Our next bout with danger happens the second day on the Drifting Isles. A swarm of oversized hornets attacks when we stumble upon their nest, though thankfully their increased size makes them easier targets. Noli picks them off with her arrows, and Zyneth cuts through any that make it close. I stand by, ready to support if needed, but the nest retreats before I can join the action. The predator—er, Ink—is disappointed by the lack of murder, but I assure it we’re certain to have more opportunities as we climb.

  The third day passes without incident. Attiru delights in fleshing out their three-dimensional map of the Drifting Isles, and Zyneth and I work on ways to improve the artificed spells on his dagger, now that its existence is no longer a secret. He’s pleased that he can test its strength against stone, and I can fix any bits of glass that chip off, since the dagger is made of glass I’ve Attuned.

  “This significantly expedites the process of trial and error,” he remarks.

  We spend much of day four practicing and learning signs. Noli seems to delight in Zyneth and Attiru’s interest in becoming more fluent, and I’m happy to find I’m able to help teach as well—at least as long as the conversation remains relatively basic. Attiru just seems to delight in learning anything new. Zyneth, I think, is motivated by wanting to be able to speak with me if my translator ever breaks. The gesture summons a swell of affection in me.

  As Noli works with the others, I fall back to walk with Rezira. She’s been quieter than usual our entire trip. Something’s bothering her, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what that is.

  “So. How are you doing?” I speak aloud rather than sign.

  She gives me a critical look. “I don’t do small talk. What do you actually want to ask?”

  As blunt as ever I see. “Okay. I wanted to talk about your attitude.”

  If looks could kill, I’d have just been sent back Between.

  “What do you mean?” she snaps.

  “That, for one,” I say. “The hostility. Look, I know we’ve never been best friends, but if I’ve done something to piss you off, I’d like to know.”

  Rezira looks irritated. “You didn’t do anything to piss me off.”

  “Then why are you acting like you hate me?” I ask.

  “I don’t hate you.” Rezira prods me in my chest. “I hate what’s inside of you.”

  Yeah, that makes sense. “Because of what the predator—Ink—did to Noli?”

  Rezira shakes her head. “You can’t even keep the name straight. Why are you trying?”

  “It’s weird,” I agree. “But Noli’s the one who wanted to give it a name.”

  “Kanin, she gives rocks names.”

  That wouldn’t surprise me, actually. “A name is harmless,” I say. “And look, I wasn’t really wild about the idea originally either. But when we were at Trenevalt’s cabin, Noli indicated that she wanted to face her fears. I think naming it is part of that. It’s kind of helping me do the same. It feels a little less alien now.”

  Rezira’s frown only deepens. “That’s what I don’t like. I don’t want it to feel more understandable. It tried to kill her.” Her voice gets quiet. “Maybe she’s ready to forgive, but I’m not.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Then don’t.”

  She gives me a skeptical look.

  “I’m serious,” I insist. “Don’t forgive it. Fine. That’s your choice. I haven’t forgiven it either. I’ve found ways to work with it. I’ve made compromises, and we’ve made agreements. I’m stuck with it, so I don’t really have a choice but to find a way to make this work.

  “But that doesn’t mean I have to forgive it for the lives it took. For what it forced me to do. I can move forward and still find its actions inexcusable.” I pause, trying to figure out how to wrap up my thoughts. “So, yeah. You can still be angry at it, but that doesn’t mean you need to be such an ass to me.”

  Rezira stares at me, then she snorts. “Sometimes you say stuff that makes you seem smarter than you look.”

  “Right back at you.”

  To my surprise, she snickers at that, slapping a hand across my back. I stumble forward, and only the predator—Ink—keeps me from falling. It flares indignantly at the blatant attack, but I manage to settle it back down.

  Ink. Ink. Why is that so hard to adjust to?

  On the seventh morning, not long after we’ve summited another floating ledge, Zyneth finally has good news.

  “The arrow is leveling off,” he says, examining his Locate spell. “Our artifact is probably on this level or the next one. We might be able to recover it before nightfall.”

  “Wonderful,” Noli signs. “Do we know what we’re looking for, yet?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Zyneth says. “Without anything else to go off of, I probably won’t know what it is until I’m standing on top of it. Literally, in this case.”

  “I suppose that means I need to find a secure location to establish my tracker spell sooner rather than later,” Attiru says. They’d originally wanted to put their tracker in a cave of some sort, to keep it out of the elements, but Noli had argued against it. Caves were never just caves, in her experience. You could count on something living there.

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  “Guess I’ll have to start being less picky,” they say with a sigh. “I’ll keep an eye out for something suitable and let you know.”

  Zyneth routinely checks his spell as we cross the rocky plateau. The cloth-turned-arrow begins to tip up the further we go, indicating the artifact likely is one more level above us.

  Trees have grown through the stone ruins, carrying chunks of rock up and into their branches. It’s a bizarre sight, but Echo identifies the rocks as cloudstone, which have some sort of lighter-than-air quality to them. A byproduct of the storm arcana suffusing the Ruins, it seems.

  “Perhaps I should just pick one of these dilapidated buildings and be done with it,” Attiru muses, eyeing the nearby stone remains of a town.

  “We could also look for something on the next level,” Zyneth suggests. “It seems that’s where our goal is. Perhaps wherever we recover the artifact from would be a good candidate for planting your tracker spell. If it’s been all this time and no one has picked it up, then I would expect for it to be well hidden.”

  “Or it’s somewhere highly dangerous,” Attiru points out. They shake their head. “I’ll find something on this level before we ascend. Let’s go investigate those ruins up ahead.”

