Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Oh fair and flighty love
My aerolite above
The only dove I see,
Could you love me more
If by the sun and moon I swore
That I would never flee?
—The Oh Hellos, Bitter Water

When Allura Vysoren had come to Emon eighteen months ago on her father’s dime, she had harbored high hopes of starting her own business as a small-time wizard. She rented the smallest room above the Green Rat Pub and set it up as her office, but no matter how much she skimped and saved, the trickle of gold from her clients just wasn’t enough to keep her afloat. She hadn’t made rent in three months.

Allura dropped her head to her desk and groaned. Without looking up, she crumpled the sheet of paper with her proposed budget on it and tossed it over her shoulder. It was hopeless. Out of the three jobs she’d done this week, only two had paid, and both were for such simple magics they weren’t worth more than a few silver each. But even for the more complex tasks, she already felt guilty charging the clients for the full cost of spell components—many better-known spells required expensive components but other freelance wizards were hired to perform them just often enough to be able to charge a lower price, which the clients now expected.

There were still two jobs left over from the week before last which she still hadn’t accepted or declined. The contracts lay six inches to her right. But the first was from Old Harald, an older greasy human man who hired her at least once a month for various petty tasks in his apartment, which she usually fixed in seconds with Mending, Harald breathing down her neck the whole time, and who she strongly suspected only hired her because she was young and pretty and female. The other was a request for an augury, which was a spell that employed divine magic. Which she couldn’t do.

“Father would be proud of me for making it eighteen months,” she said hopefully. It felt like a lie. She dug her fingers into her hair. “Who am I kidding. He’s going to be furious.”

She couldn’t ask him for more money. Not again. She was already pushing her luck when she asked five months ago, and now that money was gone. She thought about her quiet, sunny dorm in the Academy with its narrow, comfortable bed, and the hours she had spent there studying with her friends, and a wave of loneliness welled up inside her chest.

No, this wasn’t the time for a breakdown. She pushed herself up and away from the desk, blinking until her eyes stopped prickling, digging her nails into her palms until she felt like she could breathe without bursting into tears. She took a quick breath and forced her mind into order.

“Okay, Allura,” she said to herself. “You’re smart. Let’s look at this logically.”

Her rent was fifteen gold a month. She was three months behind, so she owed forty-five gold. Scanning the papers on the desk, she retrieved her budget and uncrumpled it. She’d used maybe three gold of spell components this month, that was pretty good—she glanced at her wand where it rested beside the inkwell; it had been a good idea to invest in an arcane focus rather than burn through three times as many components with every spell. Food… she could probably get by on one or two gold a month (she winced). And she had earned fourteen gold and six silver total this month. Shit.

Maybe a break would help. To clear her head if nothing else. She needed ideas, and she was too emotional right now to think about this rationally. Standing up, she paced the three steps across the room to the window, where the last of the setting sunlight illuminated the buildings across the street. The bakery, she knew, sometimes sold day-olds for two coppers at the end of the day, so they wouldn’t have to throw them out. Maybe they still had some.

She combed her fingers through her hair, smoothing it where she had rumpled it before. Her coat, dark brown with just enough patches to be embarrassing, she picked up from the bed and donned. She gritted her teeth and withdrew a single silver from the box on the desk, then went downstairs.

Today she was lucky, and the bakery had raspberry scones on the day-olds rack. She savored the sweet jam filling as she crossed the street again, spilling crumbs across her lapel as she jumped the puddle in the wheel rut worn in the cobblestones outside the Green Rat. She picked them off one by one and popped them into her mouth, reluctant to let any of the scone go to waste. She hardly noticed how stale it was.

A bell tinkled as she pushed open the door. Allura waved to the barmaid, Nessa, as she crossed the room heading for the stairs. Her foot was on the bottom step when a sharp noise caught her attention; Nessa was hanging some sort of banner on the wall behind the bar. She retraced her steps.

“‘Happy Retirement Gomor’?”

“Hello, Allura,” Nessa said around the tacks held in her mouth. “Some adventuring party’s booked the bar for the evening. Supposed to show up around eight. I guess one of them’s retiring.”

“Which party?”

“The Silver Slayers. Actually, I should probably warn you.” Nessa tapped the next tack into place and brushed her hair out of her face. “They’ve been in a few times before and they’re always loud. I’d wear earplugs tonight if I were you.”

“Oh, well,” Allura gave a half-hearted chuckle, “I’ve got plenty of work to do, I doubt I’ll get much sleep regardless. I appreciate your concern.”

“Clients not giving you too much trouble, I hope?”

“No more than the usual. Old Harald sent in another one. Normally I’d decline, but right now I really need the coin. I’ll have to think of something to put him off next time.”

“Well. Best of luck to you.” Nessa finished tapping the last tack in and straightened, dusting off her apron.

“Thank you.” Allura retreated up the stairs.

Back in her room, the last of the scone in her stomach, Allura set about composing letters to Old Harald and the other client. To Harald she wrote a reluctant acceptance of his job, though she tried not to let her grudging tone come across in writing. The other client was trickier. She started with a simple yet polite decline of the job, but then felt bad and wanted to include an explanation of why. She crossed it out, turned the paper over. An augury is beyond my skills, she wrote, then thought that would make her seem incompetent and crossed it out as well. Auguries work through divine magic, which can only be performed by someone with a connection to a god, goddess, or similar divine source. I am a wizard

Did that sound patronizing? She tried again. I am a practitioner of arcane magic and as such am unable to perform a spell which requires

But that made her sound incompetent again. And as such have no connection to divinity. I could attempt to perform a spell that serves a similar purpose, such as Locate Object, but you have not provided details about

No, that was too accusatory. She scratched out the last sentence. It is my understanding that auguries can serve several purposes, such as finding lost objects or people or giving you information about your future. I could attempt to perform a spell that serves a purpose similar to what you wanted an augury for, or I could point you in the direction of a practitioner of divine magic who could perhaps serve your needs better.

