Crickets on a crab! She was planning my demise. I just knew it. But why had Grym gone along with the outing? Yeah, we’d had a little spat. But we’d had those before. Would he really want me squashed beneath an ogre for revenge?
“…find the thief.”
I realized Sebille had been blathering on while I was panicking. I’d probably missed something important. “Huh? What thief?”
Sebille rolled her iridescent green orbs at me. “You really need to learn to pay attention, Naida.”
I bit down on my tongue to keep it from shooting out between my lips and branding me a five-year-old in an almost 25-year-old woman’s body. Instead, I tucked a strand of my long brown hair behind one ear, fixing a hostile blue gaze on my assistant. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“Mm-hm. Try to stay with me now. We need to find out who broke through the vault’s wards and how they did it. This trip to the ogres is the first step in that process.”
“I get that we’re focusing on the how. But I’m just as worried about why they broke in.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment, as if she was actually considering my argument. Then she flipped a hand in dismissal. “One thing at a time, Naida,” she said, mind firmly closed.
I sighed. Sure, I could pull rank on her and return to Croakies. But part of me knew she was right. If someone had an artifact that could break into the toxic magic vault, nothing…no one…would be safe.
“Tell me what I’m about to walk into,” I demanded in my most authoritative voice.
Sebille snorted. “You’ll see.”
Bat blisters! I was really going to regret the current excursion into ogreville. I just knew it. I tugged out my phone and hit the button to call Grym.
He answered on the second ring. “Are you there yet?”
I pulled my phone away from my ear and frowned at it. “Am I where?”
His voice wobbled suspiciously as he responded. “Did you meet the ogres?”
I never got a chance to respond. In a single beat of my heart, three things happened almost simultaneously.
One, something massive slammed into me from the right, my body sinking into it like the softest down pillow and my nose overwhelmed with the scent of flowers.
Two, my traitorous assistant popped into sprite form and shot skyward, presumably to avoid the third thing that happened.
Another pillowy attack slammed into me from the left, squishing me between the two sweet-scented bodies with only my eyes, nose, mouth, and hands free. My hands were plastered together in front of me, my cell still clutched between them.
I could hear Grym’s voice like a distant life line I couldn’t reach.
The dual-sided pressure smooshed my cheeks together, making my mouth pucker unattractively. The pillowy forms shook and rumbled like giant bowls of jelly in the middle of a rock slide.
“Help!” I whispered as my chest tried to expand under the onslaught.
The sprite dropped from the sky to hover in front of me, her tiny face alight with hilarity.
“Princess Sebille,” the deeper voice said in a reverent tone. The mass shifted in what felt like a bow.
“Call me later,” said Grym’s tiny, disembodied voice. The distant sound of a call disconnecting had me fighting to pull in a breath so I could yell. “No!” But the sound puffed out like a gasp.
The mass on my right jiggled with delight. “Ah, pretty Princess. Welcome, welcome!”
Sebille didn’t seem at all offended by their deference. Her grin stayed locked in place on her long, freckled face. She was enjoying my dilemma way too much. “Naida, meet Rick and Maxine.” Sebille lifted her gaze to a spot two feet above my head and grinned. “Kids, this is the Keeper of the Artifacts, Naida.”
The jelly jiggled harder. More verbal rocks tumbled down the mountainside.
“Herro,” I said through my smushed lips. I scanned my eyes from side to side, trying to see who’d made me into the squishy center of a giant s’more, but all I could see was a vibrant green mass on one side and an eye-searing pink wall on the other. “Ith nithe to meet you,” I said.
The warm, soft bodies jiggled some more, the flowery scent almost overwhelming in my squashy cocoon.
I wiggled my hands, which no doubt looked like disembodied limbs sticking from the massive bellies pressed against me.
Sebille flashed to full size and grabbed the phone from my limp, benumbed fingers. She snapped a picture and quickly sent it off. I had no doubt it was going to Grym, a.k.a. The Rat.
The walls shifted slightly, releasing my arms up to the elbows, and I tried to shove away. But the ogres closed ranks again, cocooning me in pillowy claustrophobia.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Keeper!” boomed the neon green mass. I was pretty sure the ground shifted under my feet from the bellowing quality of its voice.
“Charmed!” boomed the bright pink wall in a voice that had a slightly more feminine tone to it.
I tried to discreetly elbow them to gain some breathing room. My elbows sank deep into their squidgy forms. “Do you think you could give me some…space?”
The two massive forms jerked in what I could only assume was surprise. They shifted a couple of inches away, just enough to allow feeling to return to my arms.
“Sorry, Keeper,” said the ogre I assumed was Rick due to the deeper, rumbly tenor of his voice.
“So sorry,” echoed Maxine.
An enormous pink hand found my head and slammed into it, shoving it forward in a painful assault. I gasped. I’d have fallen to my knees from the blow, but I was too wedged. “Umph!” I objected.
“Oh. Oh, Rick, I’ve broken her,” lamented Maxine in supersized tones.
I shook my head, rubbing the back of my neck. “No. No, I’m fine. Just, please, step away.”
The flower-scented live vise finally opened enough for me to breathe. Cooling air wafted over me. That was when I realized how hot it had been, smushed between them. My body
