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We didn’t speak more I traveled down, down, down, until the air puffed from my lips in smoky whorls That wasn’t norn that these weren’t norick in various crystals, glowing red and blue and silver The stones would be good for various spells, I knew instinctively I resisted the urge to dig them out of the walls

The path became steeper, nearly vertical in places, and I braced ht th; its gangly limb shouldn’t have possessed that kind of tensile power The deesture, and I stepped away before my unease could insult the creature further It had dealt with us in good faith; I had no cause to distrust it other than its obviously alien nature

“We must climb from here There will be no more easy path”

Greydusk tied the trusty rope around a rock forht down then, no reeted h the tunnels

This ties, just an endless slide I zipped Butch all the way intoI’d ever done to step off the wall into darkness and just let h to reach the bottoh I couldn’t see it Butch whined as I went down, a canine study in

When I landed, the demon said, “Not much farther now”

Chance folloith my purse looped around his neck, and Greydusk reclai of the journey Then he gave

We went toward the water we could no longer see; it was al to the point that I expected to see molten lava at the next turn To ress I’d expected the gate to look atelike, but this was just i beneath it

Greydusk produced a shi red jewel fro I’d ever seen,what it was, but then he whispered an incantation in dee that lent itself to quiet sibilance He set the ge up, radiating outward froem to enco a path in the air with eachup to fill the space between the scarlet streaks that split the dark

“Now!” Greydusk ordered “Dive now!”

Maelstrom of Doom

Into that? Seriously?

Before I could think better of it, I took a running leap and flungto s curtain of water caught h it like a doorway The ift, and it was like being boiled in oil I landed, gasping, and I was somewhere else

Not in the caverns

I peered into my purse to check on Butch He popped up and shook hi wildly As far as I could tell, he seemed fine

“You okay, boy?”

He yapped in the affirmative

I laughed “Wanna do it again?”

Butch cocked his head as if to say, Are you crazy, lady?

Well, yeah Maybe Probably

A sickly sun shone overhead, but the whole world seeray, a universe done in charcoal and chiaroscuro A thin trickle of a strearew a tree barren of greenery In its spindly boughs perched a thing that wasn’t a bird, but ht have been their evil cousin It had skin instead of feathers, like a hairless cat, leathern wings, a small red beak, which was full of tiny, sharp teeth, and beady, nosy eyes that tracked my movements as I pushed toout the bottoickal perspective, it iven it was symbolically linked to journeys

Overhead, the evil avian chirred with unsettling interest

“Shit,” I said

Before I could worry about bird-thing’s curiosity, Chance tumbled out of a rent in reality, siated the de Greydusk to join us Then the ht as the only brightness in this otherretched vista

“You all right?” I asked, offering Chance my hand

“That was…” He shook his head

“Right?” There was just no adjective to describe that trip

“What was the deal with the ruby?” I added to Greydusk

“It was a soulstone,” the demon replied

Chance raised a brow “Did it have an actual soul in it?”

Please say no Please

Greydusk inclined its head “I did say that passage between realms required power and sacrifice”

“So you destroyed soet us here?” Horror overwhelion you followed, destruction of a soul meant the end of that path No one