“I like to notice the fine details in case they might be relevant in the future.”

We snuck around a tree and paused, looking at the sentinels. Neither of them were looking our way, and we were too far away to see their eyes. Figuring they hadn’t noticed us, or didn’t care about us since we weren’t approaching them anymore, we continued down the ravine, which, my pouch-wearing demon friend had promised, would lead to a secret path along the cliff face. It was a way to get around without having to go through, and the fastest way by far to get to the heart of the Dark Kingdom.

“Well, here’s hoping it wasn’t a whack job.” I clutched the rocky side and started down the steep, narrow incline.

“It wanted a fanny pack. How sane do you imagine it is?”

“Not cool, Darius. My poor pouch sacrificed itself so we can get to our destination, and you’re making fun.” I shook my head and noticed a cut in the side of the rockface. This path had purposefully been created with sneaking in mind. My kind of people.

My foot hit a rock and kicked it over the ledge. I paused, listening. After an incredible amount of time, it bonked off a hard surface far below.

I flattened against the rockface for a second, looking down at my heavy boots. Only one and a half could fit on the path side by side. Rocks jutted out along the “path,” and I’d have to contort my body to get around them. A couple hundred feet away, another rockface looked at us, wondering what the hell we were doing, no doubt. Below, the fake moonlight glittered on a sea of metal points, ready to stick anything foolish enough to take a tiny path along a cliff face and slip off.

“If I fall, I’m using my power,” I mumbled, moving along.

“If I fall, I also hope you’ll use your power. This is…treacherous.”

A spot of black interrupted the moonlight.

I froze and grabbed at the wall. My foot slipped and my weight shifted, tilting me toward the ledge. Darius grabbed me and pulled me back, but his heel slid out from under him. I grabbed his arm and heaved with all my might, stopping his downward progress. He scrabbled up beside me again, and we stood with our backs to the rock, breathing heavily.

A large body glided above us, its wings spread and feet tucked under its body. The dragon’s scales caught and refracted the moonlight in a beautiful kaleidoscope of color. On its back, looking over its shoulder, was that persistent clown.

“I hated clowns before, but now…” Rage pounded inside of me. I could tear that thing out of the sky. Pull it down and send it careening to the spikes below.

Easy, love, Darius thought, probably feeling me tense. Any large use of power might alert the sect above us. They are not so far away, and they have sentinels.

I knew that, I did. But my split personality didn’t care.

The dragon pumped its wings, pushing a little higher into the faux-sky. The clown jerked its head left and stared at something. The dragon pumped its wings twice more, putting on a burst of speed.

A roar shook the rockface, and not from Rainbow Dragon.

“Another one?” I whispered, trying not to shake. That deep-throated dragon roar—I was pretty sure it was another dragon, anyway—rooted fear deep inside me, like that (now headless) demon I’d encountered in the edges. “They must not be super rare.”

Darius didn’t say anything, just breathed slowly in and out. His heart was beating erratically again.

I couldn’t hold back the grin that spread across my face. “That scares you, does it?”

Rainbow Dragon curved away from the sect, disappearing over the other cliff.

“That magic is powerful.” I saw Darius gulp as he said it, and my smile spread. “I wonder if a mage can re-create it.”

“You nearly peed yourself. Admit it, you are scared of something.”

“I am scared of a great many things, and most of them concern your safety.”

My smile slipped. “Foul play, getting gushy when I’m making fun of you. That’s below the belt.”

We looked up, but the overhang of the cliff prevented us from seeing anything. Rainbow Dragon hadn’t circled back.

“Do you think it saw us?” I asked.

Darius shook his head, not yet moving along. “They would have to know to look for this path, which seems unlikely. They’d probably assume it was a cliff face.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Yes. Hurry, we don’t want to be stuck here in case the other creature decides to inspect.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Two other sects, a few lovely oases, and another indeterminate amount of time later, which was probably a half a day instead of the months it seemed to be, Darius and I came to a weary stop. We had just cleared the last tree in a sort of evergreen forest, and an endless desert stretched before us, flat and empty except for a couple dead trees that dotted the hard, cracked ground.

I braced my hands on my hips and looked back the way we’d come, desperate to lie down and take a nap. But here we stood, on the edge of the worst place to dodge a dragon attack.

“That demon didn’t seem too smart, and so far it’s been right, but it’s starting to look like it had an elaborate plan to strand us in the middle of nowhere while that dragon flies overhead.” I pictured the map in my head. “We are close, too.”

Darius stared out ahead of us, and I knew he was going through our options. Thankfully, he’d stopped including me in his chaotic thought-fests. There was clearly a reason for his placement in the vampire hierarchy, and it wasn’t just his age.

“We haven’t seen the dragon in a while,” Darius said.

“True.” I rubbed the ground with my toe. The top flaked off, dry and brittle. “But if the clown thinks we’re going to the castle, it might pass over this area. This is one of only a few entrance points on this side of the underworld. We’ve taken a lot of time getting around those other sects. And that’s not even taking into account that there’s clearly no cover by design.”

Silence fell again, and I waited for Darius to put those new tidbits into his think tank.

He shook his head. “It is impossible to tell how long it will take to cross.”

“This has to be an illusion.” I looked up at the gray-blue sky showering down yellowed light. Puffy white clouds hung above us, getting lower and smaller on the horizon, emphasizing the impression the desert went on forever. “Unless you were wrong about the underworld, and it has pockets of infinity like you say the Realm does.”

Darius continued to stare out at the desert, not answering. He’d probably already thought about that. Then replayed his conversation with Ja, including all the little nuances most people wouldn’t notice.

It was exhausting me, and I wasn’t actually doing anything.

“I can try to tear this down, like I did on the bank of the River.” I pulled my lip through my teeth. “The trick is to imagine what I want to do and then let my dark passenger, A-K-A my power and the reason I’ll end up in the looney bin, do its thing.”

“Why would he put an illusion here?” Darius asked softly, squinting now. His wheels had to really be turning. “Is he trying to turn people away, or does he simply wish to watch who approaches his castle?” He rubbed his chin, something I’d never seen him do.

“Perplexed, huh?” I nodded and started forward. “Let’s just handle this my way.”

“That is exactly how you will end up revealing yourself.” His roving eyes caught up to me.

“This is going to show my extreme ignorance on most things magical worlds, but…cameras don’t work outside the Brink, right?”

“No, not that I have seen. Something happens to them when they go through the gates, even those powered with batteries. Light in the Realm is created magically. I assume the same is true of the light here, such as it is.” He looked up at the glow above us that never wavered or changed wattage.

“I’d love to know how,” I said, gesturing toward the fake sun. Despite the danger, I half wanted to see if I could use my magic and try and get the blueprints.

“As would I. In the Realm, it is usually a flame or an orb created with magic. Elf magic, pixie magic—there are a few creatures that can achieve the effect naturally. But the magic has to be stored in an appropriate container—it’s tied to a specific source. I don’t see that here.”