But did she know anyone who could actually do divine magic? She doubted the healers at the little temple of Sarenrae down the street had any interest in future-telling. Her eyes felt very heavy. Maybe she could recommend one of her former classmates who majored in divination, that was technically future-telling, maybe they could fudge it. But who was here in Emon? In Tal’dorei? The Alabaster Lyceum probably had someone who could do it, but she didn’t know anyone in there. Maybe, she thought wildly, she could borrow a book of divination spells and do it herself. There had to be something… something she could do…

A braying laugh from the floor below woke her abruptly. Her cheek was stuck to her desk with drool and ink had dried in the nib of her pen, dripping into a blotch on her failed letter. Loud voices and the clinking of glasses echoed up from below; she was surprised they hadn’t woken her sooner. Nessa hadn’t been kidding, they weren’t quiet.

Her eyes felt sandpapery and they watered uncomfortably when she conjured a fresh magelight to hover over her shoulder. She pushed her chair back and stretched, the crick in her neck protesting being moved after so long. It was fully dark outside so she didn’t know exactly what time it was, but she was willing to bet it was very late. No horses moved past in the street outside and the client in the room next to hers was silent.

Another chorus of laughter and shouting came from below and she groaned. If she was tired enough to fall asleep at her desk there was no point in attempting to continue, but she wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep with this racket. Grabbing her wand—it was best to look as intimidating as possible when dealing with drunk people—she went back downstairs.

The bar was brightly lit and packed with people. A black-haired-and-bearded dwarf was talking animatedly to a knot of eager listeners at a table, sloshing ale out of his glass as he gestured. An elderly elf with his leg in a cast all the way up to the hip sat next to him, nodding along, his leg propped up on the chair next to him. At the bar, a halfling, her hair clipped close to her scalp, was flirting with Nessa, laying it on—Allura thought—a little too hard. Other guests filled the bar nearly to bursting, occupying every stool and chair and every inch of standing room. Streamers were hung from the lamps, far too close to the flames for comfort, and it looked like earlier in the evening someone had thrown confetti and now the bits of paper were being ground to pulp underfoot.

The braying laugh sounded again and Allura traced its origin to someone in the group around the dwarf and the elderly elf. Wedging herself between two drunk half-orcs, she planted her feet behind the dwarf’s chair, put her free hand on her hip in the most irate way she could muster, and waited.

“—And that was the third thing he said that pissed me off,” the dwarf was saying. “And then he had the nerve to try and cut my head off, the bastard. So I did the kindest thing and hit him in the balls with a bolt of lightning.”

The table roared with laughter. Allura identified the source of the loudest laugh as a half-orc woman who was seated on the table, cradling a bow. She clutched her stomach and slapped a generous thigh, letting loose another deafening chuckle. Allura’s temper broke. Loudly, she cleared her throat, injecting as much irritation into the noise as she could. “Excuse me.”

The dwarf swiveled in his seat, midway through taking a drink. His eyebrows rose when he caught sight of her expression. “Not a fan, I take it? Can’t say I blame you, hah. Haven’t seen you around here before, I don’t think. You new here? Drake Thunderbrand, Elementalist. I head the Silver Slayers.”

“I’m Allura Vysoren, I live upstairs. Can you keep it down here, please? I was trying to sleep.”

“Sorry.” The half-orc woman on the table smiled sheepishly. “It’s my fault. I have a loud laugh, I just can’t help it.”

“That laugh’s the best part of you, my dear,” said Drake, patting her knee. “Don’t ever try and quiet it down.”

The woman leaned close and smiled wickedly. “But not your favorite part.” She winked, then flicked his nose and retreated as the table oooohed and laughed. Drake laughed and pushed her away, then took another drink.

“Could you maybe try and quiet it down just for tonight?” Allura asked, moving around Drake’s chair to step back into his attention. “Please?”

“My apologies.” Drake set his mug down. “We don’t get much chance to relax and celebrate. But this is a special occasion. Everybody!” He raised his voice and addressed the whole room. “Let’s quiet it down a bit for our friend…”

“Allura.”

“Allura!”

The noise level dropped as he spoke, then gradually rose back to nearly what it was. Allura rubbed her temples.

“Sorry,” Drake said. “We’re all a bit drunk. Partiers must party.”

“This is for a retirement?” Allura craned her neck to see over the crowd; the banner was still hung behind the bar, drooping slightly to the right.

“Aye.” Drake gestured to the elf with the cast seated next to him. “Gomor here was thinking about retiring anyway, he’s getting up there—but then we fought that otyugh last week and it broke his leg. Snapped the femur clean in two. So—”

“So I’m throwing in the proverbial towel,” the elf cut in. “I’ve got a few good decades left in me, but I’d rather spend them with all my limbs attached and whole.”

Allura nodded politely. “Probably a good idea.”

“I’ll miss you, you old fart.” Drake shook Gomor’s shoulder in a friendly way.

“I’m not dying, you young hooligan,” said Gomor. “Just retiring. I’ll be living a life of ease while you’re still out risking your good-for-nothing neck.”

“This young hooligan is out risking his neck to pay your stipend,” said Drake. “Admit it, you’re jealous.”

“Never!”

“So is everyone here on the… Silver Slayers?” Allura asked. She crossed her arms and pulled her elbows in close; she’d never been a fan of crowds.

