during exams—twice. This thing has to be twice the size of the average troll.
The minotaur swipes at her, but she expertly darts away each time.
I breathe the potion in, trying to use my nose or intuition or anything to figure out the key to this puzzle. The smell makes my head spin, so putting down the monster is certainly a possibility, but even touching this potion with a ladle or vial could be dangerous.
I don’t think that’s the right answer.
“It’s waiting for something,” I say my thoughts aloud. The potion is incomplete. I can feel the tension in the air around it. I’m not sure how completing a raging potion like this could help us. Maybe it’ll turn into acid and burn a hole through the ground we can use to escape? Okay, wishful thinking.
I rush over to the shelves filled with ingredients. Most of them look to be decoration rather than usable. There are books made of plastic or filled with gibberish. There is a vial filled with gummy worms—yes, literal gummy worms.
Maybe this is all pointless and was set up by an actual buffoon, and I’m over here trying to think logically. They want us to suffer. They want the entertainment.
The answer is beneath the potion,the voice says.
I blink and look back at the cauldron. There’s a gentle glow at the bottom of the copper base. Is it possible the potion isn’t dangerous and we need to jump inside to get to the magic beneath it? Not a theory I want to test without solid evidence. In all likelihood, I’d be boiled alive for my efforts.
A massive boom shakes the ground, and I spin to find a puffy cloud of dust rising from the minotaur lying flat on the ground—and Lola dropping, her body limp.
