A/N: This chapter was written by Night. Also, a warning that this chapter and onwards will express females liking each other, though it's not really that obvious (they don't kiss or hold hands or anything).
Hannah lay awake on a pile of pillows in Valeria's library. After a long afternoon of arguing and coming to no good conclusion about a course of action, she had volunteered for the worst sleeping accommodations (everyone else had a bed or a couch), assuming she'd be too exhausted to care, but the longer she tried to sleep, the more awake she felt. The way she had acted toward Destiny throughout the day bothered her, but every time she had looked at her friend for an apology or at least acknowledgement, the younger girl had given her the cold shoulder. Besides, how could she even consider believing Marissa's accusations against Hannah? The idea made Hannah want to curl up and cry.
After a few more minutes of this, Hannah simply gave up, pushed off her blankets, and stood, figuring that maybe a walk around Avery's Court would calm her mind and help her get to sleep. After a moment's hesitation, she grabbed her staff, just in case. She crept through the silent house, careful not to disturb Haley and Destiny, who were sound asleep on the couches. She winced as the door creaked on its damaged hinges but managed to slip through, reasonably certain that nobody had noticed her leave.
As she stepped outside, a bit of paper fluttered down in front of her to land on the pavement at her feet. Her curiosity piqued, she bent to pick it up and found that it was yet another note written in Ash's thin, elegant writing. She scowled and almost threw it to one side, but her desire to know what it said got the better of her, and she read it. Will I take pity on you? All right, yes I will. Your friend is not with me and Hawk. She has been taught a painful and important lesson about helping our enemies and is now imprisoned on Skull Island, in a cavern beneath an outcropping near the docks. Help her if you like, though she certainly won't be helping you anymore.
"I hate her," Hannah declared aloud to relieve some of the anger seething within her. She crumpled up the note in her fist.
"Who, Ash?" Hannah whirled in surprise to see Destiny standing behind her, blinking sleepily. "What happened?" In response, Hannah simply handed her the crumpled note. Destiny smoothed the paper out and stared blearily at the writing for several minutes before the message seemed to sink in. "I'll wake the others."
"Wait!"
Destiny turned back to glare at her. "What? We can't do nothing!"
Hannah let out a huff. "That's my point. If we wake the others, we'll end up doing nothing but arguing, and by the time we convince everyone, it might be too late for Valeria! Who knows what else Ash might do?"
The two had a brief staredown, but in the end, Hannah had her way, and Destiny followed her in the direction of the docks. Hannah longed to clear the tension that hung between them in the silence, but there wasn't time — for now, they had to rescue Valeria. She recalled that on the level of the docks, there was a jut of rock that stuck out from the island that had to be what Ash had been referring to in her note. She led the way down the stairs and along the boardwalk that would eventually connect to the outcropping for support.
Presently they reached the rock. It was fairly long and narrow, widening at the end to a roundish shape about ten paces across. It looked precarious, like it might break away from the main island at any moment, and Hannah realized the boardwalk didn't actually use the rock for support at all — it simply passed beside it. Gingerly, she stepped from the pier to the miniature peninsula, followed reluctantly by Destiny.
Hannah had scarcely started searching for some sort of entrance to a prison when a freezing wind knocked both her and Destiny off their feet. With a loud crack, the wider end of the peninsula snapped from the narrow shaft of stone connecting it to the island and hurtled at high speed out into the skyway, forcing them to cling to the rock face for dear life. As a result, Hannah didn't notice the ice until it formed a complete dome around them, closing at the top right as the island began to slow. With a crackling noise, icicles burst from the dome, pointing inward at the newly created island. One jabbed Destiny in the elbow, and she leaped away from the icy wall with a startled yelp. Hannah followed suit as the spikes lengthened an inch or so.
"What's going on?" Destiny's voice sounded higher than usual, and she stared warily at the icy spikes as they stretched another inch.
Hannah examined the spikes, taking deep breaths and trying to stay calm. "I'm not sure, but it's just ice — maybe we can blast our way out." She drew her staff and cast a quick Mojo Strike spell, figuring that would make for the best direct hit. She expected her spell to punch straight through and make a hole through which they could escape, but instead, with more loud crackling, the spikes thrust inward, forcing Hannah to stumble back to avoid being impaled.
"Maybe something a little stronger…?" Destiny ventured.
"No!" Hannah shook her head rapidly.
Destiny glared at her. "Well, Mojo Strike is fairly weak, and it obviously didn't work, so maybe what we need is more power."
"That's just it." Hannah gesticulated helplessly, trying to communicate what she was thinking. "It's just ice, and it doesn't look all that thick — my spell should have at least snapped a few spikes, but instead the spikes grew. This is definitely some sort of magic, probably meant to trap us in here and keep us from getting to Valeria."
"If she's here at all," Destiny mused.
Hannah gave her companion a sharp look. "What?"
"Think about it — why would Hawk and Ash send Valeria back to Skull Island and give us a way to find her, but not just send her back to her house? It makes no sense."
"Then why… oh." Hannah's eyes widened as she realized what had to be going on. "It's a trap. And we fell for it."
"You fell for it."
"I seem to recall you wanting to wake the others to follow the note that led us here."
