Sammi was still struggling with the glamour cast over the relics, and her own burgeoning and confusing powers. Vince could see the pain she was suffering, and knew that Angela saw it too. It was awful to behold, but something they had to ignore, because they both knew that Sammi was doing her best. She was their only hope, and they had no choice but to let her do whatever was needed to break the spell.

Beyond the Fold, Mallian was marshalling his forces. What would happen once Ascent began, no one could know. Vince imagined terrible things—cities laid waste, Kin fighting humans, modern warfare tangling with powerful fairy magic in the valleys and hills of eastern America and the wide skies above. Much of it was beyond imagining, but he knew that the death toll would be catastrophic.

No version of Mallian’s Ascent would be peaceful.

The clock ticked, and with every step that Vince took, he felt an uncertain ending drawing closer.

Dastion had been busy beneath the ground. His mines were deep, the tunnels twisting left and right, up and down. Larger galleries had been carved from the rock of the land, with columns left standing to support the curved ceilings. Here and there he’d taken time to carve images into the stone walls, strange glyphs telling tales Vince had no time to understand. It must have been difficult for Dastion to adjust to his new life. As well as leaving his human existence behind, it appeared that a deep, complex race memory had been carried in his Kin bloodlines, and he was telling his own story through digging, tunnelling, mining and carving.

The dwarf moved with confidence, handing them torches stored at regular intervals. The brands blazed with a rich yellow light, pushing back the shadows, filling the space around them. Here and there side tunnels headed off into the depths, and Dastion glanced at some of them with a strange longing.

All he wants to do is dig, Vince thought.

Every now and then the tunnels shook. Dust fell around them, and grit, and occasionally larger stones and rocks broke away from walls and ceiling.

“Built to last,” Dastion said, slapping a heavy timber bracing propped across the tunnel above Vince’s head. He sounded confident, but looked less so. Or maybe it was the way torchlight reflected in his eyes.

Dastion led them deeper, down a series of spiralling staircases and across several narrow rock bridges that spanned cracks in the land. Vince was drawn by the dark spaces beneath these bridges, and he found himself pausing and looking down. On the third crossing he glanced up to see Dastion and Shashahanna watching him, his eyes full of understanding, hers unreadable. Vince looked back to the depths and dropped his burning torch.