"Yes, hi, hello," I said. “Um, go ahead, Chimbrelis."

"What kind of wizards can jump higher than a mountain?" the Chimbrelis asked in its melodic voice.

Shock crashed over me. Addison had not changed the riddle since I'd last heard it! It was unlike him, an oversight like that. He did use the same favorites often, but I was not expecting to be so lucky.

I supposed it was because he hadn't meant to let me listen in on his conversations with Rufus since the day I'd been noticed.

"All kinds of them," I answered, "because mountains don't jump."

The Chimbrelis chimed. To my horror and excitement, Rufus appeared. He looked just as surprised to see me.

"Son of a hobgoblin, what are you doing here?" he said. "Your old man actually let you use this thing?"

I wanted to punch the smirk off his face. "Addison's not here."

Darkness flicked across his face. "Where is he?"

I swallowed my sudden nausea. "He's—he's not feeling well."

"Oh?" Rufus said. "What's wrong with him?"

He tried to sound concerned but I knew he was faking it. All he wanted was the pendant.

"None of your business," I said.

Rufus frowned. "Don't be rude to me. I'm asking to be nice."

"He isn't here and he can't talk to you." I attempted to nonchalantly hide the pendant behind my back.

"Wait a second," Rufus said. "What's that you've got in your hand?"

"What? Nothing. I have to go. Addison will talk to you later." I tried to break the connection by waving my hand over it like I'd seen Addison do. The only problem was, he's a magic-user and I'm not, so it didn't work.

"C'mon, Chimbrelis." I said. "Hang up."

Rufus laughed, sharp and scornful. "That was pathetic. I've seen better tricks from a cut-rate stage magician, pulling coins out of kids' ears."

"Chimbrelis, can you make him go away, please?" I asked. "Please hang up!”

"Show me what you're holding and I'll break the connection," Rufus said.

Fear pooled in my belly. "No."

Rufus's blue eyes turned icy. "It's my pendant, isn't it? Show me."

"NO!" I shouted, shocked at myself for doing so.

"Fine," he said with deadly calm. "Then I'll just get it myself, like I've been intending to do anyway."

I had no idea if he was capable of summoning the pendant or if he was just bluffing, but I couldn't stick around to find out. Terrified, I started to edge away from the Chimbrelis. I didn't dare turn my back on him. I'd slam the office door shut and he could scream all night if he wanted to. Addison would have to deal with him when he came home, recovering or no.

"Hey!" Rufus shouted. "Where are you going? Get back here!"

To my dismay, he began chanting in the magical tongue. I couldn't understand any of the words, but they sounded aggressive and angry. Even his eyes looked like they were glowing with rage.

Clyde happened to be strolling back into the office at that exact moment. The furry idiot walked right between my feet and tripped me.

I stumbled backwards and landed hard on my butt. The pendant flew out of my hand. It clinked to the floor a few feet away.

A swirling, black vortex opened up in front of me. He'd done it. Of course he had. I was stupid to think otherwise.

Something rattled tinketytinketytinkety against the floorboards. I quickly glanced down. The pendant!

It shot forward toward the vortex. I slammed my foot down on the chain. Instantly, I was submerged in bitter cold darkness.

A force dragged me forward. I don't know how long my journey lasted for, but perhaps my terror made it seem longer than it really was. Without warning, I tumbled out onto a concrete floor, bruising my knees.

"What in the Netherworld?" said an aggravated voice.

Rufus. My stomach dropped all over again.

He snatched the pendant off the floor, where it lay just inches away from my feet. "You little dummy," he snarled. "Now what am I going to do with you? As if I don't have enough problems."

Anger stabbed at me. "Dummy? You're the one who pulled me along for the ride. You're not too bright yourself, and you're rude on top of that."

He crouched down and studied my face. His bloodshot eyes were glazed. He had several days' worth of scruff and his hair needed to be washed. I sniffed but didn't smell any alcohol on him. Otherwise I would've thought he was drunk.

"Listen, you little brat," he said. "I've a good mind to toss you in my dungeon and let the rats chew off your face."

I scrambled to my feet. "You wouldn't dare do that. You'd better send me back before Addison finds out I'm gone. Or else he's gonna kill you."

Rufus towered over me. He was a lot taller than he appeared in the Chimbrelis. "I have a lot going on here that you know nothing about, and you're wasting my time with your idiotic threats. Stand next to the stone table and don't touch anything unless you want your hands blown off."

