“No bloody way.”
Hannah stares at the rock face as billowing butterflies settle back to rest. “That’s bloody mental.”
“Papilionis mappa,” Clyde breathes. “I mean I’d read about them, but this technique’s been lost since the early twelfth century. I think it was Aramadeus the third…”
“Shut up.” Apparently Tabitha and Clyde did not exactly bury the hatchet during the time I gave them. Unless it was in Clyde’s crotch.
“Of course, love,” Clyde says immediately.
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Of course, l—” Clyde catches himself. “Tabby,” he finishes.
Tabitha, apparently unwilling to look at Clyde even to scorch him with her ire, instead glares malevolently at the butterflies.
Felicity approaches the wall. The butterflies’ wings flutter at her approach, the map rippling. When they subside she peers closer.
“So where are we?”
I point to a yellow triangle in amongst the dark rock-patterned butterflies. “I’m pretty sure that’s the fissure we just came through to get in here. So we follow this path—” My finger starts to trace a line of paler rock along the backs of the butterflies, “—and we come out here.” Two side-steps and my finger lands on the cluster depicting the fort.
“Just right turns?” Hannah sounds incredulous. “You just took right turns and you happened upon this?”
“Is there a problem?” Felicity speaks before I do. I have yet to find out how her chat with Hannah went.
Hannah stares a minute longer. “No.” She shakes her head slowly. “I just. I mean… I don’t know.”
“Good.” Felicity’s smile is tight. “OK, so it looks like—”
She is cut off by another one of the roars Kayla and I heard earlier. It is louder now. Closer perhaps. Booming and rolling around the room, sending the butterflies into a flurrying cloud of motion. They whip and whirl around us.
“What the hell is that?” Felicity looks around.
“Mountain lion,” I say, but with less conviction than before. It didn’t sound like a mountain lion. It didn’t sound organic at all. “Or maybe the rock shifting. Or water.” I shrug. “I think all the rock is distorting the sound.”
“Minotaur,” Kayla says with a simple nod.
Felicity narrows her eyes. I shake my head in warning and she leaves wisely alone.
I turn to scan the cave for the tunnel the butterfly map says leaves this cave. As I do so, something in the way Volk and Hermann are standing catches my eye. Some discrepancy in their mechanical body language.
I try to figure out what it is. “Do you recognize it?” I ask, pointing to the map.
Volk glances at Hermann, then bends his head toward me.
“No,” Hermann says loudly, and Volk comes up short. “It is meaningless to us.” Hermann looks hard at Volk.
I look to Volk. “No secrets,” I say. “Right?”
Volk doesn’t say anything for a moment then straightens. “That is what I was going to say,” he says. “Nothing else. We do not recognize it.”
I stare at them for a moment, but I trust Volk. And maybe I was just misreading the body language thing. They aren’t human after all.
“Always wanted to get in a scrap with a Minotaur,” Kayla tells no one in particular.
“Yes,” Felicity greets the utterance. “Well, if everyone’s had their say then I think we have a path forward. So let’s get ready, march on this fort, and kick the living shit out of everyone inside it.”