“Nah,” said Drake. “These folk’re mostly just fans. And sponsors,” he added, with a nod and a smile to a gentleman passing on his way to the bar. “There’s six of us. Well, five, now that Gomor’s leaving. The actual Slayers are comprised of myself, Dohla—” The half-orc woman on the table, who winked at her, “—Ghenn—” a shy-looking human sipping a drink at a table opposite, listening to another partier talk and smiling over their cup, “—Sirus—” a shadowy figure seated in the far corner, whittling a stick to bits with a silver dagger, “—and Kima.” The short-haired halfling at the bar, who had moved on from just flirting and was now deep in conversation with Nessa. “We’re a bit of a motley crew, but we get along fine. Make a fair bit of coin too, now. Ever since we killed that ettin we’ve been doing pretty well for ourselves.”

Something clicked in Allura’s head. “Oh! You!” She hadn’t personally witnessed the ettin attack, but according to rumor about a year ago an ettin had wandered down from the Seashale Mountains to the northwest and then, aggravated by the noise and smells of the city, gone on a rampage in the outlying farms and villages. The two-headed giant had nearly breached the city walls before a local hero group had brought it down. “That was you?”

“Aye, it was.” Drake flashed her a winning smile. “Nearly did us in, too, but we killed it in the end. Mostly thanks to Gomor here. I’ve never met a better abjurist in my life. If he hadn’t kept us warded we would’ve been pulp in a second.”

“I’ve seen your posters around town, I think,” said Allura, “but I didn’t put picture and name together until now. It’s an honor to meet you in person.”

“Pleasure.” Drake leaned back in his chair and took a drink. “Allura, right? That’s a pretty wand you got there, you a wizard?”

“Graduated from Soltryce two years ago, now I’m freelancing. Or, I’m trying to freelance.” Allura grimaced.

“What major?”

“Abjuration, actually, but I’ll do whatever I can get these days.”

Drake made a sympathetic face. “Not much luck, I take it? Been there not too long ago. Freelance life ain’t easy.”

“No.” Allura ran a hand through her hair, pushing all the wispy bits that had escaped from behind her ears back into some semblance of order. “I got a query asking for an augury, can you believe?”

“I can indeed!” Drake chuckled. “Some folks wouldn’t know a wand from a candlestick these days, I swear. The lack of education in basic magical terms is truly disappointing.”

“Truly.”

“Say,” Drake leaned forward conspiratorially. “You wouldn’t be interested in joining up with us, would you? We could use another wizard, ’specially an abjurist.”

“Trying to replace me already, Thunderbrand?” Gomor piped up.

“I’m being thrifty!” Drake crumpled a napkin and tossed it at the elf, who ducked. “You know I’m an opportunist at heart, I can’t help it.”

The elf scoffed and took a long drink. Drake turned back to Allura. “Ignore him. I’m serious. It’s not necessarily better coin than freelancing—”

“Doing a great job selling it, Drake,” said Dohla.

“—but at least it’s more consistent. And we’ve got our own base. You’re not obligated to live there, but members stay for free.”

Allura rubbed the smooth spot on her wand, considering. Free rent and consistent pay would be a boon, but joining an adventuring party would likely take up most of her free time, meaning she’d have to abandon freelancing. All the work she’d done for the last eighteen months would ultimately be for naught. To be fair, she wasn’t exactly floating right now, but she had a lead. She might still be able to make this work.

“I don’t know,” she said, stalling. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Tell you what,” said Drake. He set his mug down on the table and fished around in a pocket, withdrawing a small card, which he handed to her. On one side was his name and the name of the party in metallic silver ink, on the other side was an address and a small map. “That’s our base. Week from tomorrow, we’re holding a meeting to discuss a lead for our next big job. Drop by, meet the other members, get a feel for how we work, then you can decide whether you want to join or not.” He laid a broad hand on her shoulder. “But we really could use you.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Allura.

The door to the Silver Slayers’ base creaked as she heaved it open. The dark wood building was in a part of the city Allura hadn’t been to often, near the Cloudtop District, and she wouldn’t have known it was any different from the neighboring houses if it hadn’t been for the outline of a sword inlaid in silver in the front door: the symbol of the Silver Slayers. She had been expecting some sort of meeting hall inside, but instead was greeted with a dark hallway lined with closed doors. A staircase ascended at the far end.

She shut the door behind her as quietly as she could and dug her nails into the crumpled card in her palm. “Hello? Drake? Do I have the right place?”

A door on the left side of the hall opened and a figure emerged. It took her a second to recognize the shadowy figure from the corner of the party, since he wasn’t wearing a cloak and was instead dressed in formfitting black leather armor. Without a hood hiding his face she was interested to note that he had dark ginger hair, pulled back in a bun revealing pointed ears. An elf or a half-elf. He regarded her with serious eyes. What was his name?

“I thought I heard someone come in.” His voice was a quiet rumble. “I was just heading upstairs. The meeting’s about to start. Drake! We’ve got company!”

The man stared at her, not bothering to hide his interest. Two daggers with jeweled pommels were belted to his waist, she noted with unease. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and tried to find something else to look at.

A door slammed somewhere upstairs and the crash of running boots echoed from above. A second later, Drake came huffing and puffing down the stairs towards them. When he saw Allura, he broke into a broad grin. “Allura! Glad you could make it.” His hand engulfed hers as he shook it vigorously. “Thanks for letting her in, Sirus.”

“Mm.” The man gave a slight nod and slipped past them, exiting up the stairs.

“Don’t mind him,” said Drake. “He’s a bit weird. But then, so are we all. You’ll get used to it.”

