“Hurry,” Chris urged. The Saw slithered and gnawed its way closer.

Carly and Gabriel used their weight to press on the Simu Suit’s foamy limbs. Water poured out of it in seemingly endless streams. Their hands began to ache from pressing against the hard, knobbly pellets within. There was no way the suit would fold up as small as usual with all that baggage inside it.

Chris was monitoring the Saw’s approach. “We can’t get ahead of it now,” he said finally. “The side tunnel is no longer an option.”

Carly looked up in alarm. “It’s past the nearest crossroads?”

“It’s probably coming here to drink,” Chris said. “We’ll have to wait inside the cavern.”

They folded the Simu Suit as best they could and hefted it up behind Carly’s saddle. They secured it to Thunder’s haunches with rope that they lashed to the saddle straps. Thunder had the longest body of the three Weavers, and he didn’t seem to mind terribly having a mess of damp foam strapped to his rump. He calmly allowed them to work on him, as if he understood the importance of his duty.

They climbed onto their Weavers. Barrel trotted willingly toward the water.

“Great,” Gabriel grumbled. “Back into the lion’s den.”

“Aww,” Carly said, nudging Thunder forward. “But the Stingers just love you.”

Gabriel shot her a withering glare as they soared up into the cavern. They waited, protecting themselves from Stinger assault with the Weavers’ beating wings.

Below, the Saw slithered its toolshed-sized face into the water.

“Tunnel’s clear. Let’s get out of here,” Carly said.

“You got me out of the cavern; I’ll get you out of the tunnels,” Gabriel promised. He and Barrel took the lead. “Let’s just hope that Saw didn’t completely mess with my plan.”

“You have a plan?” Carly asked.

“This is my coup de grace,” Gabriel assured her. “My biggest trick ever. Check it out.” He pulled one of the Jackals’ special neon-yellow-handled flashlights from his backpack and powered it on.

In the darkness, the light that had been too pale to see earlier shone like a lantern. Like Weaver eyes, almost. Except the light cast a slightly darker, stronger beam. Carly could see it pointing ahead even though the tunnel was aglow with Weaver light.

Gabriel swung the beam upward, and it reflected off a patch of something high on the wall.

“Is that paint?” Carly asked.

Gabriel nodded.

“The paint from the safe?”

“Yup. It is a tunnel navigation system,” he said, laughing. “It’s just a super low-tech one.” He flourished the light like an orchestra conductor waves a baton.

Carly laughed too. “I guess so. Lead us back, maestro!”

She and Chris followed as Gabriel led the way through the tunnels.

“So this is why you’ve been bouncing off the walls?” Carly called.

Gabriel grinned. “Go ahead. Doubt my methods. I won’t mind. I’ll be too busy saving our lives.”

“And to think, I was feeling bad for you, not being able to fly straight,” Carly said. She was relieved to know Gabriel wasn’t such an inept rider after all. There was a method to his madness. “This paint trail’s gonna get us out of here?”

“You better believe it.”

The beat of the Weavers’ wings made a soft shushing noise around them. When the shushing grew louder, they almost didn’t notice until it was too late.

“Saw!” Gabriel shouted. He yanked on the reins and Barrel reared back. Carly’s and Chris’s mounts reared back in echo, before they even had time to react.

A Sawtooth Land Eel, moving much faster than the ones they’d encountered earlier, shimmied toward them through the tunnel. The gnashing teeth sounded like construction equipment.

“Quick,” Gabriel screamed. “Get back, get back!”

The three Weavers, acting on instinct no doubt, whinnied and wheeled around. They swooped away from the oncoming Saw, plunging back into the dark. It was a minute before Gabriel realized he was no longer actually steering his ride—the Weaver was flying in whatever direction it wanted. He quickly tightened the reins, and Barrel slowed to hover in place while the others caught up.

Gabriel shone his light on the walls nearby. No sign of paint. “Uh-oh.”

“Lost the trail?” Carly said.

“We have to go back, then,” Chris said.

“Straight into the jaws of death?” Carly said. “I don’t think so. What’s plan B?”

“Uh…we could try to loop around.” Gabriel consulted the map. “This way.”

He unsnapped the paint can at his waist. “I’ll start marking the trail again, so at least we can get back to this place later, if we need to.”

Gabriel drew a giant G on the wall.

Carly grinned. “Leaving your mark?”

“You better believe it.” Gabriel raised the brush triumphantly, the way track runners do after crossing the finish line in first place. “I was here.”

The Saw snapping behind them drew closer. Gabriel kept his brush at the ready as the Weavers bolted through the tunnel to stay ahead of the giant jaws.

They circled to the right. It should have been a full circle, like going around the block. It should have led them back to their old trail, but it didn’t. Gabriel saw no sign of his previous marks.

And it felt like they were going down, deeper into the planet, not up toward the surface, Gabriel thought. They had to get back. He led them onto the next upward facing turn, and—

“Oh no.”

They were back at Gabriel’s giant G. He reined in Barrel and hovered as he stared, horrified, at his own handiwork.

“And you wondered why they call this place Infinity,” Chris said dryly.

“I’ve lost the trail completely,” Gabriel admitted. “We took a really bad turn somewhere.” A hopeless, sinking feeling descended upon him. Navigation was his responsibility. He had let the team down. They might be lost in these tunnels forever.

“I think we only took one turn the first time,” Chris said. He pointed. “Back there.” The Saw that had originally chased them to this point would be long gone by now. They could double back the way they came.

“Maybe we can find the trail again,” Carly said. “We have to keep trying.”

“Okay,” Gabriel said, more confidently than he felt. He led them back, shining the dark light over the walls. Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Finally…

“Aha!”

Gabriel paused as the light glanced over the smallest snippet of a paint blotch. It had to be his own, from earlier. The genius of the Jackals’ special paint was that its potency faded over a matter of hours, Colonel Ramos had told him. Within a day or so, the trail would be gone forever—so as not to lead future travelers in the tunnels astray.

Gabriel had his bearings now, but the area was still not safe. The sound of snapping jaws echoed from the tunnel ahead. They couldn’t see the Saw yet, but one was definitely coming. And untagged—Gabriel’s map showed the whole area around them as clear.

“That’s the way we need to go,” Gabriel said, pointing in the direction of the sound. He’d lost the trail once. It wasn’t going to happen again.

“Uh, we can’t…,” Chris said. “Start marking. We’ll just have to retrace our steps again later.” He started to retreat down the tunnel, but wheeled around almost immediately.

“If we stand here, we definitely die,” Carly reminded him. “That Saw isn’t stopping for pleasantries.”

“Neither is that one,” Chris said, pointing in the opposite direction. A second Saw!

They were cornered.

“Not again,” Gabriel cried. The desperate sinking feeling of impending death washed over him, for the third time today.

Three strikes, you’re out, he thought. He couldn’t stop his mind from screaming it.

He’d gotten lucky that his Simu Suit plan hadn’t sunk—literally.

They’d gotten lucky in the dead-end tunnel earlier too. But he couldn’t imagine a secret crevice big enough for three people, plus three Weavers and a messed-up Simu Suit.

Carly pulled on Thunder’s reins, turning him about. “What now?”

Chris reached down to his saddle sideboard. He drew the long sword. “Now we fight.”