Though branch wasn’t exactly the right term. The trees grew upside down, the thick boughs cutting through gray, dry dirt, making ridges tall enough to knock shins. Above her head, roots spread in the colorless air, spindly and still, stretching up as far as she could see before disappearing into mist.
A forest in a mirror, the grove they’d grown in the Shrine expanded, magnified.
Beyond the trees, however, was a barren gray waste that stretched for miles, unbroken by any tree, upside down or otherwise. The tower she’d woken up in pointed skyward in the desolate expanse, weathered brick wreathed in climbing black thorns. Solmir headed toward the doorway, nonchalant, as if they’d taken a morning constitutional and were headed in for a leisurely breakfast.
“How exactly do you plan to drag asses to the surface, then?” Neve crossed her arms against a shiver, the cold of this place sinking into her skin. “You failed to bring the Kings through once, so now you’re just going to try again? Are you dull-witted as well as evil?”
Not one of her better insults, granted, but she’d just awoken in the underwold and escaped a monster; one couldn’t really expect cleverness right now.
Solmir gave her an arch look as he pushed the door open, standing to the side and gesturing grandly for her to enter. Her fingers worked into fists at her sides as she did, pressing close to the other end of the threshold. Her skin remembered his, and it made her want to claw it off.
“Extremely dull-witted,” he said as she passed. “And extremely evil.”
Neve held her spine as straight as she possibly could.
In the distance, something rumbled. The earth shook, the stone floor of the tower trembling beneath her feet. Neve’s hand shot out to steady herself against the wall, miraculously avoiding the thorns that lined the stairs.
Solmir’s hand closed around her arm again, hauling her backward before positioning her across from him in the doorway. Her nose almost notched into the gap of his collarbone.
“Safest place in an earthquake,” he said through clenched teeth, blue eyes scanning the horizon instead of looking at her. “Doorways. Remember that—it might come in handy.”
The ground rumbled once more, then settled, grew still. Neve clutched the doorframe behind her with white-knuckled hands. “Does that happen often?”
“More often now.” He turned from her, started up the stairs. “The Shadowlands are shaking apart. Growing more unstable.” He snorted. “At least there’s not much to hold back, not anymore. There’s barely any lesser beasts left, and only four Old Ones.” A pause. “Maybe three, actually. I need to ask the Seamstress.”
“You realize I don’t understand anything you just said.”
He gave her a razor grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Who’s dull-witted now?”
A shiver kept her from giving a biting answer, the cold of the Shadowlands cutting through her nightgown. Neve tried her best to hide it, but Solmir noticed, mouth softening to be almost pensive. He shrugged out of his coat.
Her head was shaking before he had his arms completely free of it. “I don’t want—”
“Yes, I know, you don’t want anything I’m offering. Too bad. Take the damn coat.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she did. It was warm from where he’d worn it. Neve tried not to cringe away from the fabric.
A pause, then Solmir sighed. “I’m not exactly thrilled that you’re here, either, Neverah. This wasn’t what I wanted.”
“No, what you wanted was the Kings on the surface and my sister dead.”
“Not quite.” It came through clenched teeth, as if he was trying very hard not to give her the fight she was trying to push him into. “I told you want I wanted. The Kings destroyed.”
To show emotion was to show her hand, and Neve had given him too much vulnerability already. He didn’t deserve it, and she didn’t have much to spare. So she drew herself up, fought the way her face wanted to twist to anger. Donned the mask again, and if he could see through it, at least she was trying. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Again, you don’t have much of a choice. I might be a liar, and a murderer, and a whole host of other unsavory things, but I am also the only thing in this whole underworld that gives a fraction of a care about you.” His bared teeth gleamed. “We want the same things, you and I. I know you hate that.”
He stood too close. She wanted to back away from him, but it would be a capitulation, and Neve refused to let him think he’d won anything. She narrowed her eyes. “Presumptuous of you.”