“I wasn’t sure I had the right address at first,” Allura confessed. “It doesn’t look much like a base.”

Drake laughed. “It was supposed to be a house, for sure,” he said. “We bought it last year and fixed it up a bit. Serves us well enough. Come on upstairs, we’re about to start.” He slapped her on the back and led her up the stairs. She followed on tiptoe.

Upstairs was an open central space under the rafters. A weapons rack dominated the far end of the room, glittering with razor-sharp knives and axes. Allura took half a step back. A fat bundle of arrows leaned against the wall next to it and Dohla was seated next to that, a stack of tailless arrows on one side and a pile of split feathers on the other, fletching busily. She glanced up and gave Allura a little wave. A tattered couch hunched against the wall to the left, with several overstuffed cushions scattered across the floor. The short-haired halfling she’d seen flirting with Nessa at the party was sprawled upside down on the couch, her legs up on the back, her head dangling off the seat. She held a plain steel mace which she was casually tapping against the arm of the couch as she talked. The human seated on the floor next to her—Allura wasn’t quite certain of their gender—smiled and nodded as they listened. Sirus was leaning against the wall in the corner, watching her and Drake.

On the right side of the room was a blackboard and a low cupboard. Dirty dishes were stacked on top of it, despite the sign saying “bring dishes TO KITCHEN!!” pinned to the wall above it. All in all it looked like, Allura thought with a twinge of nostalgia, nothing less than a common room in a students’ dormitory. Aside from the weapons rack. She relaxed a hair.

“Allright, idiots, let’s get started,” said Drake, and clapped his hands.

The halfling swiveled on the couch and sat upright. “Finally. It’s almost ten.”

“First things first, let’s introduce our guest.” Drake propelled Allura forward through the doorway. “This is Allura, she’s a wizard. She’s gonna be joining us.”

“I’ll maybe be joining you,” she corrected. Drake ignored her.

Everyone started talking at once. Dohla set down the arrow she was working on and came over and pulled her into a hug. “I’m so glad you came! We need more girls on this team. Wow, your hair’s so long!”

The human the halfling had been talking to was saying, “—so glad not to be the baby of the team anymore. Welcome to the team, Allura.”

The halfling eyed her up and down, hands on her hips. Now that she was up close and right side up, Allura realized, she was very pretty, in a tomboyish way. She was a head shorter than Allura but much more stocky, with medium-brown skin, dark hair, and full lips. Her arms were visibly muscular even through the fabric of the simple linen shirt she wore. Her intense brown eyes met Allura’s and she quickly looked away.

“Are you sure about her, Drake?” said the halfling. “She seems a little… girly.” She addressed Allura. “Think you have what it takes?”

“I… maybe?” Allura stammered. “I hope so?”

“Lay off her, Kima,” said Drake. “Everybody settle down, we’ve got a lead to discuss. Allura, feel free to sit anywhere, grab a cushion or a chair, it doesn’t matter.”

Allura perched on the edge of the couch. Kima gave her a measured look and sat next to her, planting her feet wide, and resumed tapping her mace. Dohla and the human sat cross-legged on cushions on the floor.

Drake took up his position in front of a blackboard, like a teacher preparing to lecture. “This’s a big one, ladies, gents, Ghenn. Too early to tell for certain yet but I think it’s got the potential to be our next ettin.”

Dohla made a sound of interest. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kima lean forward.

“Over the last two weeks word has reached my ears of strange happenings in three different sections of the city. In the temple district, five people have been brought to the Temple of Sarenrae exhibiting symptoms which, while they differ from person to person, refuse to respond to healing magic. In the lower slums, something has attacked the same building three times, yet no one has been able to identify what it was or why it was targeting that building, only that it was as big as a bear and twice as scary. And in the Clasp’s tunnels—”

Sirus stepped forward. Allura started slightly; she had forgotten he was there. “The Clasp detected an entity exiting our tunnels in the southern side of the central district, which means he, she, they, or it entered them without triggering any defense mechanisms. The entity was only seen from afar and as such it was not apprehended and no likeness of it was recorded. The Clasp is concerned that whatever it is has discovered and exploited some loophole we are unaware of to bypass our security measures, and if it has managed to escape our notice once…”

“Who’s to say it hasn’t done it before,” continued Drake. “Thank you, Sirus.”

The Clasp! Allura’s stomach knotted. All she had ever heard of the Clasp was that they were a sort of thieves’ guild that lived under the city and controlled the black market. But she had also heard that they did other things, darker things that she didn’t want to think about. Or have anything to do with. She snuck another glance at Sirus. He certainly seemed the type to join the Clasp. She pressed herself further back on the couch.

“Sirus and I think that there’s not an insignificant chance that these events are somehow connected,” said Drake, “but if they are, we may be short on time. What we need is a fast, thorough investigation.”

“So we split up,” said Kima.

“We split up.” Drake nodded. “Three locations, so three teams of two. I’m thinking bruiser-specialist pairs. And,” he said, holding up a hand as Dohla opened her mouth to speak, “I’m the only one the Clasp trusts aside from Sirus, so I’m going with him. Sorry, darling.”

Dohla smacked her knee in mock frustration. “Dammit! I’ll make you take me down there someday.”

Drake rolled his eyes and smiled. “Ghenn, you’re the cleric, you’re going to the temple. Dohla, since you have the most experience with medical shit—unless you’re not telling me something, Allura—” She shook her head “—excellent. You’re going with Ghenn. That leaves you, Kima, you’re going with our guest to the lower slums.”

“Do I have to?” Kima grumbled. “Can’t I go with Sirus? I don’t want to babysit.”

