One by one, Zoe’s friends made their way through the crack between the cliffs. Anton kept his eyes flying, and Oriz brought up the rear in case of an ambush. The wind howled and whistled and flurries of snow drifted down from on top, but there was no attack.

After sliding a few dozen feet, they all joined Zoe in the clearing. It looked as though a giant hollowed a hill with an ice cream scoop. Tall curved walls formed a dome of rock with a ringed opening in the ceiling to frame the sky. Light poured down on them, shifting and glowing from a sunburned orange to a cotton candy pink. Thick grass grew along the ground, the blades sharp and crisp under the neon glow. Patches of deep moss grew amongst the almost manicured lawn. The wind barely blew through the hole in the ceiling, and a captured warmth prevented any snow from remaining. Heat leaked through Zoe’s jumpsuit, almost unpleasantly, and she wished the outfit had a zipper.

The entire space was enormous enough to play a game of tennis, and it was dominated in the center by something artificial. A sight that prompted the feelings of icy dread to trickle down her spine.

She advanced toward it, her friends hushed and following, as she tried to understand what she was looking at.

Eggshells littered the floor in a haphazard pile. They looked like ancient, desiccated leather. Fragments crunched underfoot. There were no more intact eggs, but there must have been almost fifty originally, each one around the size of a football. They were like the sacs Zoe had seen hanging from the trees when she first arrived on the island. For one, these were all empty. Had some of these hatchlings been the ones she just fought and killed?

She wasn’t sure.

And it wasn’t only eggshells.

Bones littered the mess. Human bones, there was no mistaking it — men, women, children. Sick anger rose like a lump in her throat. The bones were picked clean and Zoe hoped that meant they were old. She hoped they were people from when the system first swept across the world. She hoped these weren’t the people from the town desperately waiting for her to come back and save them.

At odds with the bones and the eggshell, were the bright flowers. Their small, vibrant blooms matched the sky and peppered the ghoulish scene with color.

In the center of the eggs, stood a massive cylinder. It looked like glass. Condensation fogged the surface. Mist curled around the base, and heavy tubes ran from it through the broken eggs and into the ground. The tubes looked metallic, but they pulsed. Veins throbbed along their exterior.

“What do we do with this?” Bella pointed her sword at the tube.

It was at least twice as tall as any of them. Anton’s eyes darted around it, but he couldn’t see inside.

“It feels like it’s blocking me,” he said. “Feels like someone’s telling me to look away.”

Zoe slithered a chain through the air. Waves of Willpower pressed upon her. Whatever was inside — it was strong — but it wasn’t aware. Not yet, at least. Her chain touched the surface with a faint clink.

“It’s not glass,” she said. “It’s ice. There’s a tremor. Whatever’s inside, it’s alive…”

Oriz plucked a blade of grass from the ground. It glowed with her skein. She dropped it, and it drifted toward the icy tube.

“All the Skein in this area is being harnessed,” she said. “You said it’s alive? It’s certainly growing.”

Bella raised her sword. The runes glowed, and a faint howl circled the hollow dome of rock.

“It’s a giant test-tube baby. 100% a monster. No doubt. Let’s smash it now before it hatches.”

“What do we think?” Zoe asked her friends. “Smash it?”

“There’s a chance it’s a stasis chamber,” Oriz said. “It’s gathering Skein, but breaking it might just release something.”

“I’m sure we have the levels to take it,” Bella said.

“Shockingly, not everything is an enemy.”

“I don’t know about that,” Zoe said.

“Could be a weapon,” Anton said. “Something we can use.”

“Hmmm,” Zoe stroked her chin. “Intriguing.”

“I regret saying anything.”

“Look at this,” Skidmark said.

She kicked away some of the leathery peel and exposed a fat and veiny tube. It ran beneath the shells, through the loam and flowers, and connected to the base of the icy tube. They followed the other end, occasionally digging away the loam to see how the tube undulated beneath the earth. Each one of them connected to the walls of stone surrounding them. A vein of crystal, dull blue, not noticeable until they were up close, connected to the hose.

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“There are other hoses,” Anton said as his eyes darted around the enclosed space.

Though some ran underground or were hidden by the bushes and boulders lining the outside walls, it was clear they all linked up with the wall. Clear fluid leaked where they latched onto the rock and the veins of drab blue crystal.

“What do you think the tubes are for?” Zoe asked Skidmark.

The dark-haired woman glanced at her with surprise.

“Why ask me?”

“You’re the scientist.”

Skidmark snorted with laughter.

“I’m almost a physicist. This is… I do not know what this is. Science fiction? Magic?”

Bella sighed.

“It’s a giant egg and any minute now a monster is going to jump out and attack us. You’ll all regret it when it tries to rip us limb from limb. Especially since —”

One of Anton’s eyes zipped down from the sky.

“Something’s coming,” he said.

“What is it?” Zoe asked. “Do we fight, or hide?”

“It was big,” Anton said. “A mantis carrying a cage.”

“What was in the cage?”

“...people.”

Shivers ran through Zoe’s body. She gazed at the bones scattered around her feet. Her heart thudded in her ears so loud it must have shook the air. She clenched her knuckles and the chain ground against itself.

