When she reached the base of the little hill, Alice took a deep breath and held it, running the last few yards to the boulder. There was a book there, as she’d thought, a fat volume bound in black, cracking leather. Even with the Swarm’s toughness, the scorching ground was painful, and she hopped from foot to foot while she flipped the cover open. The magical text crawled under her eyes for a moment, and then Alice read,

She found herself in a dark space, blessedly cool . . .

She found herself in a dark space, blessedly cool compared to the hellish scene she’d left. This was a relief—she’d been expecting something even worse—and she took a few moments just to breathe and let her feet cool against what felt like gritty rock. The air was still tinged with the scent of sulfur, but without that choking, nasty smoke. After a while, Alice began to realize it was not merely comfortable but actually chilly, and she fumbled her shoes and socks back on.

Letting go of the Swarm, she called on the devilfish, summoning a ghostly green glow around her hands. She was in a roughly circular tunnel, which stretched into darkness in one direction and dead-ended behind her in a chaotic jumble of fallen rock. Set among the tumbled stones was a portal-book, identical to the one she’d just opened.

Only one way to go, then. Alice took a moment to shrug into her coat. No percentage in hanging about.

She set off down the tunnel at a brisk walk, hand held aloft to light her way. For all that it was almost perfectly circular, it didn’t feel like a man-made space. The passage twisted and turned, apparently at random, though the general trend seemed to be downward. There were no forks or side passages. Alice, feeling with her new senses, couldn’t find the strange, slippery fabric that would have meant she was in a labyrinth.

Just because it’s not a labyrinth doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous, of course. Ending had said the fire-sprites had some sort of agreement with Geryon, but hadn’t given her much else to go on. First I need to find them. Getting their help comes after—

The sound, a grinding, crunching noise like someone chewing a mouthful of ice, gave her a split second of warning. Something shifted off to her left, and she turned her head in time to see a whole section of the rock wall come apart, dust billowing toward her in a cloud that stung her eyes. Alice backpedaled, one hand coming up to protect her face, and at the same time she instinctively wrapped the Swarm thread around herself, just before something big and heavy came through the still-swirling dust and slammed into her with the force of a boulder.