The vial had taken longer to fill than I would have liked.

  I held it up to the faint gold light hovering above my palm and watched the st bead of water slide down the inside of the gss.

  Clear.

  Or at least clear enough.

  I had sacrificed my shirt earlier and hung it from a protrusion in the rock above me. The cloth sagged under the weight of wet sediment I had poured across it. Dirty aquifer water continued to seep slowly through the fabric, gathering along the lowest fold before dripping down into the mouth of the vial.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  It was not the most elegant filtration system. But it was working.

  I lowered the vial carefully to the small depression I had carved in the gravel beside my knee and held my hand above it.

  "Ignite."

  A thin tongue of fme appeared at my fingertip.

  I touched it to the gss.

  The water inside shivered as heat spread through it. Tiny bubbles formed along the interior surface, clinging there before breaking free and rising upward.

  I waited until the boil was steady, then withdrew my hand and let the vial cool.

  The aquifer air was damp enough that it took only minutes.

  When the gss no longer felt hot on the back of my hand, I lifted it and took a careful drink.

  The water tasted faintly of minerals and cloth.

  But it was water.

  My throat worked greedily as I swallowed it.

  When I finished, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and tilted the vial toward the small shape perched on the rock beside me.

  "Do you want any?"

  Phymera looked up from where she had been sitting.

  Four delicate-looking feet clung easily to the stone surface. Her tail curved neatly around her body.

  "No," she said. Her voice emerged in her familiar ft tone. "I do not require regur sustenance."

  "Right," I said, sipping the st of it. "You're so lucky to be made out of metal."

  Phymera blinked slowly.

  I set the empty vial down beside the growing pile of sediment and leaned back against the rock wall.

  A moment ter my stomach growled.

  Loudly.

  The sound echoed across the small stone shelf where I had decided to establish my temporary camp.

  I closed my eyes briefly.

  Water was one problem solved.

  Food remained an entirely separate category of difficulty.

  I opened my eyes again and looked at the small metal gecko beside me.

  "You're lucky you're made out of metal," I repeated, licking my parched lips.

  Phymera turned her head toward me.

  "Yes, you've said that once already—"

  She stopped. Her eyes narrowed.

  "I doubt I would taste very good, Cire."

  "I don't know..." I tilted my head and smiled at her. "They say when it comes to food that fortune favors the bold. Someone had to be the first to bury cabbage and trust it would come back better."

  Phymera leaned slightly away from me. "I am reconsidering my earlier decision to remain with you."

  I ughed, stroking her cheek, then pushed myself to my feet.

  The rock shelf where I had chosen to stop was one of the few stable surfaces I had found along this stretch of aquifer. The water here thinned into a shallow margin before dropping abruptly into deeper darkness.

  A thin yer of suspended sediment floated across the surface, like smoke trapped beneath gss. Every so often the silt shifted gently in slow, zy currents.

  I crouched near the edge and studied it.

  Phymera scuttled across the stone to perch on my crook of my elbow.

  "Is there something interesting about the water?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  She followed my gaze down into the dim surface.

  "...where?"

  I pointed.

  "Do you see that?"

  Phymera leaned forward.

  The silt yer rippled faintly.

  Something beneath it had moved.

  Not a current.

  A disturbance.

  "Hey." I held out my arm. "Can you use that snake form you used earlier? Back when we first met."

  Phymera looked up at me.

  "It doesn't have to be that big," I quickly added.

  She sighed faintly.

  Her body softened. Metal seams shifted. Ptes slid across one another in a smooth mechanical whisper.

  The small gecko colpsed inward and reassembled itself into a thin metallic serpent no thicker than my finger.

  She coiled once around my forearm.

  "Is this satisfactory?"

  "Perfect."

  I leaned forward until my arm extended out over the water. The sediment yer hovered inches below.

  "All right," I said. "I need you to agitate the surface for me. Just a little."

  Phymera was silent for a moment.

  Then her tail twitched.

  The water rippled.

  Concentric circles spread across the silt yer.

  She continued for several minutes, sending slow waves across the surface.

  At st Phymera gnced up at me.

  "...what are we doing?"

  "Fishing."

  Phymera's body stiffened around my arm.

  The silt bulged.

  The surface erupted.

  A massive pale shape exploded upward from the water.

  I jerked backward instinctively.

  The creature unched past the edge of the shelf with startling speed, smming onto the rock where my arm had been a heartbeat earlier. Water and silt spshed across the stone.

  I scrambled back several steps before it could orient.

  The thing writhed violently, then flopped sideways.

  It was a fish.

  Or something close enough to one.

  Its body stretched nearly eight feet from blunt head to tapering tail. Pale flesh glistened in the dim light, slick and colorless.

  Two thick forelimbs protruded from just behind its head. They dug into the rock as the creature hauled itself forward.

  Amphibious.

  Of course it was.

  Low-grade demonic miasma pooled along the cavern floor like fog. Dense. Persistent. Just like at the surface, it had forced the fauna here to change.

  The creature's head swung toward me. Its mouth opened, rows of thin needle teeth glinting inside.

  Phymera tightened on my arm.

  "We are going to be eaten."

  "Not today."

  I snatched a loose stone from the ground and hurled it hard against the wall to my right.

  The rock struck with a sharp crack.

  The fish's head snapped toward the sound instantly, its eyes useless white disks buried beneath translucent skin.

  It had evolved blind in the low light environment. Vibration-sensitive.

  Good.

  I'd fought more formidable enemies this way.

  While its attention shifted, I moved.

  My dagger fshed in my hand.

  From its blind side I drove the bde down into the creature's skull.

  The metal bit through slick skin and cartige.

  Not deep enough.

  The cavefish thrashed violently.

  Its body smmed sideways into me.

  I staggered back as the impact knocked the dagger partially free.

  Phymera shrieked.

  "We are definitely going to be eaten!"

  The fish twisted toward me again—

  Then slowed.

  Its limbs faltered.

  The massive body wobbled once.

  Then colpsed.

  The only sound left was my breathing.

  Phymera loosened her grip slightly, and blinked.

  "...it stopped?"

  "Yes."

  "Why did it stop?"

  I crouched cautiously beside the creature, wiping my dagger against the stone.

  "Clove oil." I tapped the small vial strapped to my belt. "It's a neurotoxin in sufficient concentration."

  I still had some from the apothecary stock I'd swiped earlier. Because of its numbing properties, a small dilution of it was added to the massage oil I'd made for Rocher.

  I rolled the fish onto its side and began examining it.

  The flesh was firm.

  The gills still fluttered faintly.

  I breathed.

  That meant food was secured for now. Since nutrients were fairly scarce down here, the fish should have abundant stores of fat.

  Phymera watched me for a long moment as I began to work.

  "Cire."

  "Yes?"

  "The next time you intend to use me as bait, I would appreciate advance notice."

  I looked up, dagger in hand, wiping the grime off my cheek.

  "Sure. I'll keep that in mind."