Anton approached her.

“We should hide,” he said. “Assess the situation before we act.”

“Annoying as it is, I agree with Anton,” Bella said. “I’m the only one with any charges of [Fools Rush In], but it’s been disabled. We can’t make mistakes right now.”

Their words came to Zoe as though from a distance.

How did the mantis get a cage full of people? Zoe and her friends were only in Hell for… it shouldn’t have been more than a few hours. They had three days before the mantis attacked the town! What had happened?

She felt sick as an answer bubbled up from the dark pits of her imagination…

No.

It couldn’t be that.

Time in Hell was frozen, if they had actually spent over a week in that other dimensions…

She refused to believe that was the case.

“We’ll hide over there,” she pointed at some thick bushes growing around the boulders. Let the mantis get comfortable before we ambush them.”

They quickly hid beside the dome’s walls. Zoe crouched down beside her friends. Her heartbeat sounded like a war drum inside her head.

With her levels gained, her Insight was sharper and she heard the buzz of wings for a full minute before the mantis appeared overhead. There were three of them. Little dark specks against the pink sky, and growing as they swooped down toward the clearing.

Two massive black mantis each the size of a semi beat their wings into a shadowy blur. They each clutched one half of a cage fashioned from hardened webbing. Limbs dangled through the holes. Zoe couldn’t count the exact number of people, but there were at least ten. Some of them were children.

Her chains gripped the boulder so tightly that the stone cracked and crumbled. Oriz grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

She was the only one strong enough to do so.

“Wait and see,” Oriz whispered. “Don’t give away our position.”

The heavy black mantis lowered their cage with a thud against the soft ground of the clearing. Their wings slowed and Zoe counted seventeen on each as they folded them away.

The third mantis swooped down out of the sky with infinitely more grace. It was slender, barely as tall as Zoe herself, with a translucent exoskeleton. Long gossamer wings flittered as it hovered above the rich moss. Bright light consumed its form and forced Zoe to close her eyes. When she returned her gaze, a young woman knelt in the moss where the slender mantis had been.

It was the same transformation the Ambassador had used, but Zoe could feel that this one was far more stable. Inwardly, Zoe swore. If she was capable of transformation, then she had to be powerful. Most likely she could punch above her weight compared to the standard elemental mantis. Also, Zoe didn’t know her level since she hadn’t been able to count her wings.

The woman wore a bone white lab coat over a tight blouse and slacks. Her bare feet pressed into the moss as she set about instructing the heavier mantis to slide the cage closer to the frosty tube. While the black mantis worked, the young woman — the transformed mantis — walked with an eerie precision toward the center of the room. She glanced at the broken shells as she passed them.

“We must send a report,” she said aloud. Zoe frowned. The voice was familiar. “Tell the queen that someone destroyed the latest war party. We have no trace yet of the offenders, but they could destroy souls —” she paused and crouched down on the ground. Right where Skidmark dug to expose the tubing. “Wait,” she called as she stood. She turned in a slow circle with an inhumanly wide smile. “I know you’re here,” she called out. “I know you’re hiding. You must be feeling so afraid, but I can help you. Maybe you recognize me? The Winter Queen rewards loyalty. I can make sure you don’t end up like these poor wretches in this cage. I can make sure you aren’t food.”

Zoe’s eyes widened as the woman faced the bushes.

It was one of the guards who had first taken her into the town. Zoe racked her mind. Yes, it was undoubtedly Sarah. Zoe had thought the woman meek and unassuming, but had she been a mantis all along? [Our Hearts Toll as One] had worked on her, but Zoe felt no such connection now.

Sarah continued to gaze around at the walls of the clearing.

“There’s only so many hiding places,” she mused. “Should we use the process of elimination?”

The black mantis reared up behind her. Their heads swiveled. With their dark armor and silent movement, they seemed like deadly automatons. Zoe wasn’t sure what element powered them — most likely something to do with shadow — but they would have a trick up their sleeve. The seventeen-winged metal mantis had been easy enough to kill, but it had also been the highest level in the last group. She wondered what it would be like to face two at once.

She could hardly control her anticipation.

Why was she even bothering to do so?

Sarah pointed at a group of bushes on the other side of the clearing.

“Are you over there?”

Wood, leaves, and stone exploded out as though the entire area was dropped into a blender. Zoe’s eyes widened as the debris rained down. What the hell kind of technique was that?

The woman smiled.

“Not there, no,” she said in a singsong voice. “How about over here?”

She pointed clockwise, and another bush disintegrated. Bella grabbed Zoe’s shoulder. The Australian woman’s eyes were wide, her silent message easily communicated: what are we going to do?

Zoe didn’t dare probe with her senses — what if Sarah detected her? She couldn’t have Anton send out his eyes either. Without information, there was no telling how that technique worked. Would her Mirrored skin even deflect it?

The scientist chuckled as she turned again and pointed her finger right where Zoe was hiding. Through the bushes, Zoe saw absolute inhumanity in the woman’s eyes.

“I wonder if you’re over here?”