"Why can't you do it, Fiora?" Kim pointed at her, but when she saw Fiora eyeing up her finger like it was a French Fry she pulled it back. "You're the toughest of us all, and you haven't taken a risk."

  "Dragonspawn blood is too thick to run down the Celtic Frost runes," she explained. "Plus, that thorn couldn't puncture my scales."

  "You just made those reasons up," Kim said. "Right, Damon?"

  Damon pointed his glowing nose at Kim, then Fiora and back before giving a small shrug. "She would know the thickness of her own blood and the armor level of her scales. The only way to test it would be to poke a hole in her."

  Fiora let out another exasperated huff of air. "Stop being a child, Frizzy, slam your hand on that tiny thorn, and open the door to the next room. This isn't a doll party."

  The thorn in the wall was looking a lot bigger now, as if it had grown in anticipation.

  "Fine," Kim said, lifting her left hand—it was not her dominant hand, so a slight wound wouldn't affect her sword skills. "I guess plenty of thorns have poked me today. What would one more hole in my skin do?"

  "Kill you," Fiora said.

  She lowered her hand. "I thought you were trying to talk me into this!"

  "I don't want to polish a goblin dung into a dung-shaped gold," Fiora said. "But it is a minor risk. And there probably won't be any extra curses attached to the thorn. And we'll be one room closer to freedom."

  Kim drew in a breath. She felt stronger since the Note of Power had flown into her body. "Here I go."

  "Draw your sword then, because we do not know what horror awaits on the other side of the door. Ready your eagle staff, Demon."

  "It's Damon."

  "That's what I said. Now, up sword, Kim!"

  Kim upped her sword. Damon upped his wizard staff.

  "Now slam your left hand against the thorn," Fiora commanded.

  Kim slammed her hand. There was the slightest pinprick pain, then a sense of dreamy calmness drifted over her mind. This isn't so bad, she thought. She now tingled from her fingertips to her scalp and down to her toes as if the thorn was injecting a drug into her bloodstream. She thought she could hear the light notes of a depressing song. Then words came into her head, as if the thorn itself were singing them.

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  "When, in her lazy listlessness,

  She sometimes sheds a furtive tear upon this globe,

  A pious poet, enemy of sleep."

  "Hey, it sounds like a Celtic Frost song," Damon said.

  "It's the music of the Metal Gods," Fiora said. "It is everywhere, as I have explained before."

  A few groggy moments later, she became aware that her blood was running down the wall and filling the etched pattern as the song repeated itself. The indentations glowed. She watched it all, detached from the fact that it was her hand. Her blood. She was even detached from the floor.

  She looked down. No, her feet were on the floor. But her head was growing so light it might float off her shoulders like a helium balloon with a consciousness and curly hair.

  The etching was soon three-quarters filled and glowing with gold light. Her blood smelled like flowers.

  Or had Fiora moved closer?

  "Why do dragonspawn smell like flowers?" she drawled.

  "Don't ask stupid questions!" Fiora snapped. "Just bleed!"

  "I'm bleeding perfectly," Kim slurred. Her blood continued to fill the pattern. It sure was pretty. So very pretty. Like a flower of blood and gold. She was becoming one with the door. With the air, too. Floating higher and higher.

  "Now get ready!" Fiora shouted. "We are about to go down a crazy train!"

  "Uh," Damon said. "How can you know what a train is? This is a medieval world."

  Fiora glared at him. "Crazy trains are the trains on a wedding dress that are too long. That's obvious. It's stupid to put such long trains on wedding dresses. They get caught in the axles of wagons and choke the bride. Understand? They're crazy trains!"

  "Uh, yes," Damon said.

  "Good. The door is about to open. Gird yourselves."

  "You say gird a lot," Kim mumbled. "It's a funny word. Gird. Gird. Gird. How about saying 'Get ready'?"

  Fiora's answer was to move in front of Damon, his glowing nose backlighting her mullet and casting a gigantic shadow on the wall. Maybe she wasn't all that bad, Kim thought. She wants to protect him. That's sweet. Fiora might still push either of her spawners into the mouth of a volcano to escape this dungeon, but not with malice in her heart. Fiora cared.

  Kim's blood filled the last indentation of the runes.

  CRACK! The door rumbled.

  "Pull your hand back!" Fiora shouted, then pushed Kim behind her. *She didn't even call me a spawner. Or Frizzy! She's our very own dragon mom.

  The portal disintegrated, and the trio stared into the next chamber.

  It looked a lot like hell to Kim.

  For there were at least twenty seniors in leather jackets and jeans about half a football field away, ululating and dancing wildly. Despite their advanced ages and advanced wrinkles, their movements were sharp and ritualistic, bony faces thrown back in ecstasy as if they were on the greatest geriatric pills in the universe. On top of that, there was a bass thumping propelled by primal drums. Spotlights came from crevices high in the cavern.

  "We're back at the Anvil concert!" she shouted. "But it's way, way worse."