in the distance. “That Heaven and Earth merger sounds pretty drastic.”
“The Roxil story could be true,” she said, “but the Heaven thing is too far-fetched to believe. Even if Heaven exists, you can’t lasso it and pull it down from the sky.”
“Good point.”
Ashley picked up the duffle bag and checked inside for her photometer. Yes, she had put it next to her nearly empty bottle of water. “You know, I still can’t get over it.”
Walter shifted his gaze to Ashley. “Can’t get over what?”
“Well …” She pushed her toe into the soft turf. “It’s kind of hard to explain, so maybe we’d better get going. Karen’s waiting.”
Walter took a step down into the stairwell. “Give it a try while we’re going down. I’ll listen.” He turned and marched into the dim passage.
Ashley followed, hurrying to keep up with his quick pace. “I guess …” She paused as she tried not to let her voice bounce with her body. “I guess I feel kind of freakish. I can’t get over the fact that I’m the daughter of a dragon.”
“Actually,” Walter said as he withdrew Excalibur from his scabbard, “I’d be surprised if you weren’t.”
“What?” Ashley jumped down two steps at a time to catch up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Walter stopped and turned. “Uh … It means you’re strong and brave, I guess. Isn’t that true of dragons?”
The light from the land above faded away, leaving them with only Excalibur’s delicate white glow. She set a hand on her hip, trying to read his expression, but shadows veiled his face. “Are you sure that’s what you meant?”
“Not a hundred percent.” He moved the sword, allowing the blade to cast its glow over their faces. His eyes gleamed. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you joke around a lot.” Ashley shifted uneasily from side to side as she tried to avoid his piercing gaze. “I’m putting my life in your hands now, so please cut out the jokes for a while. I need to trust every word you say.”
Surrounded by the dimness of the underground cavern, Sapphira stepped up to the column of light, close enough to feel a gentle tingling. Swirling eddies of white radiance spun away from the tall cylinder and kissed her cheek, raising goose bumps all across her arms. Excitement spiked the chill. It was time once again to leave her abode in the depths of Hades and pass through the dimensional portal to the world of the living, but this time in the company of a dragon and the human son of dragons. She smiled at the thought. Now that Jehovah had infused her with internal fire, Hades could never feel like home.
She turned toward her companions, one dragon and one human, and spread out her arms. Tiny flames rose from her fingertips, her emotions igniting her gift of fire making. The sparking tongues of yellow and blue raised an odor of sulfur, but it quickly burned away. “Come closer,” she said. “We probably can’t all fit in the portal, but maybe I can spread out its light and envelop you.”
Behind the tawny dragon, dozens of lanterns lined the exterior of a colossal, cylindrical building, framing her huge scaly body. The structure, the foundation floor of the ancient Tower of Babel, rose high into the upper reaches of the enormous cavern, scraping by one of the longer stalactites and disappearing into the darkness above.
Roxil swung her spine-covered tail forward and shuffled to the swirling portal, grumbling as she lowered her head to Sapphira’s level. “I don’t like the idea of just popping out in the modern world. I doubt that humans will take too kindly to seeing someone like me appear out of nowhere.”
“That’s for sure.” Gabriel spread out both his human arms and his dragonlike wings. “I don’t think anyone’s going to believe that I’m an endangered bat species, either.”
Sapphira touched a dagger tucked under Gabriel’s belt. “I’m kind of nervous about taking that. It was Morgan’s.”
“I grabbed it while we were running in Dragons’ Rest, so I didn’t have time to get a look at it.” He pulled it out and lifted it close to his eyes. “Merlin told me there’s something special about Morgan’s dagger.” He pressed his fingertip on the blade. “There! See? The shape of a cross in the stone’s crystalline structure. It’s staurolite.”
“Staurolite? What does that mean?”
“It’s powerful and mysterious. Merlin said that when this dagger is used for evil, only God can reverse its damage, but when it’s used for good, even