She slammed into rocky terrain, bits of gravel cutting into her arms. The wobbly portal in gray sky snapped shut.
Next to her a burbling pop spat beads of burning oil. She scraped back quickly. It wasn't oil. It was water.
Everywhere she looked chunks of stone stuck from the boiling water. A demon realm tree's gnarled roots laced through some of the rocks. The deadwood tree was actually dead, though. A dead deadwood.
They weren't supposed to die.
The whole place smelled slightly of boiled eggs. Around her pale acidic water continued to burble. She didn't know where on the Boiling Isles she was, but, she was somewhere. It looked like the ocean's edge. Past the rocks water extended to the horizon.
She took a second to get her bearings. The flashlight was gone. All of her things were stacked on the grass in a different universe. She had no food, no water, no one with her, nothing. It was not an ideal situation to be stranded in.
Willow carefully hopped from rock to rock. Other than two deadwood trees there were no plants at all, not even lichen or algae or seaweed. A few meters above her head strange stonelike ribs striped the sky. She tried to find a spot to climb up one of them.
"Oh! Of course."
She drew a circle. Wow, she'd scraped her arms worse than she thought.
With a slight rumble vines broke the rock beneath her feet. Except, they weren't vines. The nearest deadwood trunk began sucking into the ground, all its old roots cracking apart in attempts to fulfill the spell. The whole tree turned blacker and blacker, hissing away into streams of ash.
Alarmed she scrambled out of the ash sweeping her shoes.
"Right," she said aloud. "No plants, no plant magic." She was used to acting human. She could figure this out some other way.
Apart from the crumble under her shoes and the burbling water there were no sounds. Not a single animal or plant crossed her path. An eerie feeling began to creep at her back. She looked over her shoulder. Nothing but rock and water.
In the faded distance a voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
"Come out come out wherever you are~"
A withered hand clapped over her mouth. It muffled her shocked yelp. The hand tightened. Each finger armored in sharp articulated plate. "Don't talk," Emperor Belos' smooth voice purred.
She struggled on impulse. A bar thwacked her across the stomach and she doubled over it. Panicked out of her mind, her vision fixated on the top of the staff he'd hit her with. The single wing with its red orb was right there, pieces of human machinery articulated into it.
Her feet lifted off the ground. Belos had thrown her over the staff and it dug into her stomach as they soared upward. Her skin crawled where the weight of Belos' arms kept her down. She flipped her gaze to see him seated on the staff. He was wearing that creepy mask again, the long pointed one with the antlers.
"Let go of me." She was not playing around. Belos pressed down harder. Urgh.
Like hell she was going anywhere with this freak. His armor only covered his forearms. Willow snatched Belos' sleeve, tore upwards, and sank her teeth into wrinkly exposed flesh.
"What the—OW!"
She clenched her jaw. Pete moss and rotting wood invaded her mouth. Belos cursed and tried to rip his arm away. She bit harder. Copper blood tang leaked into the earthy taste.
So, the emperor did bleed.
She didn't expect the impact. Ground slammed the breath from her lungs. Belos and the staff clattered over stone while she flipped and rolled bruisingly across the rocks.
The emperor recovered faster from a crash landing than she'd hoped. His boots approached, the bottom of his cloak sliding over broken rocks. Still dizzy on her elbows and knees Willow's fury sounded a lot woozier than intended. "You ruined everything."
Emperor Belos stretched to his full height, peering down on her through the antlered mask.
She balled her fists against the rock. Before she could punch him Belos clapped a hand over the mask and doubled over. He whipped around to race to the edge of the boiling water. The white cloak trembled while his breathing hitched sickly.
Willow couldn't believe it. "You're throwing up?"
"Maybe. Just give me a sec. Bad memories." He held up a finger while very clear trying-not-to-barf heaves wracked his body.
Um. She could escape with Clover but no way did she want Belos to know about her palisman. Was this really the emperor though?
Belos panted and straightened. From the water he turned his head to stare at her, motionless, the mask frozen above his ghostly cloak. His voice had that evil drawl to it. "I have to admit, the latest attempt is very impressive Collector. Keep it up and even I won't be able to tell the difference." He glided across the rocks in her direction. "I'm not going to tell you what you got wrong, but it's really bloody obvious this time."
Willow hesitated. "You're not Belos, are you?"
"Congrats! And you're not Willow. Looks like both of us get a passing grade."
She squinted. The mannerisms were familiar. Who else would be so sassy in a situation like this. "...Eda?"
