"I don't know, Peeble. Are you sure it's safe?"
"Elle, of course it's safe. Look. No bats, nothing."
I have to admit, I could desperately use a hot bath after everything. The void, the first iteration, the cave collapse, I probably smell like a combination of sulfur and stress sweat. I strip down quickly and ease into the water.
It's perfect. Hot enough to make my muscles unknot, but not so hot it burns. The mineral content makes the water feel silky, and the steam smells faintly of something floral.
"Here, use some of this mineral rock in your hair. Smells like lavender," Peeble says, nudging a smooth stone toward me with one leg.
I pick it up and sure enough, it does. We soak for a while. Peeble adds three more jewels to their shell and I scrub weeks of grime from my hair.
Eventually I start to get waterlogged, my fingers pruning up something fierce. I step out of the pool and notice hot air blowing from a vent in the corner nearby. My own personal hairdryer. I walk over and start squeezing the water from my hair, grateful for how fast the warm air is working.
"Um, Elle? Not to rush your beauty routine, but I need you to grab your clothes and go."
It's unusual to hear concern in Peeble's voice. Real concern, not the theatrical kind. I look up. "Why? You said it was safe."
"I said no bats. I didn't think you were going to piss off the Magmaborn Drakes."
My stomach drops. "And what, exactly, is a Magmaborn Drake, Peeble?"
"Not exactly dragons. More like vicious salamander-wyrms with basalt scales. Very territorial around geothermal vents." A pause. "Which you happen to be standing on."
I look down. Small, serpentine shapes are slithering out of cracks in the rock around the vent. Lava-colored scales, bodies built like eels crossed with lizards, and they are all looking at me. Dozens of them.
They start to hiss.
I yip and jump back, snatching my clothes off the rock where I left them. The drakes start slithering toward us, fast, way too fast for something that small.
"And what happens if one bites us?" I ask, yanking my shirt over my head as I backpedal.
"Well, you see all these beautiful gems on the walls?" Peeble gestures around the cavern with one leg. "Their bite injects super-heated mineral toxins that crystallize inside wounds. You essentially become some beautiful jewelry, if I do say so myself." They glance at the fresh gems on their shell. "Quite fashionable, really."
I stare at them in horror. "You're telling me you're wearing parts of dead fae?"
"Elle, it sounds quite atrocious when you put it like that. Try not to be so negative."
I'm about to spit some retort at them when Peeble cuts me off. "So, how about you use that magic of yours and get us out of here?"
Good idea. I throw my hand up and a wall of thick hedge erupts across the tunnel entrance behind us, sealing it off from floor to ceiling. I hear bodies thud against the other side immediately, followed by angry hissing.
I don't wait to see if it holds. I just run.
We tear through the tunnels, me half-dressed and still damp, Peeble clinging to my shoulder and shouting directions that I'm not entirely confident are accurate. I round a corner and—
A sharp pain hits the inside of my skull.
"Peeble, watch where you point those mandibles."
Peeble scoffs. "I didn't touch you."
The pain comes again, harder this time. I bend over, hands pressed against the sides of my head. It's not Peeble. It's something inside my brain, a signal trying to come through. Static and fragments, like a radio station that can't quite lock in. Bits and pieces of words, a voice cutting in and out.
Then it becomes clear. Crystal clear.
And I hear it. It's me.
Not me-me. Another me. This iteration's Elle. And she's close.