“I’m certain you won’t have to,” said Drake evenly. “Allura strikes me as a competent spellcaster. Allura, this will be a perfect chance to test your skills and show me what you can do. A little forensics, a little fighting, a little talking to people, and it sounds like whatever you’re up against isn’t too tough or too numerous. Kima here’s our best bruiser, she’ll keep you safe.”

“Great,” said Kima. “Babysitting. Thanks, Drake.”

“Everyone understand their assignments? Good. Meet back here at dusk and we’ll debrief. Alright now, get moving!” Drake clapped his hands.

Dohla surged to her feet and made a beeline for the weapons rack. Ghenn got up a little more slowly and headed downstairs. Sirus started speaking quietly to Drake.

Kima’s mace smacked into her palm. “I’m all set, newbie. Should we go?”

“I, uh,” said Allura. She caught the stray lock of hair and tucked it behind her ear again. “I actually need to stop by my apartment… I didn’t bring anything with me, I left my wand—”

Kima sighed loudly and rolled her eyes. “Fine. It better not take too long.”

It took twenty minutes. Allura half-ran all the way to the Green Rat, Kima jogging irritably at her side. She wasn’t even out of breath by the time they arrived. Allura retrieved her wand, turned to leave, then grabbed her spellbook and tucked it under her arm. She felt fairly confident in the spells she had memorized, but you never know when an unusual spell might be needed. It could come in handy.

They made their way to the southern gate of Emon and entered the lower slums. Kima’s lingering bad mood seemed to throw people off, so Allura wound up being the one who asked for directions to the location of the attacks. It wasn’t exactly difficult; everyone they talked to knew what happened or had witnessed it. They were quickly pointed to the building that had been attacked, a run-down shell of a warehouse on the western edge of the slums.

Not a lot was left of the warehouse. It had once been the largest building on this side of the slums, but now it looked to be barely standing: a gaping hole had been torn in one wall and large sections of the roof had fallen in, exposing the sagging frame. Through the gaps Allura could see what might’ve once been furniture but was now a tangled mess of splinters. Two men were picking through the wreckage and several more were busy organizing wreckage on the outside of the building.

Allura picked the closer one and caught his attention. “Hi! Hello! Yes, you, can I speak with you for a moment?”

The man raised his head and squinted at her. He was human, dressed in patched work clothes, with a few strands of graying hair still clinging to his temples. “Who are you? What’s yer business?”

Allura gathered her skirts in one hand and her wand in the other and picked her way across the churned ground to him. “I’m Allura Vysoren, and this is Kima. We just wanted to ask you a few questions about the attacks.”

“We’re with the Silver Slayers,” said Kima.

The man straightened up and rubbed his back. “The Silver Slayers, eh? You come to do somethin’ about this beastie?”

“That’s in the plan, yes,” said Allura.

“Thank the gods. I’ve sent five formal complaints to the council, but did they listen?”

“Were you present for the attacks?”

“Only the last one. Wish I hadn’t been. Near got burned to death.”

“Burned?” Allura studied the rubble. Sure enough, much of the splintered equipment was charred. “What did the creature look like? What did it do?”

“I thought it was a bear at first,” said the man. “It was big and hairy. But it didn’t move right. I didn’t get a great look, mind you,” he continued, “I was too busy shitting myself and prayin’ to Pelor it didn’t spot me. But it was big. Had six legs. Lots of eyes. And the ground, everywhere it stepped the ground would smoke.”

“That’s highly unusual.” Allura had never heard of such a creature in her life. Judging by her expression, Kima hadn’t either. “Did you see where it came from?”

The man gestured towards the bay. “Somewhere out thereabouts. Didn’t see.”

“And what did it’s do once it arrived?”

“Tore into the side of the warehouse, just like the last two times. Set a lot o’ shit on fire. Roared a bit, made a hell of a clamor. Smashed some shit up, but there weren’t much in here that wasn’t already smashed. Stuck around maybe… ten minutes, till the city guard drove it off.”

“Did you see where it went?”

“Back to the water, I’d guess,” said the man.

“Interesting.” Allura turned to Kima. “We should probably investigate that too, right? Just to be thorough.”

Kima grunted her agreement.

“Who owns this building? Do you own it?”

The man shook his head. “Nobody owns it, ‘s far as I know, ma’am. It’s been sitting empty as long as I can remember. I’m just here for scrap.”

An idea struck her. “Does the Clasp have an entrance here? Two of the Slayers—two of us are off investigating an intruder the Clasp found in their tunnels; a monster attack would be the perfect—ow!”

A hobnailed boot stepped sharply on her toe. “Shut up about the Clasp,” muttered Kima.

The man retreated a step, tracing a sign against evil in the air before him. “Them’s dangerous folk, the Clasp,” he said. “I don’t want nothing to do with them. I don’t know nothing about them, and I don’t want to know nothing. Good day to you, ma’am, lady.” He turned and hastened several paces away, definitively ending the conversation.

“Well that went well,” said Allura.

Kima scowled and swung her mace up so it rested on her shoulder. “I know you mean well, but you can’t just go spilling our whole mission to random strangers. It’s bad form.”

“How so?”

Kima gave an irritated sigh. “Okay. Pretend the guy we were just talking to is another mercenary in disguise. You just told him about what Drake and Sirus are looking into, which you nicely pieced together for him with the monster attacks. Now he’s one step closer to getting as far as we have, assuming all three pieces actually are connected like Drake thinks. We’re not the only monster hunters out there, you know. Folks try and steal our kills.”

“Oh.” Allura’s cheeks reddened. “Right. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“So,” said Allura nervously, “what now? Do we look for clues?”