The figure burst out laughing in a riotous way that was extremely unfit for Belos' voice. "Hahaha! Oh, wow, that's a new one. Eda." They wiped a fake tear off the mask.
"Well if you won't tell me your name I'm going to call you B."
"Wonderful," B said flatly. "Now can we go? You've compromised my hiding spot and I'll have to find another. After I get rid of you."
"Can you take me to Bonesborough?"
"Uh. No. And seriously, drop the act."
"It's not a—" Willow took a calming breath. Arguing with this person wasn't going to accomplish anything. They weren't going to change their mind. "Okay," she said. "Where would you like to take me?"
"I'd like to dump you in the middle of the wilderness for looking like… this…" Belos' voice was disgusted, "but it's probably not your fault, so."
She wasn't the most attractive person but people didn't usually say so to her face. Willow stared at the ground while heat rushed her cheeks. "Leave me here."
"I can't just leave you. Look! There is literally nothing here! Do you know what I've been eating for the past few weeks?"
"Palismen?"
That shut B up.
"I'll find my own way back home. Thanks," Willow said, and walked off.
Behind her B's voice went cold. "How did you know that." It wasn't a question. "How. Did you know that."
A chilling sensation clenched Willow's heart. This was the voice people heard before they died. Like Luz said, the Emperor would act all calm, and then—
He materialized in front of her, goop and bone, crooked mask snapping back into place. The half-winged staff whirled and came down pointed at her throat. Red magic crackled. "Tell me who you are!" Belos roared.
She bared her teeth. Behind her back she started a spell.
"WHO ARE YOU?"
Bzzz.
She grabbed the end of the staff and wrenched it sideways. A green circle burst at the edge of her fingertips. Deadwood root ripped from the rock, lashed around Belos, shoved the emperor back even as the bark hissed into streams of ash. Belos shouted, spat, flailed.
Willow leapt up pointing the spell circle at Belos. There were no more plants to call. It didn't matter. She'd do… something!
At a standstill they stared each other down. Her hand trembled. Belos sprawled in a heap of ash still aiming his staff at her.
Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.
She wasn't imagining it. Under the emperor's cloak a Penstagram scroll went off.
Bzz.
She jolted at the buzz in her own pocket dimension. It kept buzzing. In absolute shock she waited. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Both their scrolls were erupting with probably a hundred notifications, one after the other, not stopping.
"Titan," B whispered. He lowered the staff. "Oh, Titan. Titan! Don't read any of that. You can't! I didn't—I thought it wasn't going to send those!"
"HUNTER?" Willow screeched as the cloaked person panicked in a very Hunterish fashion. The wing on Belos' staff popped off the base and soared around of its own volition. Clover shot out from under Willow's jacket.
And then, out of nowhere, a singsong call filled the rocky boiling outcrop. "I found you~"
Hunter pawed his outfit. "Shit. No no no, not now." Midnight black crept up the white cloak. Horns on the mask shrank and spread, curving around into squared wings. Its face morphed to a pointed owl's beak. Hunter's false voice cracked and became the energetic cocky tone she remembered all too well. "We need to get out of here. Now."
It really was him.
A slow rhythmic impact in the ocean approached. Each rumble sent the sound of a crashing wave after it. The ground vibrated. Childish laughter grew louder.
Willow shouted for Clover. Her palisman staff scooped her up in one fluid motion. "How well do you remember your flyer derby game?" she asked.
"Don't let him hear you say that. Go!"
Hunter's black cloak swirled with the speed Flapjack put on. Instead of going above the rib arches he zigzagged through the rock formations. Boiling water and stone zoomed around as Willow followed. Hunter's cloak rippled in the distance.
Shoot, he'd gotten good, and she was rusty.
His gold winged owl mask turned to check on her at one point. Still here. The rocks were getting denser and taller. Bands of gray sky whizzed by.
Light scratched out Hunter's visage. He reappeared higher up. He flickered and flashed, ascending an invisible staircase up a craggy slope. Gold lining inside his cloak flared with the movement and blended in with the light magic. It made him difficult to track.
Oh Titan, she'd missed this. "Can't let them show us up, now, can we?"
An ordinary flyer wouldn't have been able to follow the path. Willow hugged Clover and let the palisman tilt straight up, shooting skyward like an arrow. Wind buffeted her face and roared in her ears, streaming off her glasses. Alive! Alive!
