I rolled my eyes. “Just behave yourself and focus on the job.”
“I loove it when yoou’re a bossy sheila,” he drawled.
“Matt.”
“Okay, okay.”
A footstep landed directly behind me, and something grabbed the belt I’d looped around my waist.
“How well can you see in this?” I asked Sebastian.
“Better than you. Worse than him,” was his reply.
“You good back there, Mari?” I asked.
“Yes. I can see well,” she answered.
So, I was the only one blind as a bat. I sighed and tightened my fingers on Matt’s fur just as he stopped.
“Ookay. Big crack in the flooor here. Stay right behind me.”
I groped around in the fur. “Am I right behind you?”
“Noot as cloose as yoou cooould be...”
“Matt.”
“Serioously, Angel. Hoold oonto my tail, and foollow where I lead.”
Something thick and furry slapped against my arm, and I grabbed at it. It twitched left, and I obediently stepped that way. Sebastian moved in my wake.
“That’s it,” Matt encouraged.
A gust of cool air hit the side of my face. “How deep is that crack?”
“Noo idea,” Matt confessed. “Noot as deep as this next oone, I doon’t think.”
“Geez, Sebastian,” I complained. “Aren’t you afraid of losing students in here?”
The Bellati took a moment to respond. “We have nets in place. Doesn’t mean the falling experience would be pleasant.”
“Good thing Cara and Bess are healers,” I snapped.
“It is fortunate,” Sebastian agreed.
I refrained from saying what I desperately wanted to, but only just. Then Matt froze.
“What’s wrong?”
“Scent’s dodgy here,” he stated. “Mixed up with other things.”
“Can you sort it?” No matter how hard I squinted, I still saw precisely nothing.
“Not sure. Stay close.”
He crept forward. “Crikey. The ground ismoving.”
All the small hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Because I sensed that we were not alone.