“I’m all done here,” said Kima. “We talked to the witness. If you’ve got any wizard shit you want to do, do it now.”

“Okay.” Allura tucked her hair behind her ears and opened her spellbook. A quick Detect Magic would be a good place to start, and if that turned anything up, a nice thorough Identify ritual. She turned to the appropriate page, planted her feet in the mud, and began the incantation.

Disappointingly, Detect Magic only turned up a faint magical residue on some of the ruined machinery, which could’ve been from the beast but most likely was from whatever the machinery had been used for (canning? bookbinding? it was in such bad shape it was impossible to tell). However, as she paced the area with the spell still going, wand held aloft, she noticed among the mess of mud, debris, and footprints left by guards and scavengers, several tracks pressed deeply into the soil. The man had been right, they did resemble bear tracks, though one—she noticed with a shiver—had elongated fingers and an opposed thumb. A handprint that had carried the weight of a bear. The other tracks seemed unevenly placed, as if the beast were injured or misshapen. She took careful notes on a blank page of her spellbook.

Kima drummed her fingers on her mace impatiently. “Are we finished here?”

Allura took one last look at the scene and snapped her spellbook closed. “Yes.”

“Let’s go to the water, then.”

The edge of the Ozmit Sea was only about a quarter mile to the west. They walked in silence along the outer wall, following the trail of footprints left by the Emon Guards. More bear tracks were visible among them, made with more haste, as if the creature was running.

But closer to the water, the ground shifted from mud to piled stone and the tracks were lost. Allura searched up and down the rocky dropoff that bordered the bay but found no trace of the creature.

Kima bounded up a stack of driftwood and rocks carried there by some past storm and looked out across the water. “I don’t see where it could’ve gone,” she said. “It can’t’ve swum out somewhere, there’s nothing to swim to. Unless its lair is underwater, in which case we’re SOL.”

“Maybe it swam along the coast,” said Allura.

“Doesn’t really make a difference.” Kima swung her mace into a log with a thwack, yanked it free, then did it again. “We still don’t know which way it went. We could waste time searching for it here, or we could try and find some of the guards who chased it off.”

“Good idea.”

It was easy to find city guards who’d fought the beast. Their descriptions of it—hulking, hairy, covered in eyes, setting fire to the ground—matched the man’s they’d spoken to earlier, with the unsettling addition of it having a humanoid face. They also gave her the exact dates of all three attacks: one two nights ago, the second five nights before that, and the first ten nights before that. Each time they had chased it to the bay and it had leapt into the water, swimming out of range of their crossbows and then turning south. They had attempted to track it but had lost it in the gloom.

Allura asked if any of them had kept some trophy from the beast. No one had managed to wound it badly enough to hack off a body part, but she was presented with four bloodstained uniforms, one cloak with claw marks in the hem, one wickedly-spiked flail with gore dried in the cracks, and one fistful of wiry brown hairs. After politely declining the uniforms and the cloak, she tore a page out of her spellbook, folded it into an envelope, and dropped the hairs inside. Then using the tip of a pen, she scraped as much dried gunk as she could off the flail and folded the envelope shut and tucked it into her pocket.

She thanked the guards for their cooperation and then she and Kima made their way back to the Slayers’ base.

They arrived, sweaty and footsore, to an empty house. Kima kicked the door shut behind them and practically ran to the third door on the left. Allura followed cautiously and found Kima in a cramped kitchen, drinking directly from the pump. She straightened up as Allura came in and wiped the water from her mouth with the back of her hand. The neck of her shirt was soaked through. Allura blinked several times.

“Forgot my waterskin,” she said by way of explanation. “There’s food in the pantry if you’re hungry.” She strode over to the stove and lifted the lid off the cast-iron pot resting on it, withdrew a pinch of some long-stewed meat and replaced the lid. “Or you can have some of this, it’s good.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind me eating your food?” Hiking around the city in the sun all morning was a long shot from magical fix-its in people’s basements or writing correspondence in her cozy apartment, and she had to admit she was ravenous.

Kima shrugged. “If it hasn’t got a name on it, it’s yours.” She stood on tiptoe to take a bowl from a shelf and poured herself some of the stew. Elbowing her aside so she could open a tall cupboard—which she guessed by the rows of jars was the pantry—and grabbed a hunk of stale-looking bread. “I’ll be in my room. Yell if Drake comes home.”

“Which room is—?” But the door was already closing.

Allura took a quick breath, steadying herself. It was nice to be alone again. Kima’s belligerent attitude had been starting to grate.

She opened the pantry. A wall of food greeted her. After weeks of day-old pastries and leftovers from the bar it was almost overwhelming. A giant jar of hard candies dominated the middle shelf, with a label saying “Dohla’s Candies do NOT eat!! 54 green 157 blue 125 110 red” in a looping scrawl. A plate of something covered with a cloth was next to it, labeled with Drake’s name. She checked under the cloth. Cold pancakes. A bowl of greens and a couple wrinkly carrots bore Ghenn’s name, as well as many of the jars on the top shelf. Only one large ceramic jar was labeled “KIMA’S”. She opened it; it was full of dried peaches.

So Kima likes peaches, she thought, and put the jar back.

A loaf of bread with a chunk missing had no label, so she picked it up. Seeing nothing immediately at hand to cut it with, she tore off a fist-sized piece. She opened jars at random looking for spreads but all she could find was pickled strawberries. Close enough. Clutching the food to her chest, she headed up the stairs.

