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Doc nods as we hang out at the back of the group while everyone starts walking. I’m keeping one eye and ear on our surroundings, but I’m also incredibly curious about ghost marks and what exactly Ribit did to him. It seems that it’s more complicated than I originally thought it was.

Keeping his voice low, although Kylen is still bitching loudly so there’s no chance that he will hear us anyway, Doc explains, “Yeah. There has been extensive research into it and how to treat it effectively, but because it’s from beyond the veil, nothing works. We’ve even had necromancers, reapers, and other creatures who deal with the spirit realm, see if they can help in any way, but ghost marks are resistant to everything that we have come up with so far, and we’ve been trying for centuries now.”

“Holy crap that’s pretty insane,” I mutter.

“Yeah, it is, and whatever ghost put that on him must have been a pretty powerful witch or warlock when they were alive,” he adds. “I haven’t seen one that bad for a long time.”

“Well damn,” I reply.

We fall silent as we carry on walking, and I become increasingly uncomfortable with how exposed we are. Looking on the positive side though, anything that tries to attack us will also be exposed. So I guess there’s that at least.

We’ve been walking for a while, and the portal doesn’t look like it’s getting any closer, as it flashes and crackles in the distance.

“If we were able to fly,” Griff starts, “then we could have flown over there or even carried people over there. We would have been able to see any threats between us and the portal from the air, and it would have been so much quicker.”

“Which is probably why the wings were taken away,” I point out.

River frowns, “I really hope that is the only reason that they were taken away.”

“Agreed. It’s inconvenient to have to get there on foot without knowing the dangers that could be waiting, but it’s only inconvenient as opposed to it being dangerous,” Raiden agrees.

“Good point,” I reply, in agreement.

“I can hear something,” Coen frowns. “I can’t quite make out what it is.”

River lifts his nose in the air, “I can smell something as well, but I can’t put my finger on what it is, my nose isn’t working like it should.”

It turns out that no one’s senses are working quite like they should be because the source of the smell and sound appears a moment later.

“Ah,” Ransom frowns.

“That’s going to be an issue,” River adds, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

My own eyes are wide as I stare at the giant gorge, it’s far too wide to jump across, and the river at the bottom is moving far too quickly for us to wade through, even if we could get down there.

Then I spot it, a rope bridge. One that looks incredibly unsafe and like it would snap under my weight, let alone the weight of all of these very big men. I can’t help but say sarcastically, “Oh, don’t worry, guys, there’s a bridge.”

River smirks, waves his fists like he is holding pom poms, and says, “Yey.”

I burst out laughing.

“I hardly think that this is a laughing matter,” Jamie exclaims, glaring at me.

I roll my eyes, “Why not? There’s no point being miserable about everything.”

“Alright,” Evander says before we can descend into an argument, “well, we aren’t going to be able to fly across.”

“And that bridge doesn’t exactly look strong enough to take even one of us,” Coen adds.

“But I can see the portal, so we have to be able to cross somehow,” Raiden says, his mind working to come up with a solution while the Draconian team seems just to stand there, not trying to help us figure out how to get across.

I get the feeling that Jamie and the one whose name I still don’t know want to help, but they keep looking at Kylen nervously, and Kylen, in return, keeps giving them warning looks.

“It looks like the water is moving far too quickly for us to be able to scale down the cliff and walk across, and then go up the other side,” Doc says thoughtfully.

“It may not be as deep as it looks,” the one whose name I don’t know suggests, and then immediately winces.

“Let’s find out, Fetrick,” Kylen replies, his voice full of malice, as without warning, he shoves Fetrick so hard that he stumbles off the cliff.