“I see nothing but frozen black lava going… Oh.Those glassy castle-looking things?”If she squinted hard, and kind of looked from the corner of her eye, she could make out the fanciful spires made of such a finely transparent material they nearly blended into the sky deepening in color with oncoming twilight.Only the fae could make something like a refinery look like the spun-sugar candy treats she’d taken the kids.“I’ve never seen a mining facility that pretty though.”
Azul snorted.“That’s because you’re hopelessly human.”
“Aha!”She stabbed a sideways finger at him.“And you aren’t?”
“I never said so.Nobles that consort with fae develop a different—watch out!”
“Whoops!”The ley line plummeted downhill precipitously.She corrected as Katu skidded on a too-tight curve, dangling their collective rear midair for a moment before she helped him dig claws into a meatier section of the ley.The line made a full circle before switching back the other direction as they dropped into the sudden canyon.Which shouldn’t be a thing.Suddenly, there was a canyon!With all that black on black and increasingly dense magic, she hadn’t seen or felt the defile.
“I hate this place,” she observed, concentrating on the wildly curving ley line that descended in daunting angles down the side of the sudden canyon.
“At last, we agree on something,” Azul gritted out.“Please don’t drive us into the abyss.I’m too young to die.”
“How young is that?”
“Not saying.”
“Can you?”
“What—die?Yes!Why these questions?”
He was still being evasive.Not quite answering.She filed that away as they nearly spun off another curve so tight it wouldn’t be legal in a human realm.“Just ticking boxes on my immortal fae test.”
“Even the fae can die from irreparable physical damage,” he gritted out.“Like being flung into an abyss because someone was chatting.”
“I’m just making conversation.Did you need to be doing something else right now?”
“Obviously I’m nothing but a helpless bit of baggage here—”
“Attractive baggage, though,” she put in.
He continued, talking over her, “Butyouneed to concentrate on keeping us alive.”
“Always top of my mind.”Fortunately, the fae carriage chasing them had backed off, allowing her to slow Katu, making the tight curves somewhat less lethal.Then a bad thought occurred to her.Maybe it wasn’t concern for their lives or carriage that had their pursuers confident enough to take their time.“So, if this is a mine—does that make this a quarry pit, not a sudden canyon?”
“I don’t know what a ‘sudden canyon’ is, nor am I a mining expert, but I’d guess that yes, this is the extraction pit.”
“Any knowledge on whether there will be a road back out?”
“Do I look like I have encyclopedic knowledge of the Obsidian Realm?Use your map device there.”
“An astute observer would note it’s spinning like a top and giving me nothing.Also, while I find the way you get even more arrogant and disdainful in times of crisis perversely charming, the reason I ask is that if this ley line terminates at the bottom, as one would expect for some sort of quarry, then we’re trapped.”
“Oh.That would be bad, wouldn’t it?”
“As the sages put it, yes.”She tapped the marcasite channel.“Goldilocks, you read me?”
Nope, the silence replied.
Cha switched to gold.“Bandit here.Anyone out there?”
Silence silence silence.
Just as she’d feared.“All this sodding pixie-dust infested glass is screwing up the magic,” she noted.“We’re on our own.Any brilliant ideas?”
“You should have gone right at the fork,” he said in a helpful tone, actually smiling when she threw him a sour glare.“I can see why you like this sarcasm thing.Like a pressure-valve release.”
“As if you weren’t already the King of Sarcasm.”
