Darkness. Murmuring. Andrea’s eyelids trembled before they flashed open as she sat up, her claws extending from her hands and feet. Her ears stiffened and swiveled as she twisted her body to place her hands on the ground. Her back arched as she readied herself to pounce.

“This place…,” a feminine voice said. It sounded weak. Desperate. “It isn’t bad. Can I stay here for tonight, Creator?”

Creator? Was there two people? Andrea tilted her head, facing her ear towards the cave entrance to listen better. Heavy footsteps that only a novice would make—the owner wouldn’t survive more than a month. Everyone learned to walk lightly. Those who didn’t died. And then she heard them: lighter footsteps with a scraping sound. Almost like a lizard. Was the intruder a farmer then?

“What is this?” the weak voice asked. Her voice sounded strangled. Good. Maybe she saw the warnings.

“Don’t go in there,” another higher-pitched voice said. Two people then. Two people and a lizard. Andrea bit her lower lip. Why were the footsteps still approaching? Was her display not good enough? She set up the heads exactly like Palan showed her. All the natives should’ve recognized his territory marker. They wouldn’t touch his safe havens.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” the high-pitched voice asked. It sounded frantic. Scared. Cowardly demons then? Maybe she’d only have to kill one of them to scare off the other. Or maybe they’d step onto her poisoned stakes first. Andrea lifted her hands off the ground and leaned back onto her feet. She picked up the bow made from animal tendons and the material that Abaddon called wood. Her arrows were made from bones that she sharpened by herself. Of course she sucked out the marrow first.

“Ah!” Someone screamed and wailed. It sounded like the weak voice. Andrea slinked towards the entrance to her room, her footsteps silent. Even she couldn’t hear herself walk. She peered around the corner, wondering what kind of demon would cry and announce their weakness to everyone in the world. Her eyes widened. Was that another shaman? And a tiny lizard? She’d never seen one with blue stripes before. Her body froze. There were two people, where was the second? She whirled around, but no one was there. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she forced herself to calm down by taking deep breaths. If Palan was here, he’d know everyone’s location with his electromagnetic sense. But she didn’t have that. The only things she could depend on were her hearing, smell, and night vision.

“It hurts!” The weak voice came from the shaman. Her leg had sunken into one of Andrea’s pitfall traps. A bone stake had impaled her foot all the way through. It was poisoned of course—Andrea had always helped Palan prepare poisoned weapons while he was hunting. A normal demon would fall unconscious in half an hour. Maybe the shaman would take a longer amount of time.

“That’s because you didn’t listen to me, dumb dumb!” the high-pitched voice said. “Argh. How are you the leader of the angels? Wait. No. I think I understand why they’re so dumb now. This explains a lot.”

Andrea’s body stiffened as her mouth fell open. A lizard … was speaking? A lizard!? Since when could food speak!? Andrea shook her head and cleared her mind. If food was talking, then the simplest way to correct the laws of the universe was to eliminate the talking food. Andrea nocked her arrow and aimed at the flaw in her logical world. Her eyes narrowed at the lizard who was trying to pull the shaman out of the pit, and then she released.

The arrow flew straight and true as if the god of the world was aiding her in correcting an anomaly. “Gah!?” the lizard shouted at the sound of the bowstring. Good. At least she reduced the food’s sentences back to syllables of random sounds. Andrea nocked another arrow before the first arrow hit its target. In fact, the first arrow never managed to reach its target. The lizard had hid behind the shaman, using her as a meat shield.

“Stop! Stop!” the snack shouted over the shaman’s screams. Andrea snorted and fired another arrow. Who in their right mind would be stupid enough to stop when someone asked them to? The arrow pierced the shaman once again, causing Andrea to furrow her brow. This was a sneaky midnight snack. But why wasn’t it running away? Was the shaman a farmer?

Andrea fired another arrow, aiming for the shaman’s head, but she missed. The shaman had fainted and her head had drooped to her chest, barely avoiding the arrow. The snack’s head appeared over the shaman’s bleeding shoulder. “Dammit! Just wait till Palan gets here! Then you’ll regret not stopping!”

Andrea blinked. Did her snack just say Palan? Her hand hesitated. “Did you say … Palan?” she asked and tilted her head. She stretched her bow to its limit.

“That’s right! Scared now? I knew he had a big reputation in Eljiam!” An arrow flew towards Cleo’s face. She barely managed to avoid it in time. “Gah! What the hell!?”

Andrea lowered her bow and placed her hands on her hips, stepping into Cleo’s view. “Palan the hunter?”

“Yeah! He’s my bodyguard,” Cleo said and shook her fist at Andrea. The demon’s face turned ugly. Cleo paused. “Wait. Don’t tell me you have a grudge against him. If you do, I don’t know him!”

“He’s my brother!”

Cleo blinked. “Your what?”

“My brother,” Andrea said with a growl. She raised her bow. “Don’t you recognize his territory signs?”

Cleo looked around. A few demon heads were impaled on stakes, and the floor was littered with traps and stakes. It was exactly like the scene in Ni’En when Palan was creating his safe havens inside the city. “I knew,” Cleo said, her head bobbing up and down, “but this dummy didn’t.”

“You really know him?” Andrea asked and wrinkled her nose.

“Of course!” Cleo said.

“Proof.”

Cleo scratched her head as she stopped hiding behind Sariel. “Err, proof. Let’s see…,” she muttered as she rummaged through her space. Andrea’s eyes widened when Cleo’s hands disappeared. “Here we go.” A necklace and bracelet made of Palan’s teeth appeared out of nowhere. “His teeth.”

“Toss it over,” Andrea said. The jewelry landed by her feet, and she picked them up, keeping an eye on the talking snack, no, lizard. The teeth really were Palan’s. Then this talking sn—lizard was her brother’s emergency rations? “You do know him.” Andrea reached into her shirt and pulled out a similar necklace. “I have one too.”

“Then … can you put the bow down?” Cleo asked.

Andrea swallowed her saliva. “Mm. I usually don’t listen to my food when they speak, but I guess you’re special.”