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But she asked, “Why keep hidden at all?”

“To observe,” Nesta answered for him, stride unfaltering. “To see what you’d do. Where you’d lead me. As soon as we realized there was a tunnel, we got supplies together and followed you.” Hence her pack of food.

They passed by more carvings—all disarmed well ahead of their approach by Nesta’s silver flame. These were more peaceful: They showed small children playing. Time passing with trees blooming, then barren, then blooming again. Pretty, perfect scenes at odds with the conversation at hand.

Bryce gestured to the passageway and the carvings. “Your guess remains as good as mine. I’m just following the light.”

“Right into the river,” Nesta grumbled. Azriel snickered behind her.

Bryce glanced at him again, at the wings and armor. At his ears—she realized now that they weren’t arched, but round like a human’s. There had been carvings earlier of warriors that looked like him—armies of them. “Do you have Vanir in this world?”

His eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

Bryce slowed her pace, allowing herself to fall into step beside him. Though perhaps he allowed it as well. “In Midgard—my world—it’s a term for all magical, non-human beings. Fae, angels, shifters, mer, sprites …” Azriel’s brows rose with each word. “Basically, they’re the top of the food chain.”

“In this world,” Nesta said from ahead, rubbing her wet, cold arms to get some semblance of warmth into them, “we have the humans and the Fae. But amongst the Fae, there are High Fae, like … me. Amren. And what some call lesser faeries: any other magical creatures. And then there are people like Azriel, who is just … Illyrian.”

“So Rhysand is Illyrian, too?” Bryce pried. “He’s got the wings.”

“Half,” Nesta corrected. “Half High Fae, half Illyrian.” Azriel cleared his throat as if to warn her to stop talking so much, and Nesta added sharply, “And with the combined arrogance of both.”

Azriel really cleared his throat then, and Bryce couldn’t help her smile, despite her clacking teeth.

Her gaze flicked to the Starsword strapped to Azriel’s back, then to his side, to the knife hanging there. Her ears hollowed out for a moment, a dull thump sounding once, and her hand spasmed, seemingly tugged toward those blades.

Azriel’s wings twitched at the same moment, and he rolled his shoulders, like he was shaking off some phantom touch. A peek at Nesta revealed her studying the male, as if such a display was unusual.

Bryce put aside her questions, rubbing her frozen hands together for warmth. Eyes on the prize, she reminded herself as they continued on. Master of spinning bullshit.

* * *

Carrying both the dagger and the Starsword was clearly bothering Azriel.

As they pushed into the gloom, clothes slowly drying, bodies slowly thawing, Bryce counted his wings twitching or shoulders rolling no less than six times.

Not to mention the occasional hollow thump in her own ears if she drew too near to him.

They crossed a stream, wide enough to be a river, but shallow and rocky all the way across. Her blazing star, thankfully, pointed to the tunnel on the other side. No swimming necessary this time. As they crossed, the star illuminated slimy white creatures slithering out of their path. Bryce reined in the urge to cringe down at them. Or at the iron-rich water scent that stuffed itself up her nose. She said, if only to distract herself from the gross fauna of the stream, “Did the Fae make these tunnels?”

A few steps ahead, Nesta said nothing. But Azriel, trailing behind, mused after a moment, “I don’t think so. From the consistent size of them, I’d guess that a Middengard Wyrm originally made these passages. Maybe it even used these waterways to get around.”

“Does it matter?” Nesta said without looking back.

“Possibly,” Azriel murmured. “We should be on alert. It might still use them to access the tunnel system.”

Alarm flared through Bryce. “What makes you say that?”

Azriel nodded to a pile of white things that she’d mistaken for more of the writhing, newt-like creatures. “Bones. Of those things from the bridge chamber, probably.”

Bryce stumbled on a slippery rock, going down into the frigid water, palms and knees smarting—

A strong hand was instantly at her back, but too late to avoid the stinging cuts that now peppered her hands and legs. “Careful,” Azriel warned, setting her on a sturdier rock.

Bryce’s stomach hollowed out with her ears this time, and the dagger was right there, the sword so close—

Azriel let out a grunt, going rigid. Like he could feel it, too, the weapons’ demand to be together or apart or whatever it was, the strange power of them in proximity to each other—

“Watch your footing” was all the male said before stepping back. Far enough away that the sword and the dagger halted their strange tugging at Bryce. Her stomach eased, her hearing with it.