“Ever the optimist,” Elyria said, squinting against the orange glow coming off the lake. Beside her, Gael’s head was tilted down as she stared at the flames licking the shoreline.
The heat was oppressive—a feverish wall. But it was also the one thing standing between them and the exit. And Elyria was more than ready to leave everything that had happened during this trial behind.
“Gael?” Elyria asked. She had little more than a foolish hope that Gael—now a ghost of the fiery fae she’d once been—might be able to help. Elyria asked anyway.
Gael didn’t respond.
Cyren bent low, whispering in Gael’s ear, urging her to help, to react, to say or do anything.
She just kept staring into the fire.
“All right, so our resident flamecaller is not an option at the moment,” Elyria said, wishing the brightness she forced into her voice would cover the sour taste at the back of her throat. “Anyone have an idea for how we get from here”—she gestured at the ground, then pointed to the gate across the fiery lake—“to there without her?”
“Can’t you shadowstep us over there?” Cedric asked Nox.
“Sadly, I cannot,” replied the nocterrian, not really sounding all that sad about it. “It’s too far to make it in one step. I’m not powerful enough.”
Their crimson eyes landed on Elyria at the last part of their sentence. She avoided their gaze.
Cedric stepped closer to the edge of the shore. “So, we aim for the island in the middle first, then.”
“If it’s made of what I think it is, that would be even worse,” Nox said.
Cedric’s brows drew together. “Why’s that?”
Zephyr drew in a fast breath. “Ob-obsidian.”
“And that matters because . . . ?”
“Gaia’s tits, boyo,” Thraigg muttered. “Yer mystical tutelage is a bit lacking, innit?”
Elyria bit back a laugh at the truth in those words. Hadn’t she thought as much before they’d entered the labyrinth? Whoever was responsible for Cedric’s magical training seems like they’d beenawfully selective.
“Arcanian obsidian has powerful properties,” she told him. “Essentially heatproof. Spectacularly malleable, if you know how to work it.”
Thraigg released a grunt of affirmation. “My people have crafted many fine blades and even finer pieces of armor from obsidian.”
“But it’s also known to have rather . . . temperamental . . . reactions to magic. Though its impact is, blessedly, limited,” Elyria continued.
“To shadow magic, specifically,” Nox added.
Cedric’s brown eyes widened. “So, shadowstepping to the island might mean...”
A gravelly noise emerged from the back of Thraigg’s throat, and he spread his fingers wide, throwing both hands outward in an exaggerated burst—an imaginary explosion. He wiggled his fingers in the air as he lowered his palms, mimicking scattering debris. “Exactly.”
Cedric’s throat bobbed. “We find another way to get across, then.”
“Brilliant,” Elyria said. “Why didn’t anyone else think of that?”
Cedric’s face scrunched with irritation, and she hid the grin that threatened to emerge.
“It’s just, how exactly do you propose we do that? We still can’t fly.” Elyria flared her wings to make her point before she cursed inwardly at her insensitivity. Luckily—or perhaps concerningly—Gael didn’t seem like she was even listening. Elyria quickly cloaked her wings anyway, then turned to face Kit. “An ice bridge, maybe?”
“Sounds like the knightling here isn’t the only one who needs a magical refresher,” said Kit.
“Not even in magic,” grumbled Nox. “Just physics.”
Elyria resisted the urge to toss obscenities at the nocterrian.
