Chapter Twenty Four

**Leo**

Enid had been gone two nights and a day now, and I watched the sun rising on day two outside my office windows. The full moon was tonight at midnight and we weren’t any closer to solving the strange riddle in the poem.

I hadn’t been back to our room. She wasn't there, so I couldn't go. I slept in my office, kind of anyway, as I did more laying awake as despair crashed through me. In the dark of the night, when I couldn’t talk to anyone or keep myself busy, the disturbing thoughts crept into my mind. What could they be doing to her? My sweet mate. Bleiz whined, overwhelmed with sadness at the loss of Skadi. He hadn’t spoken a word since they’d been taken.

Gideon had done this for three weeks when Eris was taken. I had a new respect for him, and his resolve to keep going.

I shifted on the couch, disturbing Hades, who was asleep curled on my shoulder. He meowed angrily.

“Sorry,” I told him, petting him softly.

He didn’t leave my side now, and spent most of his time sleeping. He was as much of a mess as I was.

I could see the glow of lanterns out in the yard, shining up into my window. My brother’s army, more massive than expected.

We were well over a thousand soldiers now, with more on the way. All the packs sent all the warriors they had available, and all the Alphas were here as well.

The fae had arrived in larger numbers than expected as well, determined to help Eris, who had saved their Princess.

Sprites, who were usually private creatures, nearly impossible to find, had joined as well. Apparently, relations between them and the Fae King had improved since the battle at Xeron’s keep. Pia, the sprite girl that had been imprisoned there, had acted as a diplomat between their people. They were now willing to stand with their cousins, the fae, and fight against the dark forces of the world.

Daro would return today with more unicorns, and Eris had called on Wren, who would also arrive with as many harpies as were willing to come.

River and Rhia were doing their part as well, as more and more witches arrived daily. Sometimes, whole covens of ten or more witches arrived at once. I had seen one older looking woman chastise River and Rhia relentlessly, like they were small children, for losing the Pythonissam Viridi to the enemy. River had not argued, only agreed, that they were failures.

Now, if we could only figure out where we were all going.

I looked at the whiteboard in my office where I’d written the poem Cass had brought. I’d looked at it a million times in the last day, determined to unlock whatever secret it held.

*Under the soft blue skies*

*Lives a monster that never dies*

*Urgent to find him, someday they will*

*Red blood will run, he’ll drink his fill*

*Under the soft blue skies*

Suddenly, a loud thump on my balcony alerted me to his arrival. He burst through the door, breaking the lock. He was naked, not taking time to put his clothes on after he shifted.

“Woah, Cass, what the hell?”

“Little lion,” he said. “I think I figured it out.”

I sat up, earning an angry hiss from Hades.

“What? How?”

He started rambling. “I was on my couch. And I was watching Netflix because that’s what I do when I can’t sleep. I put on this nature documentary because I thought maybe if I watched something incredibly boring, it would put me to sleep and it worked because I dozed off. Then, I don’t know why, but I woke up. The show was talking about this mouse. This little desert mouse in Australia.”

I stared at him, wondering for a moment if he’d gone off the deep end, or maybe taken some drugs from the fae.

“Okay,” I said, “what about the mouse?”

“It lives in the arid desert of Australia. Around the world’s biggest rock. Not a mountain, but the single biggest monolith known on the planet. When they said its name, I don’t know, it just made sense. I’ve stared at that poem for three years now, and it just clicked.”

He went to the whiteboard, swiping away all the writing except for the first letter of the first word of each line.

“Uluru?” I read, questioningly.

“I think,” he continued. “That the dragon’s chamber is underneath.”

I grabbed my phone, googling the word, and it pulled up images of a giant red rock in the middle of a red desert. The closest human city was Alice Springs, Australia, 280 miles away.

He ran his hand through his hair. “This has to be it, right? I mean me picking that documentary and waking up at that moment. It all has to be the Moon Goddess telling me to figure it out.”

*Thank you, thank you*, I prayed.

“Cass, you’re a genius!”

I stood and hugged him tightly, surprising him. He patted my back awkwardly, chuckling softly.

“We need to tell Gideon,” I said.

A dangerous flame of hope sparked in my chest. We could save Enid. I knew we could.

We had to. Or I would certainly die trying.