Chapter 120 A Quagmire

• Pontione’s POV
• The girls were ready to take off shortly after breakfast, and their enthusiasm was almost contagious. Even for me. Something about the way they moved — sharper, more purposeful, more aligned with their lionesses — told me something had shifted overnight. Perhaps their lionesses had finally gotten through to them. Perhaps reality had settled on their shoulders. Whatever it was, they looked determined, though the nervous energy rolling off them was impossible to ignore.
• Marco hadn’t wasted a second yesterday. The moment they arrived after lunch, he laid everything out: the map, the terrain, the markers, the coordinates. He explained everything with the serious tone of a man who had seen too much and trusted too little. All we had to do now was commit the name of the place to memory. That was always the catch with teleportation — you had to know the place. You couldn’t just wish for it, couldn’t hope the universe would guide you. One wrong mental image and you could land anywhere… or nowhere.