Free The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown by Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson Page A

replied Gilbert, mouth full of the colourless crawlers.
    The animals reached a rectangular room with low ceilings that smelled of charred cedar planks. It immediately brought back a sense memory. Aldwyn wet his lips, thinking of the flame-licked fish he used to cook over the chimney tops in Bridgetower not so long ago.
    Skylar flapped ahead and nearly got incinerated by a sudden blast of fire that shot down from the ceiling. It set off a chain reaction of a hundred flaming jets raining orange from above. She doubled back, with just the tip of her wing smoking, and quickly blew out the still-cindering feather.
    “I should have sent out an illusion first,” said Skylar, frustrated with herself. “I was careless.”
    “I don’t think one of your illusions is going to save us this time,” said Aldwyn. “Did you see that? Even if you tricked one jet of fire, another would surely finish the job.”
    As Aldwyn and Skylar contemplated what to do next, Gilbert began to inch forward, his tongue preparing to lap up more albino ants from a stretch of moss growing out from the middle of the rectangular room’s floor. Aldwyn reached out his paw and stopped him.
    “Gilbert,” scolded Aldwyn, “I don’t think albino ants are what you had in mind for your last meal.”
    “Wait,” said Skylar. “This might be one time when it would be wise to follow Gilbert’s stomach.”
    The tree frog seemed surprised but pleased by this. “It would?”
    “Yes, look – there’s a trail of lichen that winds all the way to the other side of the room. It must have found the only path untouched by the gauntlet of fire.”
    Aldwyn nodded. “You’re right. I’ll go first.”
    “No,” said Skylar. “It was my idea. I’ll go.”
    “Really, I insist,” countered Aldwyn.
    “Nonsense. Besides, fur is more flammable than feathers.”
    Then the cat and bird were talking over one another, with Aldwyn saying, “I’m faster,” and Skylar arguing, “I can fly.”
    “I’ll go!” cried Gilbert.
    They both looked at him.
    “Anything to make the two of you stop fighting.”
    Gilbert took the first jump along the path of moss. When nothing happened, he relaxed a little and leaped again. As his webbed feet touched the ground, a barrage of thousand-degree fireballs landed all around him, but Gilbert remained unharmed. Just as Skylar had speculated, the lichen was a safe zone, immune from the Tree Temple’s fiery wrath.
    Aldwyn and Skylar followed Gilbert, careful not to stray from the lichen path, and wound their way through the deadly trap. With every step, more flames shot out. Aldwyn could feel his skin baking just from the proximity to the extreme heat. The room was like a giant furnace, with only a narrow slit not consumed by the inferno.
    Once they reached the other side of the lichen trail, safe from the fiery blasts, the familiars found themselves in yet another cavernous room. Just how far, wondered Aldwyn, did the inside of this tree extend? There was a calm in the air, and he was quite sure that they had overcome their last obstacle. Across from them stood a totem pole carved from stone. At the top of the eight-foot-tall statue was a double-headed eagle, identical to the crest on Bridgetower’s flag. Chiselled beneath it was a bear, its eyes big and knowing. Below the bear sat a large tortoise whose granite head stretched out from its shell, with a jade bowl resting atop it.
    They approached the idol cautiously. Aldwyn peered into the bowl, and he could see that its inside was stained red.
    “It’s an offering dish,” stated Skylar. “And it looks like it requires a drop of blood.”
    Aldwyn lifted his paw and saw that the cut from where he’d stepped on the shard of skull was still open.
    “At least this cut will be good for something,” he said.
    Aldwyn climbed atop the tortoise’s back and squeezed his paw until a few drops of blood fell into the jade bowl. At once the stone jaw of the bear opened wide and the statue