The Lost Knight (Volume III) The Lost World

Chapter 1: Oh, F...

I stand frozen with my hand still resting on the knob of my closet door, staring at the Orb that's glowing with blinding white light from my dresser. I glance back at Lenox. Pegasuses obviously don't make good guard dogs. Why isn't the light waking him? Maybe I'm dreaming.

A droplet of sweat trickles down my cheek. I don't feel sensations in my dreams. My heart is beating fast, too. I take a deep breath to calm it. I'm not dreaming.

It's been two years, and that stupid marble has done nothing. Actually, it's been over fifteen years, if I count what Auntie used to do to me. There's no way I'm seeing what I'm seeing. There's no way it's finally sprung to life.

I leap out of the closet before my brain formulates a plan. I pound on Albína's door. "Wake up!"

When I hear a thud from inside her room, I know she's awake, but I don't wait for her to answer before I run back and snatch the Orb off its candlestick stand.

Lenox is wide awake now, so he follows me into the closet to investigate. However, he doesn't fit, but he's doing a nice job of blocking my exit.

I push on his chest. "I'm fine! Back up. You've got us both stuck!"

He won't move until he's sure I'm okay, but eventually, with a lot of shoving, he backs up. He only takes a step when he stops because Albína is elbowing him sideways in order to get in.

"What is it! What's going on? Are you alright?" she shouts while wrestling with Lenox. He flaps his wings in protest, but she ignores him and keeps shoving.

"Yes! Yes, I need to get Lenox out of here. I need to get out of here!"

She squeezes half of her body through the doorway, wedging herself and Lenox tight.

I take a deep breath. "I'm fine." I hold up my arms as if that proves something.

Albína wiggles out, and Lenox jumps back, wanting to get away from the both of us.

As soon as he clears the doorway, she rushes back in and grabs me by the shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"Yes! It's this!" I hold up the golf ball-sized Orb and show it to her.

She squints at it and then turns her confused gaze to me. She sounds disappointed when she asks, "What about it?"

"Look!" I shout, shoving the Orb in her face.

She drops my shoulders and studies it. Then her questioning eyes raise to mine, but she doesn't say anything.

"Don't you see?" When she doesn't answer, I shout, "It's glowing!"

"It's glowing?" she repeats.

"You can't see it? You can't see it glow! Why can't you see it? It's nearly blinding, and it's lighting up this whole area."

She grabs me by the wrist and yanks me out of the closet. "We need Master Sarpedon!" she shouts, charging toward the door and dragging me behind her.

She must be frightened because I've never seen her run before. Neither of us has a bathrobe on, and although I've never thought they were necessary, she always says it's inappropriate to be caught in one's pajamas. Plus, she still has her nightcap on, and no one, not even me, is supposed to see her in her nightcap, especially with a clump of tangled red hair peeking out at her nape. She doesn't seem to notice or care that we're making quite a racket, which is worsened by the giant purple pegasus clip-clopping behind us.

We reach the Temple in record time. She pounds on the door with a shocking amount of force and yells so loud she scares Lenox. "Open this door!" she shouts while she beats on it like she's trying to knock it down. "Open it now. Do you hear me? I said open it!"

I would open it myself, but I'm afraid the malevolent skull door might hurt her because she's not a Knight.

Eventually Gurador answers, wearing a crumpled blue striped nightgown that highlights his goat legs. His usually perfectly quaffed and coiled hair is sticking up in all directions, making his little curly horns look even smaller.

"What do you want?" he snaps.

He's about to lean on the door frame and say something snotty when Albína shoves him to the side and charges past him, dragging me with her.

"You can't—" is all he manages before he has to jump out of the way of the charging pegasus.

Albína easily whisks past the skull door that Gurador mistakenly left open, and I helplessly trot behind her with my wrist still imprisoned in her surprisingly strong grip.

Lenox follows closely on my heels, with his hoofbeats echoing even louder in the confines of the narrow Temple hallways. The noise is amplified by Albína's screeching demands to see Master Sarpedon and Gurador's thunderous insistence that she—and most certainly a pegasus—can't be here.

Albína doesn't seem to notice the cacophony as she marches our raucous group down the hallway to the Great Hall. It's only when Gurador commands the lights on that she finally halts. She stands in the center of the Great Hall and wordlessly takes in the grandeur of her surroundings.

"You cannot be here!" Gurador shouts.

"Look!" Albína shouts back as she holds up my wrist, stopping a few inches short of his nose. She might actually punch him using my fist. She almost does when she shoves my hand super close to his eye in order to better show him the Orb I'm holding. "You ruscla! Get your master! It's an emergency!"

Gurador pales and stammers, but before he can speak, a familiar snake-like voice behind him says, "This Hall is old. It has seen many strange things. I am honored to be the first Grand Master to ever have a pegasus on the altar."

I wince when I see my giant boy smelling the various items on the table. "Lenox, get off of there!" I yell and whisper at the same time. He obliges, but not before knocking an expensive candelabrum to the floor.

Master Sarpedon doesn't even glance in Lenox's direction as he slithers over to us. "The Orb, it is speaking?" he asks calmly.

"Um. No. It's glowing," I say, embarrassed that I've allowed both Albína and Lenox to violate the Great Hall of the Knights Templar over what could be nothing.

Master Sarpedon squints his gold snake eyes at the Orb and then at me. "How is it glowing?"

"It's just intense white light. But the light it gives off is blue. Or, like, the shadows it makes are blue. I don't know how to explain it," I say, defeated by not really seeing anything and making such a big deal about it.

"Hmmm," is all he says. After a moment he adds, "Can you see anything else?"

I shake my head. "No, just bright light. It's like looking into a light bulb. It's painful."

"Hmmm," he says again. Everyone is silent for several minutes until he raises a slender red hand and says, "It would be best if we leave the Great Hall. Gurador, locate a better room. A sizable one. We are going to have company."