But I could see it all as clear as day, and it chilled me far more than the water did, even though the lochness was only protecting us as I’d asked it to. Maybe Seleste was right. Maybe I’d paid enough tolls for the lochness to think of me as a sort of pet, the way I did it. Or maybe the monster really was my friend, for whatever reason.

The lochness’s attack seemed to go on forever, although it couldn’t have lasted much longer than a couple of minutes. But the Draconi guards must have finally retreated out of the monster’s reach because the tentacles slid beneath the surface of the water, and the river slowly calmed until the current was as soft and steady as before.

Under the bridge, in the blackness, the four of us remained still and frozen, barely daring to breathe, much less move.

Finally, I heard the steady thud-thud-thud-thud of boots smacking against stone, as though someone were pacing back and forth along the street above us.

“They have to be dead.” Blake’s voice drifted down to me. “No one could have survived that. Not down there so close to the river. The other cars have come. Let’s get out of here before that, that thing decides to attack us again.”

The remaining guards quickly chimed in with their own murmurs of agreement, wanting to get away from the bridge and the lochness as fast as possible. More footsteps slapped against the street, and car doors slammed shut one after another. A few seconds later, the crunch-crunch-crunch of tires sounded, and several vehicles drove away, the rumbles of their engines fading to nothingness.

Slowly, the four of us relaxed, although we still didn’t move from our spots under the bridge.

Behind me, Devon shifted.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Something’s digging into my back,” he muttered.

“Mine too,” Felix chimed in. “Do you think it’s safe for us to move now?”

I stared out over the river, but I didn’t see the lochness’s tentacles or its blue eyes. “I think it’s gone . . . for now. Besides, we can’t stay here all night.”

I stepped away from Devon, and he pushed away from the wall. Beside him, Deah and Felix did the same thing. Devon and I had managed to hang on to our stolen swords, Deah still had her own weapon, and we all raised them back up, ready for another attack, while Felix fished his phone out of his pants pocket. It still worked and he used the screen as a flashlight and held it up to the wall.

Coins had been driven deep into the stone, all of them in neat rows, stretching from the bottom of the wall all the way up to the top and then across the underside of the bridge over our heads. Quarters, mostly, with some nickels and dimes mixed in. But no pennies. I guess the lochness preferred the way the silver shined, since all the coins gleamed as though they had just been polished.

At first, I didn’t see any order to the rows, but then I realized that symbols had been scratched beside some of them—vines, flowers, trees, and more, many of them looking like Family crests—almost as if the lochness had used the coins like a kid with a piece of chalk.

“The lochness,” I whispered, pointing to the symbols. “It looks like it actually keeps track of who pays its toll.”

The others squinted, but they didn’t have my sight magic, so they couldn’t see the faint marks, not even with the light from Felix’s phone. But the longer I looked at the symbols, the more I noticed that one kept appearing over and over again—a five-pointed star.

The Sterling Family crest.

It was scratched on the wall in several places, as well as on the underside of the bridge. One, two, three . . . I lost count of the number of stars, but it looked like my mom and I had given the lochness more coins and had paid its toll more times than anyone else. Maybe that was why it had helped me again tonight. My mom had always told me to pay the tolls so the monsters would leave me alone, but I’d never considered that there could be something more to it than that.

“There has to be thousands of dollars’ worth of coins here,” Deah whispered.

I thought about telling the others about all the stars on the bridge, but I didn’t know what to make of the symbols, or how I felt about them right now, so I decided to keep it to myself. Besides, what really mattered was that the monster had protected us from Blake and the Draconi guards, so I was going to consider all the coins money well spent.

“Come on,” I said. “I’m all out of quarters, so let’s get out of here before the lochness decides that it wants more tribute tonight.”

The others nodded, and Felix used the light from his phone to guide them out from under the bridge and toward the riverbank so they could climb back up to the street. But I lagged behind my friends, staring out over the river again. I didn’t see anything, so I turned to catch up with the others.

A long, black tentacle hovered in the air right in front of me.

I froze, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t get around the tentacle, and the others were too busy climbing the riverbank to realize what was happening. Besides, they couldn’t have saved me from the lochness anyway.

The tentacle slowly moved back and forth through the air, almost as if it were a person gesturing for me to come closer. I eased forward one step, then two, then three, until I was less than three feet away from the lochness.

The tentacle kept waving back and forth, creeping a little closer to me with every passing second. I stood absolutely still, not wanting to do anything to upset it. Finally, the tentacle reached out and touched my shoulder, almost as if it was giving me a pat and making sure that I was okay. Then it retreated and started waving back and forth in the air in front of me again, waiting for me to make the next move.

I hesitated, then stepped forward, reached out, and gingerly ran my fingers over the tentacle. It was cool and wet, but not unpleasantly so, and the lochness’s skin was much smoother than I’d expected, almost like damp velvet. My attention seemed to please the creature, and the tentacle leaned in to my touch, like a dog wanting me to keep on scratching its ear. So that’s what I did.

The river started rippling again, but the motion was calming rather than threatening, and I actually found myself enjoying the steady rush of water slapping against the shore—

“Lila!” Devon called out. “Are you okay? I can’t see you under the bridge.”

At the sound of his voice, the tentacle waved at me a final time, then sank down below the surface of the river. I tiptoed over to the edge of the ledge and peered down. Two bright, sapphire-blue eyes stared up at me through the water. My gaze locked with the lochness’s and the creature’s emotions flooded my chest. Sly satisfaction at protecting me and my friends from Blake and the Draconis. Calm respect for the way I always paid its toll. And most of all, aching loneliness that was slowly being overcome by warm happiness and pride that it was finally communicating with me. Maybe monsters needed friends too, as crazy as that sounded.