can see where it picks up again.”
“Good. Can’t wait to see his face when we catch up with him. Then, I’m going to rip it off and feed it to him.”
“If we have bodies left to do all that in,” I muttered.
“We will.”
Ian’s confidence made me stop climbing to look over at him.
“What do you think your brother’s been doing this whole time?” Ian said, with a short laugh.
“I’ve been a little too busy to wonder,” I said, stress making me snippy.
“Yes, well, Phanes will be sorely disappointed to discover that his friends won’t get to wear our bodies like he intended. Must be why Phanes didn’t object to me coming down here with you. But the last thing I did before passing through the veil was send a message to Ashael so he could come collect our bodies. Didn’t trust leaving them there when anyone could come upon them and do whatever they pleased.”
I remembered Ian turning his back before joining me in the netherworld, his muscles flexing as he did something neither Phanes nor I could see. His “message” to Ashael must have been sent via tactile spell. Good thing Ian had sent it off before we crossed into the netherworld, or it wouldn’t have worked.
And him doing it spoke volumes. “You suspected that Phanes was going to double-cross us, didn’t you?”
I hadn’t trusted Phanes, but I’d been so desperate to save my father—and so confident that Phanes couldn’t best me with my soul-ripping ability—that I hadn’t been as cautious as I normally was. What was the saying? Always pride before a fall? I had proved that, ending up at the bottom of a netherworld pit because of my overconfidence.
“Yes.” Ian’s tone turned to ice. “Though I did think we had the advantage down here with your lineage, so Phanes surprised me by using the netherworld’s traits against you when I thought they’d work in our favor. But, yes, I knew you were in danger as soon as you ran off with him. Felt it more strongly than I’d felt any of my prior premonitions. That’s why I did what I had to do to get here. Knew you’d die otherwise.”
What had he done to get here? Before I could ask, Ian’s expression brightened.
“Ah, now I see the ledge. Let’s not tarry any longer. Our clawed, toothy friends are back, and we’re too far up for you to swipe them away with an acid wave again.”
He was right. I could hear them skittering up the cave wall, though slower now. Maybe they knew we’d killed several of their brethren and were warier as a result.
Ian and I quickly scaled our way over the remains of the ledge. Once there, I kept one hand on the chain lining the wall while the other held my clawed weapon. Ian did the same, and we had to use those weapons four times before we made it to the tunnel. Once we were there, the strange creatures gave up pursuit.
It was easy to determine which fork in the tunnel to take. Phanes hadn’t bothered to get rid of the bioluminescent streaks in the rock that marked our way back. His arrogance was a blessing in this case. When I saw him again, I’d thank him for that . . . before ripping his wings off.
Ian had already called dibs on ripping Phanes’s face off, so I’d leave that to him. Who said I couldn’t be agreeable when the situation called for it?
We ran down the tunnel, the faintly glowing blue-green streaks leading the way. When they ended and we came upon the narrow strip between the “wailing waters,” as Ian called them, we slowed down, but only slightly. Then, once we were past them, our steps quickened again.
One more tunnel, and we’d be back at the entrance to Phanes’s world—
I stopped and yanked Ian back so hard, his feet skidded out from under him. He recovered without falling, managing to fling me behind him in an admirable, if annoying, display of grace.
“What is it?”
I pushed him away until I was at his side, not his back. “You don’t see them?”
His head swiveled around as he snapped the two severed creatures’ hands up until their claws extended outward like unsheathed knives.
“See what?” he asked tightly.
This couldn’t be a case of diminished vision. The scorpions were right in front of us, big as well-fed lions and twice as vicious, from the way their stingers kept stabbing at the ground as if saying, Come closer,