“Let’s go deeper,” Dimitri suggested. “It’s our only choice, anyway.”
I nodded. “If we have to.”
Slater pouted as he left the crumbled fae terminal. “If I had more time, I could’ve figured more out.”
“Maybe you need to be faster,” Dimitri told him.
Slater scoffed. “Sure. I’ll just instinctively know how to use a fae device.”
A ripple went through the wall before it opened like a mouth and sucked in, funneling the air around me and pulling me inside before anyone could react.
“Fuck,”I muttered as the stone wall closed from where I’d been pulled into a dark chamber. I couldn’t hear anything else around me.
Rock had me held tightly, and I couldn’t budge.
I pushed my breath down where my magic dwelled and drew it up with a hiss, coaxing venom through my skin to glow and give me some fucking light.
The thing holding me wasn’t stone; it was an earth fae.
Thankfully, the venom I excreted caused instant death. I’d been wondering if it would work on fae.
He spasmed before dropping to the ground, dead.
It apparently worked on fae.
I blinked at howeasydealing with him was before trudging through the new tunnel with only my venom lighting the way. It wasn’t easy to see.
After only a few steps, I fell through a hole and landed hard in a new tunnel as the old one closed with a sound like a book snapping shut.
“Pretty little poison, are you okay?” Zuko asked, muffled, face pressed into the ground from where I’d landed on him.
Slater pulled me up and into his arms, inhaling my scent as he checked me over. “What happened with the fae?”
“I killed him,” I told them.
“Efficient,” Dimitri said simply, but relief shone in his red eyes. “That’s one less enemy to worry about.”
Slater cursed under his breath, hands flying over the remains of a half-buried terminal. Sparks spat from the stone as he funneled his magical essence to it. The terminal hissed and flickered to life, fae glyphs crawling like insects across its surface.
It creeped me out.
“I got it!” he yelled, grinning like a lunatic. “Suck on that, Dimitri!”
Snakey went into the screen, and a map flared, glowing threads that pointed us deeper into the cavern.
“Artifact located. It’s four turns ahead.” Slater tilted his head, seeing through Snakey before Snakey came back and de-manifested.
The terminal powered down.
“Great work.” Dimitri raised his brows impressed.
Slater stuck his tongue out at him. “Damn right.”
The celebration lasted three seconds before slimes hit the floor.
Two creatures dropped from the ceiling. They weren’t really slimes. They were bioluminescent slugs. They were big,slick, and had sharp teeth.
The creatures lunged for Zuko and Raze, jaws wide as if they were going to swallow them. Whole.
