One second I was walking beside Biscuit, checking the Sunstone Map while she sniffed the air and muttered something about shade crystals smelling like cold lemonade. The next second, a wall of spinning orange sand appeared from absolutely nowhere and swallowed us whole.
I tumbled sideways. Then backward. Then sideways again, which I was pretty sure wasn’t physically possible, but the desert didn’t seem to care about physics. The tornado spun me around three times, made a sound like a very large sneeze, and then dropped me face-first into a sand dune that was unfortunately not soft at all.
“I meant to do that,” I said automatically, into the sand.
The dune did not respond.
I sat up and looked around. The sky was pale yellow and blazing hot. The Champion’s Crown — still glowing with its three villain-victories worth of warm light — had somehow ended up on backwards during the spin. I fixed it. Three separate dunes stretched in three separate directions, and Biscuit was absolutely nowhere.
“BISCUIT!”
Silence. Then, very faintly, from somewhere behind the tallest dune: “I’M FINE. I HAVE PLANS. SEVERAL PLANS. HOW MANY DO YOU NEED?”
