“That dirty thing?” Xtelle sneered. “You want me to get in that dirty thing?”
“No one would have found it,” Bathin said. “That’s not how it works.”
“Are you sure the stones you left behind in the Underworld are still there?” Rossi asked. He was also dressed all in black, including his eye patch. His clothes cut close to his body, but I had a feeling he had multiple weapons hidden on him.
“No. But there are options.”
“The king wouldn’t have destroyed them?” Myra asked.
Avnas snorted.
“What?” I asked.
“The king doesn’t care if Bathin left stones behind,” Avnas said. “The king doesn’t…it is difficult to explain.”
“He’s blinded by his own power,” Xtelle said, with something that sounded a lot like a dreamy sigh. “So much passion. So much force.” Another sigh. “But unfortunately, even an explosion gets boring after a while.”
“That’s…not helpful,” I said.
“He doesn’t see me,” Bathin said, “my stones, or any of you, or any of this,” he waved generally at the world around us, “as a threat.”
“What about gods?” Jean asked.
“He sees them as minor inconveniences,” Bathin said. “Something to bargain with to get what he wants. Which, in this case, is good for us.”
“We’re not bringing gods,” I said.
“We won’t need to,” Bathin agreed.
“Time,” Myra said, “is slipping. We need to go.”
“But a moss agate?” Xtelle whined. “Couldn’t you have used rubies or diamonds? Something more suited to my status?”
“Status as the ex-queen who’s hiding as a pink pony with a horn in a podunk beach town in nowhere, Oregon?” Bathin suggested.
She huffed. “Be that way. A semi-precious gem would have been adequate.”
“Moss. Agate,” Bathin said. “Take it or stay behind, Mother.”
“Why are you even coming along, again?” I asked. “Bathin can show us where Ryder’s being held.”
“Well, it’s not because I left some of my favorite jewelry behind,” she said. “Really, Delaney, how shallow do you think I am? As if a mere fortune in treasures, when I have a totally unfair outstanding fine I’ve been charged to pay, would convince me to trot back to the realm I once ruled. Shame.”
She pushed past all of us to Bathin.
“Take me first,” she demanded. “I despise group-rate travel events.”
“Everyone at the same time,” Bathin said. “We begin in this stone, then I’ll take us to the Underworld. I should be able to get us close, very close in two or three jumps.”
Hogan raised his hand.
“Yes?” Bathin asked.
“Any advice for a first-time demon stone traveler?”
Bathin grinned. “Don’t fight it. You’re not the first Jinn...”
“...half,” Hogan said.
