“I didn’t do anything,” said Claire crossly. “Jenny, tell him.”Jenny shrugged apologetically. Claire looked at her, confused, and then to me.“She’s lost her memories, has no idea who we are, can’t believe I’m her boyfriend.”“Oh. Well, I can see it would be hard to believe that. It would be hard for anyone to believe it.”Didn’t take her long to get back in the swing of things.“Can you give us a quick recap?” I said. “We’re on a bit of a clock. Gullen’s soldiers will be goose-stepping in here any minute.”Claire wiped the tears from her eyes. “We landed in a forest near here, the three of us.”“Yo’ haven’t seen Dudley?” asked Flossie.“No. He isn’t with you?”“Speed it up, we don’t have time,” I said, which got me dark looks. I ignored them and spun my finger. Being strung up by Gullen was vastly superior to listening to all this chit-chat.“We landed hard. The trees broke our fall, but Maurice got hurt really bad

“No,” said Flossie. She stepped out in front of me, hands on hips, determination on her face. “We’ve got to find Dudley. We don’t have time to play with the likes of yo’.” She was cross and didn’t seem to care in the least about what Gullen might do to her.“Ah, I see,” said Gullen, a little taken aback by the pint-sized hurricane blowing his way. “He’s the tall boy, is he? I was wondering where he’d got to. Perhaps I can help you locate him. I do have extensive information gathering services at my disposal.”It sounded like a reasonable offer. We had literally no idea where Dudley was or where to even start looking. Gullen could be very useful, if he had a mind to be.“Your services aren’t good enough,” said Flossie very flatly.“I assure you—”“It were your brilliant idea to send us to Monsterland in the first place. Then yo’ made us take that mad bint who nearly got us all killed. That’s how good your services are. Not very.”The mad bint sh

People don’t remain the same. You can’t. Even those who are obsessed by a certain time in their life, the music, the clothes, the hairstyle — in the end they become a parody of themselves. All those middle-aged guys rocking out at AC/DC concerts aren’t reliving their youth, they’re trying to avoid their present. And there’s no way to do that for more than a couple of hours.You change. It’s better to embrace it and treat it like an upgrade. Level up. Of course, just because you learn things and come to new conclusions, doesn’t mean you’re a better person — change doesn’t always equal improvement — but learning new things is often a route to personal growth.Take me, for example. I used to be terrified of big monsters. Let’s be frank, I used to be terrified of small monsters. I used to lose my shit hunting rabbits. Now I was in a clearing full of ogres and assorted other beasties, and running away and hiding was no longer at the top of my list. Sure, it was still in the to

The search for Biadet proved fruitless. Not really surprising — she could have been five feet away and we still probably wouldn’t be able to see her. If she planned to make life difficult for us, I had no doubt she would succeed. She could also go back to Dargot and report us to Gullen, which would have unpleasant ramifications.My instinct, though, was that she was still around. I didn’t think she was going to let Laney get away with sucker punching her like that. And as long as her focus was on her rival, it gave the rest of us a chance.“We should leave,” said Gabor. “There is no point looking for the dark girl. If she does not wish to be found, she will not be.” He had only just met Biadet, but he’d already sussed her ability. His own ability was no joke, either.The thing about this world was that it killed most of the people brought here, but the ones who survived managed to do so because they learned how to be deadlier. Hardest tutorial mode ever.“Le

We entered the dark tunnel that led into the palace, which was a sort of tiered pyramid covered in flowers. The tunnel was dark and smelled of peat or loam or whatever you call the dark stuff they chuck around on allotments.I lit a ball of light, keeping it fairly dim so as not to attract too much attention, and followed Biadet. She seemed to flicker in and out of shadows, although that might just have been because of the way the glowing ball bounced around over my head.“This is exciting,” said Laney. “The warrior princess, the deadly midget and the Dragonslayer, entering the inner sanctum. Legends will tell of our feats.”Even in the gloom, I could see her eyes glinting.“I’m not a dragonslayer. I’ve never killed a dragon, and I don’t intend to. They’re just big, dumb animals. And Flossie’s the one who handles them. You’re encroaching on her area of expertise when you call me that, so please stop.”Laney took out her sword in a sweeping movement, t