Noah came back down through the gate at a dead sprint, Ivy's bloom already dissolving behind him into loose petals that the frost giants stepped around with wide eyes, and he didn't slow down to explain himself. He raised one hand at Yrsala as he passed, the closest thing to a wave he had time for, and kept moving toward the shaft mouth.
"I'll be back," he called over his shoulder.
Yrsala said something he didn't catch. He was already climbing onto Ivy's back by the time the words reached him, and then they were airborne, rising past the frozen pillars and the watching giants and into the long dark throat of the shaft he'd spent the better part of an hour descending.
This time the climb wasn't going to take an hour.
