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“You know, I don’t think that many people would look at it that way,” Ribit says thoughtfully. “At least not someone as young as you are.”

“You’re the same age as me or thereabouts,” I retort with a laugh.

“I am nearly six hundred years old. I may look like I’m the same age as you, but even when I died, I was a couple of centuries older than you are now,” she replies.

I face palm, making her laugh as I reply, “Well shit, that should have been obvious. I know that supes age differently to humans, and therefore don’t look their ages. You also already told me that you had centuries of practice at sitting on things, so I should have known that you are a lot older than you look.”

She smiles, looking very amused, “Don’t worry about it, I definitely take it as a compliment that you forgot that I was dead.”

“It’s kind of hard not to,” I reply. “To me you are exactly the same as I am, even though you can stick your head through doors and scare the shit out of me.”

She bursts out laughing, “To be honest, it is such a relief to be able to talk to someone like this. It’s not often that someone can hear me, and no one can see me properly. Mabel is the only one that I can really communicate with regularly, and even then, that’s a bit hit and miss.”

“Well, I’m happy to talk to you whenever you would like,” I tell her honestly.

“Thank you,” she replies. “Okay, let’s see what your men are up to.” She says a spell, and then what looks like a massive screen appears in front of us.

As soon as I realize what is happening on the screen, I panic, “Is that lava? Are they surrounded by fucking lava?”

“Oh fuck,” Ribit exclaims and that’s enough to confirm that what I’m seeing is correct.

Fucking hell.

Reed

“This is not good,” Griff mutters.

“Way to state the obvious, man,” Doc replies sarcastically, making my lips twitch in amusement despite the situation.

The situation is that we are on a shrinking piece of rock, in the middle of a ginormous sea of molten lava. It’s not normal lava either, which would be bad enough, but rather magical lava, which is even more deadly and unpredictable. As if that’s not bad enough, the journey to get here was noteasy, and we’re all injured in some way, although thankfully, none of us is worryingly injured. As always, when we’re in situations that are similar to this, unless it’s a life-threatening injury, we don’t get Doc to heal us, and we won’t until we’re safe. If we did, we would risk depleting his magic and putting him at a disadvantage, and none of us is willing to risk that.

The banks of the giant lake are far too far away for any of us to be able to jump it, so that option is immediately out, and we need to figure out another way to get to the safety of the banks and to complete this trial so that we can get back and check on Neith.

“Are we just assuming that we need to get to that bright spot on the bank in the distance?” I ask, just to make sure that we’re all on the same page.

Evander nods, his expression grim, “It looks like it. I can’t see any other obvious thing that it could be.”

“Unless it’s a trick?” River points out, bouncing on his toes and looking more excited than worried about the situation that we’re in.

At least there’s nothing new where he’s concerned. He’s still the same old River, no matter what kind of situation that we find ourselves in.

“Let’s just focus on figuring out a way to get over there and out of the huge lake of lava first, before we worry about whether it’s a trick or not,” Ransom suggests.

“Good plan,” River agrees with a smile.

“We could fly?” Raiden suggests and then adds. “It would take a couple of trips since only Reed and Griff can fly, but it might be our best bet to get over there.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea actually,” Van starts and as he opens his mouth, no doubt to suggest that the others are taken over first, the small piece of rock that we’re gathered on starts to rumble and shake hard enough that I struggle to stay standing up.

“What the fuck is happening now?” Doc asks, sounding more pissed than worried.

None of us have the answer since we have no idea what is happening either, but fortunately it doesn’t matter because the cause of the earthquake makes itself known as a giant snakelike creature, its head is the size of two double decker buses side by side, shoots out of the lava before diving back below the surface.

“Shit,” River curses.

“Lava snakes,” Raiden confirms grimly.

“That’s a kind of on-the-nose name for them,” I point out.