Of course she shouldn't be laughing right now, but danger was just part of the demon realm. It was part of being a witch! She finally felt like herself! No more hiding.
She turned a sharp corner over the edge of the cliff Hunter landed on. She wished she could see the look on his face. Masks hid so much emotion, didn't they?
Willow landed neatly. Past where they stood a couple more rock rises stepped up to create a series of cliffs. Tall stones jutted everywhere like a natural maze, leading to the nearest cliff wall.
Hunter did not congratulate her excellent flying. He folded his arms. Behind the mask's dark slats but she got the impression he was glaring. "You shouldn't be here. Go back to the human world."
He wasn't happy to see her at all. That hurt. "Well, gee, good to see you too."
His shoulders dropped. "I didn't mean that. Ah, never mind. Look let's just focus on getting you out of the demon realm."
"I can't go back Hunter. I fell through a hole in the sky and it closed."
"That's not good. Did the Collector find a way to the other side? It must be imperfect or he'd leave it open. Or would he?" Hunter paced and continued to mumble crazy inner workings of his mind.
Willow approached one of the reddish stones that clamored up to the cliff wall ahead. She ran her fingers across the unforgiving texture. There hadn't been any formations like this near Bonesborough, or anywhere else she'd been, but the Isles were pretty long. They could be in one of the claws?
"I can't believe you were disguised as Belos," she said. That broke Hunter out of his pacing.
"It's one of the Collector's games. I don't get a choice."
"He… makes that happen?"
"Yeah." Pieces of grit caught in Hunter's voice. He was silent for a little bit before adding, "Most people want to kill the emperor since they think he's still alive. He's not."
Which meant not only did Hunter have to carry the visage and voice of the man who'd done horrible things to him, but he had to survive those who wanted revenge. Even people he trusted would attack on sight. "Is that why you didn't think it was me?"
"I've seen you. A lot. But it's always a lie. The first time, I…" he sighed. A black gloved hand came up to touch the mask. "Sometimes it's a trap. Others it's just some innocent person who's stuck in an illusion. But don't worry!" He thrust his hands out. "I trust it's you. I just, uh, didn't expect the ears. What happened to them?"
"Oh. Right." She touched the gemstone brooch at her neck. Gus' illusion dispelled.
Hunter's arms lowered to his sides. The unmoving owl face stared at her.
They'd both gotten taller, Hunter even more so. Hidden gold shimmered under the black cloak. His shoulders had taken on masculine broadness but he was still thin as a rail. Worryingly so in fact.
He watched her quietly. Whatever he was thinking she couldn't tell. Sadness, or disappointment, or, she didn't know. They hadn't seen each other in years.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing. It's nothing." He tried to rub the back of his head. Gloved fingers padded on metal since the owl protected like a full helmet. Flapjack chittered on his shoulder as he walked up to her. "I need to come up with a place you can go."
"You still don't want to take me to Bonesborough?"
"There is no Bonesborough Willow! It's gone."
"What?"
"Everything you knew is gone, okay?"
Willow let out a short huff, steeled herself, and looked as straight into the emotionless mask as she could. Its slats were dark. "Let me see you."
Hunter looked away.
"Please?" she asked. Talking to a costume wasn't the same.
"I don't think that's a good idea. You'll be somewhere safe soon anyway. Somewhere not with me."
"If that's true then I need to see you even more. It's important. To me."
He ducked his head.
Far below boiling water bubbled. Clear, cold sky watched. Waited.
Hunter reached up and undid a strap under his chin. And then, very reluctantly, he lifted the owl helmet off. Dull, ashen yellow hair looked almost colorless. Crusted cuts scattered across his features. Eyes sunken. Face gaunt. Shame kept him from meeting her gaze. He wasn't just exhausted. This was the look of a soul chased to the brink of extinction.
It broke her heart.
"...Yeah," he said softly. "That's what I thought." He moved to put the mask back on.
Willow caught his arm. "No don't," she said.
Unexpected strength existed under the fabric. Despite his lean appearance he was tense like steel. The surprising toughness sank in while her touch lingered. Hunter had survived nothing but hardship this whole time. Make no mistake—if she had to toss him over her shoulder and fly away she could, but it would by no means be easy like before.
Hunter didn't try to throw her off. The added weight of the mask he held started to sink into her hand. Realizing she'd been holding on way too long Willow released him.
Something strange and unfulfilled hovered between them.
Hunter almost spoke, but caught himself. He turned away and headed into the maze of rocks without looking back. "Come on. Let's get out of the open."