The afternoon sun was streaming in the window above the weapons rack. It was stiflingly hot up here, she could already feel sweat beading on the backs of her knees. She settled down on the end of the couch and wiped her forehead. She wished there was somewhere cooler for her to wait for the others to arrive, but she wasn’t sure what was and what wasn’t off-limits in the Slayers’ base yet. At least up here, there was no glowering Kima.

The pickled strawberries had a strong but not unpleasant flavor, and after she polished off the bread she decided she liked it and continued picking the sliced berries out of the jar one by one. The syrup they were pickled in was dark brown and had a heady, almost alcoholic taste, and when the strawberries were gone she ran her finger around the inside of the jar and licked it clean.

The front door slammed. Allura sat up. Indistinct conversation filtered through the floorboards. Footsteps moved across the house and ascended the stairs and then the door to the common room burst open and in came Dohla, supporting a grey-faced Ghenn under one shoulder.

She helped Ghenn to the couch—Allura hastily stood up to make room—and they collapsed upon it. Dohla threw Ghenn’s arm off her and bent to untie her boots. Ghenn just lay there, panting.

“Is hhhhe…. is Ghenn okay?” she asked.

“They’ll be fine,” said Dohla. “They just need some food and some rest.”

“Used too many spells,” grunted Ghenn.

Allura winced in sympathy. She had been there more times than she’d like to admit, in the days before she graduated from the Academy, and it was never fun. The human (or humanoid, as the case may be) body could only withstand channeling so much energy before it needed to rest, and exceeding this limit usually resulted in exhaustion, nausea, and migraines. She had been laid up twice after attempting too powerful a spell during exam week, and she shuddered at the memory of lying in the dark on her cot with a towel over her eyes, praying for her skull to stop throbbing. She wasn’t sure if it was the same for clerics, but judging by Ghenn, it probably was.

“Can I have a strawberry?” Ghenn had cracked an eye open and was looking at the jug in her hand.

She made an apologetic face. “I’m sorry, I ate them all. If I’d known you were coming back like this, I wouldn’t have.” She offered the jar. “There’s still some syrup left?”

“If you don’t mind.” Ghenn took the jar and swiped their finger through the syrup. “Mmm.”

Dohla kicked her boots off and stretched her legs, then stood. “I’ll get us some food, what do you want?”

“Just some bread or something. Something bland.” Ghenn closed their eyes and laid back, holding as still as possible. “And maybe a bucket.”

“Allura?”

“Oh! I’ve already eaten, but some water would be nice.”

“Water. Bread. A bucket. Got it. I’ll be back in a flash.” Dohla hurried downstairs.

Silence filled the common room. Ghenn’s breathing had calmed, but they were still pale. She snuck glances at them from the other end of the couch. They wore loose white robes—currently soaked with sweat—with an embroidered yellow belt and a gold talisman carved with a woman’s face around their neck. Sandy brown hair flopped over a round face.

Maybe distraction would help. “You’re a cleric, right?”

“Mhm.” They didn’t open their eyes.

“Of which god?”

“’Vandra.” Ghenn rubbed the gold talisman, an automatic, soothing movement. “I joined up when I was fourteen. She helped me run away from home.”

“You ran away from home at fourteen? Why?” She was a little taken aback.

Ghenn cracked open an eye and looked at her. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Dohla hip-checked the door open and came back into the room, arms loaded with food and drink. To Ghenn she handed half of the loaf of bread Allura had eaten a piece of, and to Allura she handed a ceramic mug full of cold water, which she drank gratefully. Then she settled down between them on the couch and started on her own meal, soft cheese and pepperoni sausage on the last of the bread.

“How’d it go?” she asked Allura.

“It went well, I think,” she said. She pulled out the envelope. “We spoke to several witnesses, and I got some samples of the creature from the guards who fought it. I was thinking I could attempt to scry it when everyone’s back.”

Dohla’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, good idea! Drake’ll be pleased. He’s always been shit at scrying.” She winked. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

Ghenn chuckled. A little color had started to come back to their face now that they had some food in their stomach.

“How about you?” Allura asked. “Did you find anything interesting?”

“Interesting is certainly a word for it.” Dohla’s expression darkened. “We think these people may have been—well, you’ll hear when Drake and Sirus get back. And poor Ghenn wore themself out trying to fix them.”

“Stupid of me,” said Ghenn.

“Not stupid,” said Dohla. She patted their shoulder. “You just wanted to help.”

Two hours later, Ghenn’s queasiness had abated and Drake and Sirus arrived. Hardly pausing to eat, Drake gathered everyone in the common room to debrief. Kima reemerged from her room and slouched against the arm of the couch next to Allura. She must’ve changed, because she smelled of clean laundry instead of sweat. Allura carefully kept her eyes pointed forward.

“All right, everyone,” said Drake. He looked tired but still spoke with energy. “Let’s cut right to it. Dohla, Ghenn, what did you find?”

Dohla stepped to the front of the room. “Ghenn and I went to the Temple of Sarenrae to see the strange admittances. We spoke to Father Tristan, who gave us permission to examine the patients. Father Tristan said that the first of them had been admitted on the second day of this month, eighteen days ago, and the rest have been trickling in since then, with the most recent having arrived last night. None of them were sick, exactly; it was more like they’d attempted a spell on themselves that had gone wrong, only none of the usual spells the clerics tried were working to remove or negate the effects.”

“Not even higher-level stuff,” said Ghenn from the couch. “I tried dispelling it, and that worked for a while, but it just kept coming back. Even a greater restoration did zip.”

“Describe the effects for me,” said Drake.

“Two of them were struggling to breathe,” said Dohla. “I thought they were just regular-sick at first, with an infection of the lungs. But neither of them were feverish or showed any other symptoms. Another, the first to arrive, couldn’t see or hear. The one that arrived last night was covered in something kinda crusty, I’m not sure how to describe it exactly. And the last one—”

“That was the weirdest one,” said Ghenn.

