The stone bricks of the hallway are slick with moisture, gleaming wetly in the ghostly light of Amalthea's wisp, Fei. It is too cramped in here for Morgana to fly; the hawk clings to the padded strap across Amalthea's withers, the lowest perch available to her. She is so still and so silent Thiel almost forgets she's there, and when she does move, fluttering her wings to adjust her position, he shies, just a little, at the sudden movement.

Oberon snorts at him, laughing in his own, stoic manner. Thiel glares at him, but only mildly; he does deserve some teasing, for startling at a hawk he knows is alive. 

Fetch stops, frozen mid step. They stumble to a halt behind her. "The path ends here," she says, her voice dark and foreboding. A shiver passes over each of them as Maggie raises the soul torch, revealing the irregular pattern of paler bricks amongst the grey granite, flecked with years of ground-in dirt. 

Oberon shoulders his way past her, looking up. Some sound, some vibration, makes Amalthea open her mouth to shout, but it's already too late. The big grey Courser has stepped on one of those pale, shimmering bricks—quartz, a corner of Amalthea's mind whispers—and the damage is done. 

The Dungeon shudders, vibrating unpleasantly beneath their hooves. Morgana shrieks, displeased by the noise, by the sensation, by the disruption in what is and what should be; she spreads her wings and takes flight, screams of protest echoing over and through the rumbling groan of stone against stone as a cold wind howls in their ears. The cacophony would be bad enough, but the stones shift, torn apart at the seams, and it is all they can do to remain upright as the hallway shatters, fragments of time and space slipping away from each other like an earthquake. Maggie's soul torch goes out, snuffed by the wind, and so does Thiel's lantern, leaving Fei their only source of light. It flits frantically here, there, everywhere, consumed by an anxious, helpless desire to do something.

"Amalthea!" Oberon bellows, rearing as the bricks dance beneath his hooves. He turns, lunging towards her; Fetch shoves Thiel aside, barely managing to catch herself before she falls. Amalthea is screaming in shrill counterpoint to Morgana, and it's too late. Each Courser is trapped on their own floating island, and the space in between is only abyss. The rumbling stops, the wind falls silent, and the party is torn asunder. 

"Fetch," Oberon rumbles, his voice tight with anger. The void dulls the sharp edges of Fetch's name, like a rock worn smooth by the river. "What is this?"

"A test," is the calm reply, and Oberon snarls. 

Thiel peers over the edge of his bricks into the chasm below. "Fei, would you fly down here?" he asks calmly, choosing to ignore Oberon as he paws at the stones with one iron-shod hoof. 

The wisp whirls around Thiel's head before plunging into the abyss, revealing broken earth and tumbled stone as far as Thiel can see. There is no recourse there, no path he can see to rejoin even one of the others. 

Maggie appears out of the shadows, Amalthea's firestarter between its fingers. It strikes a flame, lighting Thiel's lantern, for all the good it does him; all it does is reveal how far he is from the others. 

"What kind of test is this?" Amalthea demands, squinting at Fetch. 

"A test of wits," she answers.

"Wits?" Oberon growls, still furious. "Wits? How do wits cross a chasm?"

It's a sign of how upset he is, the words spilling out of him. Fetch's cryptic hints and refusal to make her warnings clear have separated him from his charge, and he has had enough. 

"Oberon, if you scoot over, I should be able to jump—" Amalthea begins, and he levels his glare at her, snapping his teeth together in denial.

"You could fall!"

"Or I might not," she counters. "You have a wall to lean on; I won't knock you off."

"Where's Morgana?" Thiel asks suddenly. Fei is here, floating by Amalthea; Maggie and the soul torch throw Fetch into sharp relief. But the hawk is nowhere to be seen.

Oberon jerks his gaze up, distracted from Amalthea's plan (and it isn't really a plan, not by his standards, but that is neither here nor there if he doesn't move to give her room). "Morgana?" he calls.

For several long moments, silence is his only answer. 

And then...

And then Morgana comes winging out of the dark, and she isn't alone. Dark, fluttering shapes follow her, a dozen, a score, impossible to count as the mass surrounds Amalthea. Oberon and Thiel watch with bated breath as the dark cloud resolves itself into...

A bridge.

"It won't hold my weight," Amalthea says, her voice shaky. "I thank you, but—"

"It will hold," says Fetch. Oberon bares his teeth at her, but somehow, Amalthea still trusts the odd Courser. 

She takes a step onto the living bridge.