  After a few hours of exploring the broken remnants of the city, they eventually settle on a patch of stone that might once have been a courtyard. Low walls surround the square, and a giant slab of stone hovers overhead, rooted by vines like a tethered balloon.

  “This should suffice,” Attiru says, crouching to run their hand across the rock. “That floating stone slab overhead looks like it’s sheltered this area from the weather, a bit. Not sure any of my spells will last forever, but this should at least last my lifetime, assuming nothing catastrophic happens.”

  “Oh, well, now you’ve gone and cursed it,” I say as Attiru begins to unpack some paper and brushes. The others set down their bags, too, rubbing their necks and stretching their arms. “I’ve got a terrible track record with Ruins and catastrophes.”

  “You’ve only been to one other Ruin,” Zyneth says.

  “Right. And it was a catastrophe.”

  Attiru dips a brush into a bottle of ink and carefully begins to paint a spell circle on the ground.

  Rezira has stopped interpreting our banter, I notice, because Noli is turned away from our group. She’s looking out across the field.

  I try to follow her gaze, but don’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Heading over to her side, I touch her arm. She glances at me.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  Noli shakes her head. “Not sure. I thought I saw movement back toward that cave we passed earlier. I’ve been keeping an eye on it since, but nothing’s happened. Maybe it was just my…”

  “Please don’t say imagination,” I tease.

  She smiles. “I’ll let you know if I see anything else.”

  “I’ll have Ink keep watch, too,” I sign. It’s already picked up on my unease and is carefully watching our surroundings.

  Noli brightens. “Thank you! Tell it it’s a very good boy for me.”

  “I am not going to do that,” I sign flatly. “Also, it’s not a boy. Or a dog.”

  “I bet it likes head pats,” Noli signs. “Everything likes head pats.”

  I just walk away.

  With Ink on alert, I curiously watch Attiru as they work. I don’t recognize almost any of the runes they’ve added to their spell circle. I guess it’s a different set from what I’ve needed to learn for artificing. Not to mention, their affinity is wood and water—it couldn’t be any further from glass and void. But I still Inspect what they’re doing as they do it, interested to find they’re repeating a lot of the same runes and spell circle designs on their maps as they’re drawing on the stone. They pause every once in a while to channel magic into certain parts of the spell circle before it’s even complete: another technique I’ve never seen before.

  Ink catches a flicker of movement across the field. My vision is on in every pane of my head—it has been since we first landed on the Drifting Isles—so I switch focus from Attiru to the scenery behind us. Noli straightens up. She must have seen it, too.

  What is it? I ask.

  It’s not sure. It saw something bob out of the tall grass for only a moment. I wait, and Ink waits, but nothing else moves for another ten minutes. Then, we see something again.

  A shadow dropping down from a tree to the ground, vanishing into the underbrush. It’s across the field, but not where Ink caught the first flicker of movement. I attempt a Check, but by the time I try, Echo reports nothing is in line of sight. Nervously, I head back over to Noli. Zyneth and Rezira join us, both clearly catching onto our tense body language.

  “I saw it, too,” Noli signs. “And a third one, over there.” She points south of the other two flickers of movements. Neither Ink or I had seen that one.

  “A pack of something?” Zyneth guesses.

  “The sightings have been too far apart to be the same creature,” Noli agrees. “And if we’ve seen three, there’s certain to be more.”

  “We should get out of here,” Rezira signs, nervously glancing around the field. “I don’t like this. We’re too exposed.”

  Ink agrees. It’s on edge. It doesn’t like knowing there are other predators in the area, and it’s only meant to sit here and wait for them to close in. It wants to be out there in the field, launching the first strike before they have the chance to do the same. I can feel its void stirring in agitation—it wants to seize control—but I firmly hold it at bay. For now, anyway.

  “Attiru,” I call. “How much longer?”

  “Just another minute,” they say haltingly. “Almost there.”

  “What do you think?” I ask Noli and Zyneth.

  “We can afford to wait,” Noli signs. “Whatever it is, it’s approaching slowly. And I’d rather not start wading through the grass again without knowing what might be waiting within.”

  “Agreed,” Zyneth says. “Once Attiru is ready to move, I can launch another static attack and hopefully paralyze whatever’s out there. We will need to move quickly after that.”

  “I don’t like this,” Rezira mutters.

  I can’t help but agree.

  The four of us fan out around our little island of stone, watching each direction something might come from. Even though I can see in each of these directions at once, I also remove a few pieces of signing glass and send them to hover at various points beneath the slab of stone overhead, hoping to increase my vantage point.

  Between the panes of glass in my head, and the ones I’m stationing as sentries in the air, I’m basically seeing through ten eyes at once. It’s a little disorienting—especially when any of the floating glass wobbles from a breeze, causing a portion of my vision to bob and swivel. Ink doesn’t mind it, though. If anything, it thinks we should be using vision like this all the time. It has no trouble splitting its attention ten ways. I don’t fully allow our minds to merge, but I do lean on its perspective, its ability to multitask, to keep from being overwhelmed by motion sickness.

  “Over here,” Zyneth calls, at the same time I notice the grass in his direction waver.

  Only a few seconds after that, Rezira also calls back. “Here, too.”

  I’d left an extra set of signing hands by Noli, and I use these to communicate the two new sightings. They’re coming from opposite directions.

  Noli whips her head either way. “They’re surrounding us. I’ve changed my mind. We should get out of here. Tell Zyneth to use his lightning attack.”

  I’m about to relay her message when I catch yet another flicker of movement. Not from somewhere out in the field, but from overhead.

  “Oh, shit,” I say as a beast darts down from the stone that’s floating over our heads.

  It springs right for Attiru’s hunched and exposed back.

  Book 1 of Nye finishes on Wednesday of this week, and starts posting tomorrow!

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