The world snapped back into focus, and Tink immediately wanted to vomit.
Teleportation was never a pleasant experience. There was no graceful transition, no gentle folding of space that carried you from one place to another. It was violent. Disorienting. Like being turned inside out and shoved through a keyhole before being reassembled on the other side by someone who wasn't entirely sure which organs went where.
"First time?" Jax's voice was sympathetic. "It gets easier."
"It better," Jacky muttered, one hand pressed against the wall for support. Even she looked slightly green beneath her mouth mask.
They had materialized in what appeared to be a storage room: crates and boxes stacked floor to ceiling, covered in dust and cobwebs. The air smelled stale, unused. A good entry point. Jax had done his job well. Kali was already moving, her daemonic chainsaw held low and ready. "Stay quiet. Stay together. We don't know what kind of security they have inside."
The team fell into formation without needing to be told. Kali at the front. Joseph and Jacky flanking. Alexander and Lindsay in the middle, their magji tools primed and ready. Tink and Jax bringing up the rear. Seven against an army. Tink tried not to think about those odds.
…
The compound was larger than it had looked from outside. Corridors branched off in every direction, a maze of converted industrial spaces repurposed for war. They passed barracks filled with sleeping human soldiers, armories stocked with weapons both mundane and magical, training areas where the scent of blood still lingered in the air. And daemons. So many daemons.
Tink had never seen this many in one place before. They lurked in every shadow, patrolled every hallway, stood guard at every intersection. Some were humanoid, twisted mockeries of people with too many teeth or too few eyes. Others were monstrous, creatures of nightmare that defied easy description. All of them radiated danger like heat from a fire.
"How are we supposed to search this entire place?" Alexander whispered, his voice barely audible. "The Oubliette could be anywhere."
"It won't be just anywhere," Joseph replied. His blindfold was still in place, but Tink knew his kaleidoscopic eyes were seeing things none of them could. "Poison would keep it close. Somewhere secure. Somewhere only she could access."
"Her personal quarters," Lindsay said. "Or a vault of some kind."
"Then we find it." Kali's voice brooked no argument. "Keep moving."
They slipped through the compound like ghosts, avoiding patrols through a combination of timing, luck, and Joseph's uncanny ability to sense approaching threats before they materialized. Twice they had to hide, pressing themselves into alcoves or behind machinery while daemon guards passed within arm's reach. Once, a human soldier walked directly past their position, so close that Tink could have reached out and touched him.
He didn't see them. Kali had done something with a spell, wrapped it around the man's perception somehow, bending his attention away from where they crouched in the shadows.
"Useful trick," Jacky muttered once the soldier was gone.
"You don't get to my rank without them," Kali replied.
…
They found Poison's quarters on the third floor. The door was reinforced: thick metal with magji traps layered across its surface. Whatever was inside, she didn't want anyone getting to it without her permission.
"Can you open it?" Kali asked Jax.
The teleporter studied the wards, his scarred face thoughtful. "I can bypass the physical door. Teleport us to the other side. But the traps…" He shook his head. "They're designed to prevent exactly that. If I try to force it, they'll trigger some kind of response."
"Then we do this the old-fashioned way." Kali revved her chainsaw, the daemonic teeth spinning with hungry anticipation. "Everyone stand back." The door didn't stand a chance.
Kali's weapon tore through the metal like paper, shredding traps and steel alike in a shower of sparks and screaming metal. The noise was tremendous, a shrieking whine that echoed through the corridors and announced their presence to anyone within a hundred meters.
"So much for stealth," Lindsay murmured.
"Move!" Kali barked, kicking through the ruined doorframe. "Find the Oubliette!"
They poured into the room, spreading out to search. The space was surprisingly spartan: a bed, a desk, a few personal effects scattered across surfaces. Nothing that suggested the lair of a Daemon King building an empire. And no Oubliette.
"It's not here," Alexander said, his voice tight with frustration. He'd torn through the closet, the drawers, even checked under the bed. "There's nothing."
"There has to be something," Lindsay insisted. Her Man-eating Croc was prowling the room, its massive jaws snapping at shadows. "A hidden compartment. A secret passage. Something."
"There isn't." Joseph stood in the center of the room, his head tilted as if listening to something only he could hear. "I can see the residue of the artifact's presence. It was here. Recently. But it's gone now."
"Gone where?" Tink demanded.
"I don't know. But someone does." Joseph turned toward the door, his chains uncoiling from his arm like awakening serpents. "We have company."
…
The daemon was small. That was the first thing Tink noticed. A white fox, barely larger than a housecat, sitting in the ruined doorway with an expression of mild curiosity. Its fur gleamed in the emergency lighting, pristine and perfect, utterly untouched by the chaos surrounding it. She looked like she had been waiting for them.
"Well," the fox said, its voice surprisingly melodic. "You made better time than I expected. The OM has improved."
"Daemon." Kali's chainsaw roared to life. "Where is it?"
"Where is what?" The daemon's innocence was transparently false. "You'll have to be more specific. We have quite a lot of things here."
"The Oubliette." Kali took a step forward. "The artifact containing Zoey Winters. Tell me where it is, and I might let you live."
Jinx laughed, a bright tinkling sound that seemed completely at odds with the tension in the room. "Oh, I like you. Straight to the point. No games, no posturing." The fox's eyes glittered. "But I'm afraid I can't help you. The Oubliette isn't here anymore."
"Then where is it?"
"Somewhere safe." Jinx's smile was all teeth. "Somewhere you can't reach. Somewhere no human, no magjistar, no daemon would ever think to look."
Jacky moved before anyone could stop her. Her spiked bat swung in a vicious arc, aimed directly at the fox's skull. But Jinx was faster. A portal opened beneath her, and she dropped through it, reappearing on the other side of the room.
