Page 40 of With Wing And Claw

Bloody unhelpful. She rolled her eyes again.

The pink veins in the floor ran around the last bend, and a small cavern opened up before her. No colours here, not even that ominous red. The only gems still glowing were white, shrouding the dark walls and low ceiling in a sickly pale glow; between them, the slumped, writhing fae figures were little more than silhouettes.

They were also stuck.

It took her a few blinks to realise it: that the Labyrinth hadn’t chopped off their feet but ratherburiedthem. Each of the captives were sunken ankle-deep into the ink-black stone floor. Some had lost use of their hands in a similar way, and one or two wings had been caught into the walls – pretty secure, unless they tried to chop off their limbs and crawl out of the caves on the bleeding stumps.

Not that the Labyrinth would allow that, of course.

For now, it didn’t seem any of the captives had grownthatdesperate yet. Mostly, they were crying. In the back of the cave, a tall male was desperately flinging red magic into the floor, to no avail; every chunk of stone crumbling away beneath that destructive force grew back in place before the next blow struck.

‘Have you considered,’ Naxi said, as patiently as she could bring herself to be, ‘that you might not win its good favour byhurtingit, you dummy?’

A fae female close to her shrieked, louder than anyone else.

And then at once they were all silent, gawking at her as if they’d swallowed their tongues – quite the improvement on the earlier cacophony, but not terribly productive all the same.

Time for a good chat, then. Naxi plopped down onto the floor, carefully rearranged her skirt around her knees, then looked up and beamed at the gathered company.Be considerate, Lyn would have said, so she swallowed the urge to rush straight into plans she didn’t yet have and instead started with a bright, ‘Looks like you haven’t had the greatest of mornings so far?’

They inched away from her as far as their trapped feet would let them.

Their fear turned denser,sharper, at the same moment – no longer aimed at the general deadly circumstances they couldn’t make sense of, but rather at her personal appearance. Which always made emotions hit her demon senses harder, and here were twenty-five souls or so feeling the exact same thing; the wave hit her with unpleasant strength in the fraction of a second before she yanked her shields up.

Bloody hell.

Never mind about the consideration, then.

‘Yes, yes, I’m a demon,’ she said, casting a disgruntled look at the ceiling. Unfair, admittedly. The ceiling couldn’t help the situation. But this was so stupidlytiresome, to always be the scary one even when she was there tohelp, and glaring angrily at the captives would only make them fear her more. ‘And yes, sometimes I kill people. No, I’m not going to kill you. I’m notevengoing to torture you. Well, just a little bit,maybe, if you say something particularly annoying. But probably not at all.’

That did not seem to have reassured them much when she lowered her gaze to the group before her. A quick peek around her shields told her their fear continued to burn at blistering intensity.

‘Did you … did you lock us in here?’ a young male whispered from the left side of the cave.

‘Of course I didn’t.’I’m here to save you– but then again, that would possibly not go over well with the Labyrinth itself. She didn’t need the mountain to think her friendliness so far had been mere trickery. ‘Look, you’re getting on the poor Labyrinth’s nerves, and we need to do something about that. So can we talk about this with our big fae words, please? None of that wailing and whining?’

They gaped at her so blankly she feared for a moment the Labyrinth was spelling them all over again. But their emotions had changed when she quickly sampled them once more – still fear, but the sensation had mellowed and mingled with that woolly, fuzzy feeling of confusion.

‘The Labyrinth’s … nerves?’ someone repeated, sounding choked.

‘Very good. Words.’ She smiled at them encouragingly, only to be rewarded with another flare of immediate fright. Damn it. ‘See, the poor Labyrinth just wants some civilised company, and your screaming and fighting arereallynot going to do anyone any good. Alright? So let’s try again. Give it a little wave’ – she demonstrated the gesture, just in case it would help – ‘and greet it politely. “Good morning, Labyrinth.” I promise it’s not hard.’

The group of fae continued to blink at her motionless. In the back of the cave, one of them burst out sobbing again – shrill, grating sounds.

No waves.

No polite greetings.

All visible signs suggested this was not going to work.

Under any other circumstances, Naxi would have shrugged and gone on her way again. Not her problem if a bunch of snivelling fae didn’t feel like being saved; perhaps they would feel more inclined to listen to her after they’d spent twenty-four hours below the earth without food or water.If not …

Well, she wouldn’t miss them, would she?

But Thysandra would. Thysandra wanted the idiots saved, for some unimaginable reason, and that meant Naxi couldn’t just run off now and leave them here to die. Which was bloody vexing, but then again …

Thysandra wasn’t scared of her.

She could smile at Thysandra without getting that poisonous sting of fright reflected right back at her – anger and frustration and unwilling arousal, of course, but neverfear, and she would be damned if she let this group of blockheads stand between her and that unimaginable relief. So she was going to suffer their company a few minutes longer. She was going to save them and take them back home, and then she would delay the next time Thysandra tried to send her away for as long as—