We stop for a rest. Rose holds up her bottle light and I see her smile. “Yes, you did, Arthur. It honked really loudly and Candyfloss was not expecting it. We never saw him again after that.”

I can just about picture this happening: Candyfloss’s shocked expression, and how he walked off in a huff.

“And Rose, Bendy Joan went after you jumped out on her,” says Win. “You sat in a tree waiting for the perfect moment, then—bang!—you pounced like a ninja.”

And then, even though we’re exhausted and almost certainly being chased by wolves, Rose starts laughing. “I got her real good!”

“You did,” says Win, slapping her on the shoulder. “You took her to stealth school.”

Rose’s laughing stops abruptly and she looks down the long dark tunnel. “I don’t think honking noses or jumping out of trees will work this time,” she says. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

We start to run again, the light bobbing along the walls of the tunnel. “I really hope this tunnel leads somewhere,” I say.

“It might take us back to the Vampire,” says Win. “Maybe Mitch will be waiting for us, and she’ll have overpowered Crowky and got the Box back!”

Maybe, I think, but this tunnel really doesn’t feel like it’s leading us back to the Vampire. It feels like it’s taking us deeper and deeper into the mountain.

Chapter 39

Just when we’re thinking we can’t run any farther we see a blue light up ahead. Rose puts her bottle in her bag—we don’t need it now—and we run toward it.

“We’re coming out of the mountain!” shouts Win.

But when we burst out of the tunnel we realize we’re still inside the mountain, in a vast chamber of ice. Passageways lead off in all directions and long, thick icicles hang over our heads. All around, ice glitters. It’s beautiful and quite bizarre. Columns of sunlight beam down on us from holes high in the ceiling.

“It feels warm,” says Rose, turning in her own spotlight of sunshine.

“We’ll be out of here soon,” I say, mainly to reassure myself. The mountain that saved us from the wolves has started to feel like a prison, but feeling the light on my skin has given me a rush of hope. “Rose, have you still got that compass?”

We discover we’ve been running north so we decide to keep going in that direction. North might be taking us farther away from Mitch and the ship, but it’s also taking us away from Hati and the wolves. The last thing we want to do is bump into them.

“This way,” says Win, pointing at a low tunnel at the opposite end of the chamber.

“Let’s go,” I say, but Rose doesn’t move.