Then he snatched my hand and we were gone, leaving behind the soothing warmth of the cozy orange apartment and emerging into a world of darkness.
It took my eyes a moment to adjust as I looked for the sky and could not find it. Everything around us was pure blackness. Not a trace of light to be found. But we were illuminated somehow. Just us, just our bodies. I raised my hands and peered down to find shining specks of light glinting from my fingertips.
“So you know you’re not a monster,” Cass whispered as I continued my examination. “And so you remember not to become one.”
I shuddered as Lark approached an enormous door. He pulled a blade from his cloak and sliced his hand right down the middle. I gasped but Cass held me back as he pressed his palm to the ancient door. He muttered something in a language I did not understand and then pulled an obsidian block from an internal pocket of his coat and pressed it against where his hand had been, the bloody print left behind glowing red against the endless night.
With a groaning hiss of a mechanism that had gone mostly unused for centuries, the doors pushed inward and we strode inside. I stuffed my hands into the sleeves of my sweater, trying not to shiver. It was cold here and damp. Like a cave, but darker. Somewhere, far away, a beast I couldn’t see let out a howl that chilled me to the bone. Shivering increased, I hastened forward to walk closer to Cass who had waved her hand and summoned a ball of light which she was using to light our way through the dark passages. Lark led on ahead as though he knew the way so well he didn’t need the light.
Snarling emanated from a pit below, accompanied by hissing and the savage gnashing of teeth. I gasped, stumbling back a step and tripping on a rock. Rook caught me against his chest as I righted my footing.
“Careful there, beautiful,” he warned lowly. “Wouldn’t want you getting lost in here.”
“Don’t be a prick, Rook,” Cass called out from up ahead.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, princess,” Rook muttered back, falling in beside me as we continued our walk.
He ushered me to the inside protectively, against the rising cliff of rock rather than next to the drop off into an enormous dark pit. I glanced up at him, wondering if his protective nature was instinctive or if Lark had commanded him to treat me this way.
“Thank you for earlier by the way,” Rook said a moment later, so quietly I had to look up to make sure I’d heard him correctly.
“You don’t have to thank me,” I told him. “I imagine I owe you a great deal more than a healed leg.”
“You don’t owe us. None of us. We did what we did because it was the right thing to do. And I would do it again.”
“Even with the banishment?”
“Especially with the banishment,” he said and then turned to me, grinning mischievously. “Mortal women can be pretty fun when they let loose.”
I snorted, the sound echoing around in the cave. Lark glanced back over his shoulder and I fell silent, Rook grinning like a fool all the while.
“Medusa isn’t so bad,” he whispered then, sensing my discomfort. “I’m sure whatever you’ve heard about her is worse than she really is. Mortals have a tendency to exaggerate.”
“But she can turn people to stone.”
“Delights in it.”
“So should I avoid looking her in the eye or—”
“It doesn’t work like that. It’s magic, same as everything else. I won’t let her get to you.”
“Thank you.”
“Let’s stop thanking each other now, agreed?”
I smiled up at him.
“Agreed.”
“Lights out,” Lark called suddenly from the front of the line. The darkness seemed to close in on us even more so than usual as we stopped at the foot of the incline we had been descending. And Lark’s voice was just as dark when he made the announcement that brought all of my fear and anticipation right back to the surface. “We’re here.”
Chapter twenty-nine
A Warden of Hell
Ournarrowwalkalongthe cave wall ended abruptly at a craggy opening and we entered a chamber bathed in soft moonlight, though there was no moon to be found and no opening above us. Stalagmites rose from the floor, some of which were nearly touching their stalactite brethren hanging above them. They were formed from a mineral that looked strangely volcanic. I brushed a finger along the smooth surface and froze.
“Is this—” I started, eyes widening as I looked around in wonder. “Are we inside of a volcano?”