I realized we were in his laboratory. His Chimbrelis stood off to the side, cradled in a black base with clawed reptilian feet. The walls were hung with tapestries of demons and imps dancing with a bunch of naked people. Bookcases and wood cabinets lined the walls. There was an old boiler in the back corner.

I was standing next to a giant stone slab which hulked in the middle of the room. There were towels and sheets folded up on a shelf, and an iron rack to one side loaded with vials filled with red liquid. It definitely wasn't paint.

I must have made a disgusted face because he spoke up. "It's what you think it is."

"Gross," I said.

He smirked. "Don't judge. You don't know what I'm using it for. Now go stand next to the table like I told you."

Grudgingly, I did as he ordered. "Why do I have to stand here? You got what you wanted. You need to send me home soon, before Addison freaks out."

"You're not going anywhere yet," Rufus said.

Curiosity got the better of me. "Are you ever going to get to the part where you explain what's going on?"

"None of your business," he said. "Just stay there and keep quiet."

I sighed. "You sounded desperate when you were chatting with Addison."

His expression turned dark. "Because he was making it extraordinarily difficult to get back what's rightfully mine. You'll have to thank him for switching the ownership of the pendant over to me, by the way." He walked to the opposite corner of his lab and crouched down.

I tossed my gloves onto the stone table and craned my neck to see what he was doing. Rufus began muttering in a deep voice. More magic, but what?

I tiptoed along the edge of the slab to get a better look while wondering what he used it for. A lot of magic-users liked stone tables because they cleaned up easily and they couldn't be set on fire without a lot of effort.

A nagging thought took hold at the back of my mind. What if he used it as a sacrificial altar? There weren't any rusty-colored bloodstains on it, but that didn't mean anything. Blood could be washed away. I pictured Rufus dumping buckets of soapy water onto the slab, sloshing around with some unknown victim's blood in sudsy puddles on the floor.

Just as I glanced down to see if there was a drain in the floor, something exploded. Bolts of purple lightning shot out of the wall. They sizzled and crackled all around Rufus like an electrocuted halo. The force of it slammed him to the floor. He lay in a crumpled heap and didn't move.

My heart almost stopped. "Rufus?" I called.

He didn't answer. Of course not. He just got zapped to death by purple magical lightning, and now I was going to be stuck here in his blood-sacrificial laboratory for the rest of my life, and Addison would probably never find out what happened to me! It would probably send him into a second, final heart attack.

I crept up to his body. He looked like a giant dead bat, with his black robes draped around him. The hot-and-cold-at-the-same-time feeling surged through me. A sour taste coated my mouth. The pendant was still clutched in his hand. It looked unharmed.

"Rufus?" I said again, kneeling next to him. "Please don't be dead."

I wished Addison was there. I wished just about anyone was there instead of just me and the body. How would I get help this time? I didn't even know where I was.

I stared over at the shadowy corner of his laboratory where he'd been struck. What in Ransara was going on over there that could have caused this? There was probably a very good reason why he'd commanded me to stay by the stone table. I had to find out what.

I sneaked to the corner, keeping my feet quieter than when I crept down to the kitchen at two in the morning for a snack at Addison's, past the naked dancing demon tapestries and the rack of blood-filled vials.

I peeked over my shoulder. Rufus was still out cold. There was a water stain on the concrete wall behind me that resembled a demonic face. It felt like he was watching me. This was the spookiest basement I'd ever been in. Addison's was much tidier. He only kept rakes, shovels, and leftover paint in his.

Slowly, I knelt to the floor. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't petrified with anticipation of what I might find. I scanned the whole corner. There was nothing to be seen, not even a cobweb. Then, I saw something flicker. I squinted into the dim corner. Something flickered again, just a tiny movement.

A delicate thread was poking out of a tiny, hairline crack in the concrete wall. The tip of the thread looked like dark mist was drifting off it. You would have needed a magnifying glass to see it more clearly.

I scooted a little bit closer to the thread, so that my nose almost touched it. Maybe there was a small breeze making it move. I was surprised I even noticed it at all.

"I wouldn't get any closer to that if I were you," said a girl's voice.

I jumped back and skidded on my butt, looking everywhere for who had spoken.

"Up here," the voice chuckled.

A ghostly face with dark, button eyes and a sharp, whiskery snout grinned at me from a wrought-iron chandelier. Tiny, pointed teeth flashed in the yellow light.

"Was that you?" I whisper-shouted.

"It was," said the gray face. "Excuse me; I'm Yvette."

She climbed down and wrapped her tail around one of the swooping arms of the chandelier. She held out her upside-down paw for me to shake it. It took me a moment to gather that Yvette was an opossum.