"Now, now," Jinx chided. "Violence won't get you what you want. Not from me."
"Then what will?" Tink stepped forward, their small form trembling with barely contained rage. "What do you want?"
Jinx studied them for a long moment. Something shifted in the daemon's eyes, a flicker of something that might have been recognition. Or interest.
"You're Zoey's fairie." It wasn't a question. "I've heard about you. A magji creature that she treats as an equal. Quite interesting…"
"Answer the question."
"What do I want?" Jinx tilted her head, considering. "I want to survive. I want my mistress to achieve her goals. I want a world where daemons don't have to hide in shadows, hunted by people who see us as nothing but monsters." Her voice softened. "But more than any of that, I want Poison to be happy. And right now, nothing makes her happier than knowing that the girl who killed the man she loved is trapped in an endless void of nothing."
"Then we have nothing to talk about." Kali raised her chainsaw.
"Wait." Joseph's voice cut through the tension. His chains had extended while they talked, spreading across the floor in patterns that Tink only now realized had surrounded the fox daemon completely. "She's stalling. Buying time for reinforcements to arrive."
Jinx's smile flickered. Then steadied.
"But she's also not afraid anymore," Joseph said, and there was something careful in his voice now, something cautious. "She was scared when she arrived. I could see it clearly. But she isn't now." He tilted his head. "She made a decision."
Joseph's chains struck anyway. They moved like living things, faster than the eye could follow, wrapping around the fox daemon before she could open another portal. Jinx yelped in surprise as the black metal coiled around her body, pinning her legs, her tail, her snout.
Then she laughed.
It wasn't what any of them expected. Not a yelp of pain or a snarl of fury, but a bright, clear sound, muffled slightly by the chain across her muzzle. Tink could see the daemon's mahna draining away, absorbed by the dark metal that bound her, and Jinx didn't seem to care at all.
"You were saying?" Joseph's voice had lost its mildness. Something in it had gone very still.
Jinx stopped struggling. She went perfectly, deliberately relaxed, and looked at Tink with an expression that wasn't fear and wasn't rage. It was something worse. It was satisfaction.
"The Pariana Depths," she said, her voice clear despite the chains. "The deepest point in the ocean. Eleven kilometers down. That's where I sent it."
She hadn't gasped it. She hadn't broken. She had handed it to them like a gift she had been holding all night, waiting for the right moment to unwrap.
Silence. Absolute, horrified silence.
"You're lying," Alexander said, but his voice was uncertain.
"I'm not." Jinx's eyes stayed on Tink, watching, drinking in every flicker of reaction. "No human can survive that pressure. No magjistar can teleport somewhere they've never seen. The Oubliette is resting at the bottom of the world, in darkness so complete that even daemons fear to tread there. Your friend is gone. Forever." She cackled.
Tink felt the words like a physical blow. The Pariana Depths. The deepest place on Earth. A location so hostile, so unreachable, that it might as well have been on another planet. And Jinx had sat in that doorway and waited for them, patient as a trap, holding this piece of cruelty in her jaws until the moment it would hurt the most.
"There has to be a way," they whispered. "There has to be—"
"There isn't." Jinx's voice held no triumph now. Only a tired kind of certainty. "Poison planned for everything. Every contingency. Every possible rescue attempt. She knew someone would come for the girl eventually. So she put her somewhere no one could follow."
"She's wrong." Jax's voice cut through the despair. Everyone turned to look at the teleporter, who stood at the edge of the room with an expression of grim determination. "There is a way."
"Jax." Kali's voice was a warning.
"Teleportation magji," Jax continued, ignoring her. "I don't need to have seen a place to teleport there. I just need to know where it is. Coordinates. Depth. Direction." He met Kali's eyes. "I can reach the trench."
"The pressure would kill you," Lindsay said. "The moment you materialized…"
"I know." Jax's voice was calm. Accepting. "But I'd have a few seconds. Maybe less. Enough time to grab whatever's there and teleport back."
"You'd die," Tink breathed.
"Probably." Jax smiled, and for a moment he looked almost peaceful. "But I'd die getting our only hope back. And that seems like a pretty good way to go."
"No." Kali's voice was sharp. "I won't authorize a suicide mission. There has to be another way."
Alarms began to wail. Red lights swept across the corridor outside, and Tink heard the thunder of approaching footsteps. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.
"They're coming," Joseph said, his chains tightening around Jinx. "We're out of time."
Kali's face twisted. She looked at Jax, at the team, at the bound daemon who had come here for the sole purpose of watching hope die in their faces. Then she looked at Tink, and something passed between them that Tink couldn't quite name.
"We retreat," she said. "Get back to the safe house. Regroup. Find another way."
"There is no other way." Jax's voice was quiet but firm. "You know that. I know that. This is why I came. This is why Luna sent me." He reached out and gripped Kali's shoulder. "Let me do this. Let me bring her home."
For a long moment, Kali didn't respond. The alarms screamed. The footsteps thundered closer.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Bring the fox," she said, her voice rough. "She's coming with us. If Jax doesn't come back, we're going to need everything she knows." She didn't look at Jinx when she said it. "We're leaving."
Joseph's chains constricted, and Jinx let out a squeal of protest as she was hauled into the air, satisfaction finally curdling into something less comfortable. The team gathered close, hands reaching for Jax's shoulders, his arms, any point of contact they could find. The footsteps were getting closer. Tink could hear shouting now, daemon voices, human voices, the chaos of an army mobilizing against an invasion.
"Everyone hold on," Jax said. "This is going to be unpleasant."
The world twisted. And they were gone.