Page 22 of The Fae King's Labyrinth

I ignored him. “Look for a way out.”

I grimaced, scanning my surroundings. This was the worst of my plausible scenarios. I could take down most monsters, navigate mazes, and solve puzzles, but I couldn’t combat intense heat over long periods. And I definitely couldn’t keep another human, much less a cat, alive for long at these temperatures.

A cough wracked my chest. Calypso wisely kept her face planted in my shirt. I adjusted my grip around her so it was more secure and peered through the smoky haze. Tapping into my magic, I tried to use it to see through the blinding smoke.

Then the floor began dropping away. Backing up against the wall, I wrapped my hand in my shirt and started probing the wall as I eased along it to the right.

Then I bumped into the pooka, who grabbed my arm and started tugging. Hoping he had found a way out, I followed willingly. We scrambled along at a half run as the ground rumbled beneath us.

Just as I began to fear that an escape would never appear, the wall abruptly dropped away and the three of us fell through a gap in the stones barely wide enough for one person. The moment my boot heels crossed the threshold, the wall snapped closed with a sharp crack.

In unison, the pooka and I collapsed onto the blessedly cool stone floor, gasping for breath and randomly breaking into brief coughing bouts. Calypso crawled off my heaving chest as I repeatedly inhaled as much musty, but blissfully cool, air as I could manage before exhaling again. Perched next to me in her cat form, she pressed against my side, her heart pounding frantically beneath my protective hand.

“How could a bad portal experience possibly be worse than that?” the pooka demanded before erupting into a hacking fit.

“It can,” I insisted. “We survived. There is no guarantee either you or Calypso would survive a botched portal transport.” I coughed and swallowed hard, throat burning from the smoke. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened.”

The pooka snorted, which set off more coughing. “Now you grow a conscience,” he barked.

“I was never without one. You are alive, aren’t you?”

He laughed. “Good point. You didn’t kill me out of hand.”

“I was tempted to,” I admitted. “Multiple times.” Apparently, there was nothing like a near-death experience to make one confess awkward things.

A distant rumbling signaled that our rest time was at an end. I sat up with a groan, picking up Calypso and tucking her into the crook of my elbow once more. She settled against me with a sneeze and then a purr before she rubbed her head against my shirt. I took it as a gesture of gratitude and surveyed our new circumstances.

“Only one option.” The pooka waved at the narrow passage heading directly away from the lava behind us. “Shall we attempt to get a head start?”

“No running.” I coughed. “At least not for a few minutes if it’s an option at all.”

“Agreed.”

The three of us set off into the darkness, my flame hovering above our heads.

“You still owe me a torch,” the pooka commented.

I gave him a side glance. “And why mention it now?”

He shrugged. “It could come in handy later.”

I rolled my eyes. The pooka’s penchant toward joking was going to get him in serious trouble someday. But then, it was certainly the least harmful quirk he could’ve inherited from his species. At least he appeared to be more honest than most of his kind.

Calypso squirmed. “Merow?” She appeared to want to get down.

I strained my senses. The rumblings of before had ceased. The only life I could detect was far ahead. That didn’t mean there weren’t more traps ahead similar to the lava slide, but for the moment, we could pause.

“Hold up,” I called to the pooka, who was venturing down the corridor a bit farther ahead than the reach of my light spell. “Calypso wants something.”

“What could she want?” he sniped, but he turned back to join us. “A feast? A soft bed? Oh, I know, maybe she wants to get out of this horrible maze!”

“We all want that,” I pointed out as I knelt to place Calypso on the cool packed-dirt floor.

She shifted before I had a chance to back up, giving me a close view of her pained expression and the fear in her eyes before she closed them.

“Might I have some more water?” She coughed hard, a barking sound that instantly concerned me.

“Certainly.” I stood and began working the storage spell. Merely due to all my recent practice, I didn’t fumble the edges of the spell this time and produced the water flask in record time.

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