“How do we get back down?”

James gave her a smile– or half of one, as though he knew something that she did not but was not quite sure that the situation called for smiling– and reached into the shadows just beyond the edge of the platform. There was another wooden clattering before he turned back to Cerys.

“I see,” she said.

“Watch your robe,” he old her, stepping up beside her. She gasped and moved aside, and James pushed the burning arrows towards the ledge with his boot.

“Let’s keep moving,” Sir Carter said, crossing the stones with the king close beside him.

With the arrows moved, there was enough of a glow one the ladder to see it and climb down. Carter wasted no time, and held the rope ladder steady at the bottom. The others followed quickly, with Cerys and Himeko helping to hold the lanterns so that they were not dropped. One her brother and James were down, she peered at the ladder.

“How what? How do you get it back up?”

“Allow me,” a voice called from above them.

“Nashtra?” Cerys called back.

“This will only take a moment,” he said.

The ladder slowly raised up, and somehow the elf was able to keep the planks from hitting one another. He set the ladder in place so that it would not fall– like the other one– unless it was nudged out just so. Then Cerys heard his boot stomping out what remained of the arrows.

“How are you going to get down?” she called up to him.

“We move out of the way,” Sir Carter said, and he held his lantern high and went on down the hall.

Before Cerys could ask what he meant, she heard a faint movement, and then a lithe body landed on the floor beside her. She gasped and stared down at Nashtra, who now knelt beside her.

“You are supposed to be better at moving out of the way,” he told her as he stood up.