"Hold on — I wanted to wake the others to figure out if it would be a good idea so this wouldn't happen!"
"Oh, is that it? And what if Valeria really had been in danger?"
"Well, she isn't!"
Crrreeeeak. Hannah's next argument died on her lips as she saw that the spikes had thickened this time as well as lengthened, leaving her and Destiny with less than half of the space they had had before, forcing them close to each other.
"Look," Hannah finally said after a long, awkward pause. "We're stuck here now and we need to find a way out, whoever is to blame."
"You are," Destiny insisted quietly — Hannah figured she probably hadn't meant to voice the thought. There was barely enough space for the younger girl to turn her back on her friend, but she managed.
Hannah sighed softly, the only outward expression of the inexplicable agony that gripped her heart more strongly than ever now. "Des, what's gone wrong between us?" she asked, her voice cracking like the ice that hemmed them in. Another expansion forced both girls to their knees as the icicles above them neared their heads.
Destiny shifted back around to face Hannah, wincing as a spike jabbed her shoulder. Her anger from before seemed to be dissolving. "I… I don't know. I just… can you forgive me?"
Hannah was considerably taken aback. "Forgive you?"
Destiny's face fell. "So that's a no?" Her blue eyes glistened with tears, and Hannah felt as though someone had stabbed one of the giant icicles that were rapidly encroaching on them into her heart.
"That's not what I meant! Just, what is there to forgive?"
"When Marissa was accusing you of being a traitor, and I wouldn't stick up for you… I wasn't sure… but she's out of her mind, and I know that if you're one thing, you're loyal." She sniffed. "And then when I went and hid, and then wouldn't talk to you… you didn't seem willing to forgive me, and I didn't think I deserved it…" At this point, Destiny completely dissolved into tears.
"Oh, Des…" Hannah wrapped her arms around her friend, pulling her close against herself. "I was every bit as bad if not worse, and I have nothing but regret about that. Call it square?" She felt Destiny nod, and with the motion, she noticed an odd heat. "What's that?"
Destiny pulled away from her, and Hannah felt a chill and strange sense of loss as her friend reached beneath her tunic and pulled out an odd pendant, a roughly cut tangerine stone on a silver chain. It glowed softly with an inner fire, and Hannah gasped. Destiny began to explain. "It was the last thing my parents gave me before they died. In the years since, it has glowed and literally warmed my heart every time I've been upset. I know it has some sort of magic, but I have no idea where it came from."
Meanwhile, Hannah was staring at the stone. "May I hold it?"
Destiny clutched it closer to herself, but then seemed to reconsider and placed the stone in Hannah's palm. Holding it like that, Hannah felt the heat much more intensely and felt much more sure of the notion. "I think this is a Pyrestone!" she exclaimed.
Destiny didn't react quite as Hannah had hoped. "A what?"
Hannah sighed, remembering too late that Destiny didn't have her magical upbringing. "I always thought they were just a myth, but I guess not. A Pyrestone is a magical gemstone filled with pure fire magic. Not only is that insanely rare and valuable, it might be our ticket out of here!" As if on cue, the ice spikes expanded again, giving the pair no choice but to lie flat on the ground pressed against one another.
"Whoa." Destiny took her stone back from Hannah and stared at it as if with new eyes. "How does it work?"
"Um…" Hannah hadn't gotten that far. "Try just channeling your power through it."
Destiny gave a tense nod. Cupping her hands around the Pyrestone, she closed her eyes and seemed to be focusing hard. Orange light glowed between her fingers, but though a bead of sweat formed on her forehead despite their chilly prison, nothing seemed to be happening. Finally she opened her eyes and let out a ragged breath. "I could feel that something was almost happening, but I just couldn't get it to work fully. You want to try?"
In response, Hannah took the stone from her best friend and cupped her hands around it the way Destiny had. She allowed her limited knowledge of pyromancy and her considerable power to bubble up within her, and found that she knew exactly how to channel her magic through the artifact. Concentrating hard, she gave it her all, redoubling her efforts as she felt the spikes expand again, digging into her back and legs.
Heat flowed from the stone into Hannah herself, but she found she simply didn't possess enough power to push the heat out and create flame. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she began to feel feverish. "Help me," she croaked, her throat as dry as burning brush.
Thankfully, Destiny understood. She placed her hands around Hannah's, and the latter felt an electric tingle that could have been her friend's power or something more mysterious flow through her. The younger witchdoctor added her power to Hannah's, and together they pushed with all their might. Hannah resisted the desire to cry out in pain as several spikes broke skin. She heard Destiny whimper, and that soft expression of pain from her love, more than anything, was enough to push Hannah over the edge. All at once, a wall of flames exploded outward from the trapped pair, roaring outward, and with a hiss of steam, the dome and all the spikes were gone.
Gasping for breath, the two teens stood shakily, their hands still clasped around the no-longer-warm Pyrestone. Their tiny former prison seemed to have struck some sort of land — a world or a large island, perhaps. The whole area was shrouded in gloomy fog, and eerie voices sounded from deep in the mist, crying out disturbingly. Hannah glanced around nervously. "What is this place?"
Destiny peered into the fog. "There's one way to find out."
