Time slipped by slowly, and steps were climbed, one at a time, now taking up to two minutes per step. Alexander could see the plateau and sighed internally.
'If I hadn't been taking on the burden of half of them, I would have already been up the entire staircase.'
Looking back at his friends, he could tell they were getting tired, and he half wondered if this wasn't the fox's plan. To tire them out here before confronting them somewhere no one could see his underhanded methods.
Of course, he knew he was the one who insisted on taking the staircase in the first place. But that didn't make the fox any less guilty of trying to trick them.
Otherwise, why would he have made Bai Feng tell them about the alternate path? If not to challenge them, or to play on their egos, what was the point of letting them know this path wasn't for them?
Alexander couldn't see the fox's face, but he could already imagine its smug look, as they trudged up these steps so incredibly slowly.
