She and Ryber reached the center of the Ring, where the mud dipped to its lowest. A floor waited there—one Stix hadn’t noticed the day before with the lake atop it. Now, there was no missing the ancient flagstones, nor the orange tabby sitting at the heart. Red-furred and ragged, she licked her paw, grooming as if nothing of interest happened around her.

Stix had never minded the six-fingered tabby, but in that moment, she hated her. “Help us!” she shrieked. “Isn’t this what you were made for? Here are all the rodents you could ever want to destroy—”

A rat leaped onto Ryber’s leg. She yelped and whirled around, leg flinging out. But it wasn’t the only rat. Three more had reached her and were climbing up with fangs out.

Stix blasted ice onto the beasts, but they thawed almost as quickly as they froze. Kahina’s heat would not be denied. Ryber fell. Stix fell too. Their hands came apart, and Stix thumped back first onto the muddied flagstones. She punched and kicked and wriggled at rats, and she banged against the stone.

Once. Twice. Thrice. On what would have been the fourth bump against the wall—as two more rats leaped toward her face—Stix hit the stones … And then sank through.

Darkness swallowed her. Ryber screamed, and the world of the Ring vanished around them. They plummeted for what felt an eternity, her stomach stretching long and her brain crushing inward.

Then Stix hit more stone, and Ryber crashed down beside her. Rats landed atop them, so Stix kept kicking and punching and wriggling. One landed beneath her fist; she felt its skull crunch. Another went flying off her when she finally grabbed its scruff and threw. And the last, still attached, suddenly screamed and fled when a light flared.

Stix screamed too, more burst of sound than actual scream. She expected guards or Kahina and flames and more rats, but in the several moments it took for her vision to adjust, she found neither. It was simply a Firewitched lantern, ancient in style and strangely familiar, revealing a small stone space around them.

Stix and Ryber lay at one end, and at the other was the orange tabby, looking very pleased by the rat now dangling from her mouth. The other rats were nowhere to be seen, save the two Stix had crushed. They rested, bloodied and dead, several paces away.

Ryber groaned, and Stix rolled to her friend’s side. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Ryber waved her off, eyes shuttering as she took in the room around them. “What is this place?” Without waiting for an answer, she crawled unsteadily to her feet.

“I don’t know.” Stix rubbed at her eyes. Without her spectacles, Ryber was a vague blur circling the room. “The voices refuse to speak to me anymore.”