“Never.” Lucien’s low voice is in my ear. It’s supposed to be comforting, but I turn to look at him and his gaze is heavier than comfort warrants, probably because I used the words “me” and ”gone” in the same sentence. I can’t help but remember the suspicious look he gave Fione and me before we left her to talk to the ancestor council.

He knows? No. He can’t. I’ve been careful—singing the song-poem in my head every time we touch. He suspects, but he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know I’ll never really be gone.

“Luc won’t shit-talk you.” Malachite hefts his pack higher. “But I will. Because I have the good sense to.”

“Is that what you’re calling your inborn urge to make fun of people you find attractive?” Lysulli’s voice resounds. “I thought ten years would mature you, not keep you exactly the same.”

From what I’ve seen thus far, beneathers don’t really blush, but that doesn’t stop Malachite’s pink cheeks from trying not to. The color gathers around the three scars I gave him, now almost entirely healed, the long, puckered marks starker white against the flush. And it reminds me.

“I gave him those scars.” I point at them and smile at Lysulli. “So if Malachite wants to make fun of me, he can make fun of me. You know?”

Lysulli looks between the beneather and me, then turns away with a disbelieving scoff that sounds suspiciously like “upworlders.”

When they’ve gone ahead, Malachite breathes out a single word in my direction. “Dolt.”

I trot over to his side, blinking innocently. “You called?”

“I think he means to say ‘thank you,’” Lucien offers.

I act shocked. “What is this ‘thank you’ you speak of? And why have I never heard it in beneather?”

Fione and Yorl shoot each other smirks, and Malachite huffs and starts striding so long it takes all my leg-length just to keep up with him.

The Dark Below isn’t so dark near Pala Amna.

The brightmoss ensures that, but there also seems to be more natural light clustered around the city—reflections on water from little bioluminescent creatures and flora that live below, or above. Maybe that’s why they built Pala Amna here. It’s most certainly why, when the twists and turns around stone and abyss finally come to a stop, we see the waiting battalions clearly—a small crowd of beneathers armored to the teeth in valkerax bone, with spears and massive broadswords like Malachite’s. They wait patiently, nursing strands of jerky as their commanding officers meander through them checking equipment readiness.

“The fabled valkerax-slayers, in the flesh.” I whistle.

“Hurry up!” Lysulli demands from ahead, waving us over. The closer I get, the more I realize just how many of the two battalions look to be Lysulli and Malachite’s age. Young.