Page 184 of The Spider Queen
“How are you feeling, lady?” Virbius asked, looking over his shoulder at me.
“Surprisingly alert. And full.” I felt like I’d eaten an entire Thanksgiving meal, and I had food just underneath my esophagus.
“Good, we’ll keep going. We’re almost to the swamp.”
I swallowed. I was not looking forward to the next leg of our journey. “What kind of beasts live in the swamp?”
“No beasts,” Virbius explained. “It’s not that kind of swamp.”
Do I want to—
No. You don’t.
I sighed and kept moving forward.
Chapter 23
My mouth gaped. “An ice swamp? Really?”
Virbius nodded.
“Are those ice caps?” I demanded with a point of a finger.
“Yes,” Virbius replied.
“And is that—” I looked up at the sky. “Snow?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure this is a swamp?” I asked.
“It is,” Thane stated. “Not all things in Purgatory look the way you expect them to.”
Boy, wasn’t that the truth.
Snowflakes continued to lazily float down from the dark sky and fall into the gently rippling water.
Ice stakes rose out of the swamp, iridescent blue and pulsing.
You’re not cold, though, are you?
That’s rhetorical. Right? Because of the spidey suit?
Yes.
“I am going to change into my other form.” Virbius’s eyes glowed red. “You understand?”
“Sure. That form has fur.” I looked to Thane. “How do we do this?”
Virbius gestured to the floating slabs of ice. “There’s a walkway.”
“Are you sure there are no swamp creatures?”
“Nothing to fear. I promise.” Virbius took a few steps away from us, and we gave him a wide berth. His skin rippled and shifted, his limbs elongating. Suddenly he was seven feet tall and furry.
With a wave of his paw, he gestured to the ice swamp. He was already on the third block, hopping to the fourth, by the time Thane and I had approached the first one.
I still wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t some danger lurking at the bottom of the swamp’s icy depths. “You sure this is a good idea?” I asked.
