Noah climbed with both hands on the rock, Ivy moving slower beside him than she had in hours, her claws finding purchase on the mountain's outer face one careful hold at a time.
"I know you could just fly us up there," he said, breathing harder than he wanted to admit. "But we've been at this for hours and I don't want to burn you out right before we actually find him. And if we fly past too fast we might miss something. Another door, another marking, who knows."
Ivy made a low sound, the kind that meant agreement more than complaint, and kept climbing.
They were maybe two hundred meters up the exterior face when a screech hit.
It came from above, loud enough that Noah felt it in his teeth before his ears fully processed it, and he tipped his head back to find the source, scanning the dark sky overhead where the mountain's peak vanished into cloud cover thick enough to hide whatever was making that sound.
A black shape dropped through the clouds.
