Sunny rolled onto his side and pushed himself upright with the look of someone whose body had strong opinions about this and had been ignored.
Nephis noticed. "Where are you going?"
"To look for something," Sunny said, and walked away before the conversation could develop further.
Quinn watched him go and stayed where he was.
When Sunny came back, he looked like a man who had gone looking for bad news and found exactly that. He said he had found the creature — the large one, the one with the bone scythes that Nephis had sent his shadow to track the day before.
Nephis went quiet for a moment.
"So what do we do?" Sunny asked.
"We kill it," Nephis said.
Sunny looked at her. "Are you nuts?"
She said there was no other option. They couldn't leave while it was dark, and when the light came back the creature would see them before they saw it, and the only thing they had going for them right now was the fact that it didn't know they were here. That advantage wouldn't last past dawn.
Quinn had walked over to stand beside them. "I completely agree with killing it before the light comes back," he said. "And it isn't fully dark yet. We can still see well enough to work with."
Sunny shook his head. "Even if we can — three people, against something that just killed eight scavengers like it was out for a walk? We don't even know where it's weak."
Nephis frowned. After a short pause she said: "It's just an awakened monster."
Sunny stared at her.
"What do you mean, just an awakened monster? Have you forgotten that all four of us are only Sleepers? Dormant humans are not supposed to deal with awakened beasts, let alone monsters. The fact that we can kill scavengers at all is already abnormal."
She looked back at him, unmoved. "But we are abnormal."
Sunny stood with his mouth open and nothing coming out of it.
Nephis sighed. "Neither of us is a normal Sleeper. And beyond that, we have someone with us who worships something that I'm fairly certain is extremely abnormal." She looked at Quinn. "Aren't we? Don't try to deny it. Someone ordinary simply would not have survived in this place."
Quinn said: "You can call it Mr. Door."
All three of them turned to look at him. Cassie included, which was slightly unnerving given that she couldn't see him.
Quinn scratched the back of his head. "Look. Our lives are on a rope here at any given moment. So maybe I'll give you something — just something — to try calling Mr. Door if you're close to dying." He paused. "It's not like it answers every time anyway. But it's better than dying in a place like this, right?"
Sunny looked at Nephis. Nephis looked at Sunny. Whatever passed between them had the feel of two people arriving at the same reluctant conclusion from different directions. Cassie had found a nearby rock and appeared to be holding onto it quite firmly.
Quinn spread his hands. "I'm just saying. Better the option exists than not."
Silence settled over the cliff top. Then Nephis cleared her throat. "Anyway. We have me, you, Quinn, an awakened Echo, and the advantage of a surprise attack. I'm not saying it will be easy. We might die." A pause. "But there's a reasonable chance we won't."
She looked down at the silver blade of her sword and after a moment added: "As I've already said. We don't have a choice."
Sunny bent his head and muttered something under his breath that was probably not kind to anyone involved.
In the silence that followed, Cassie spoke.
All three of them turned toward her at the same time.
The blind girl lifted her head slightly, her voice steady in the way of someone who has thought something all the way through and come out the other side of it. "You're forgetting the main advantage we have over that thing."
Nobody spoke.
"We are intelligent," Cassie said. "And the monster is not."
Her voice sat in the dark between them. Sunny exhaled — the sound of a man who had been hoping for a way out and had just been handed a reason to stop looking for one.
There was no avoiding the fight.
Some time later, Sunny stood in the dark and looked at the creature.
It was larger up close. Most things were, but this one had a quality to it that felt almost personal — the bone scythes catching what little light existed, the carapace swallowing the rest, the whole thing sitting in the dark like it had always been there and always would be.
Sunny exhaled slowly.
"Damnation," he said, to no one in particular.
Then he stepped toward it.