“He was like… dissolving. He wasn’t solid. He could still talk and understand us—well, when he wasn’t freaking out he could—but he couldn’t pick things up, open doors, anything like that.”

“Strange,” said Drake. “Were all the victims human?”

“As far as we could tell. The deaf-blind guy looked like he had some elf blood in him maybe, but I’m not sure.”

“They say how this happened to them?”

Dohla and Ghenn both nodded. Dohla’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “The crusty guy and the insubstantial one both said that they had been walking through the southern end of the central district when they were assaulted from behind and knocked unconscious. Neither of them got a look at their attacker’s face, but he was of human stature and his voice was male. They woke up later in an alley—different alleys I think—with the effects um, in effect… and these.” Dohla pulled a fistful of papers out of her bag with a flourish. This was clearly the pièce de résistance of her presentation. Allura leaned closer.

On the paper were pencil sketches done in a confident hand. Allura glimpsed a drawing of an arm, a back, several views of a neck, a bony ribcage… and across all of them were scrawled crude tattoos that resembled nothing more than—

“Are those arcane glyphs?” Allura couldn’t stop herself.

Drake snatched a drawing and examined it closely, his expression growing very serious. His frown deepened as he traced the pattern with a stubby finger.

“That’s what we think,” said Ghenn.

“I could be wrong, but to me this looks like part of the First Basic,” said Drake. “Allura, take a look at this.”

Allura stood and moved to look over his shoulder. The drawing showed the front of a woman’s neck tattooed with lines of glyphs. She frowned. The drawing wasn’t perfect; she sensed something had been lost in translation between the tattoo and the artist’s rendition, but the first line she read was unmistakably the First Basic Incantation Opener. She read further. Part of the tattoo was too badly distorted to make out, but there was a section that seemed to outline a method of physically altering a humanoid body. Something clicked.

“Hold on…” she said. Without taking her eyes off the drawing, she pulled her spellbook out from its special pocket inside her coat and flipped to a page near the front. Sure enough, the spell was there. “I know this spell, it’s Alter Self. Which victim was this?”

“One of the ones having trouble breathing, I think,” said Ghenn.

“I thought so.” She compared the drawing to her notes. “It looks like they were trying to make her breathe underwater.”

“Let’s see the others,” said Drake, pulling his own spellbook down from a shelf.

By comparing notes, they were able to match every tattoo but one to a known spell. The man with the stony growths all over his skin had been tattooed on his arm, but the crust was obscuring them so much they couldn’t be read. Which, Allura was quick to point out, should’ve disrupted the spell.

“Arcane tattoos’re different than writing in a scroll or spellbook,” Drake said. “An active spell has to either be imbued with energy or draw energy constantly from some source, and from what I understand, arcane tattoos that are intended to constantly function usually draw energy from the recipient’s body. Which can be very dangerous. Arcane tattooists are strictly regulated, at least here in Emon, and limit themselves to very simple enchantments. This crap, on the other hand,” he said, jabbing a drawing with his finger, “is dangerously amateur work.”

“How do you know so much about arcane tattoos, Drake?” asked Kima innocently.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” said Dohla, wiggling her eyebrows. Kima made a disgusted noise.

“I’d like to see these in person tomorrow,” said Drake, ignoring them. “See if we can dispel them somehow, or at least weaken the enchantment.”

“Better start resting up,” said Ghenn, who hadn’t moved from the couch.

Drake pulled a gnarled wand out of his sleeve and gathered up the drawings, pinning them to the blackboard one by one with a tap of his wand. “All right, so we’ve heard from Dohla and Ghenn. Kima, Allura, what did you find?”

Allura looked at Kima.

“We talked to a witness down at the warehouse that got attacked,” said Kima, and recounted what the man had said, as well as the information on the dates of the attacks and the description of the beast they had gotten from the guards. “We couldn’t find its lair, but we think it’s several miles down the coast. Anything else, Allura?”

“I did a Detect Magic at the warehouse and didn’t pick anything up,” she said.

Drake nodded. “Makes sense. Didn’t seem like a magical attack to me, but good on you for being thorough. Sounds like maybe a werebear gone feral, they’re rare, ’specially in these parts, but not unheard of. Poor fellow’s probably scared out of his mind.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” protested Allura. “Why would he attack the same building over and over? And how did he set it on fire?”

“Who knows? Probably someone was storing fish in there or something.” Drake stroked his beard, frowning. “Might not be worth it to actually kill it, if it’s just a werebear. If we could dissuade it from attacking—”

“Wait,” said Dohla. “What were the dates again? When did it first attack?”

Allura opened her spellbook and flipped to the page with her notes. “Brussendar first.”

Dohla’s eyes widened like a cat about to catch its prey. “The first victim appeared Brussendar second! And the others?”

“Brussendar… fifth, then again on the fifteenth.”

“Yes!” Dohla grinned, flashing her tusks. “The next victims appeared on the sixth, seventh, and tenth, then the crusty guy showed up last night!”

Drake’s interest resharpened. “You certain?”

“Those are the dates I wrote down when we talked to the guards,” Allura said. She closed her spellbook and tucked it back into its pocket.

“Excellent!” Drake broke into a broad grin. “That just about confirms mine and Sirus’ hunch. We can—”

“Oh wait!” Something had crinkled when she put her spellbook away. She pulled out the makeshift envelope, slightly crumpled but still sealed. “I got some hair and blood from the beast from the guards, I was going to scry. If that’s okay, I mean, I thought I could maybe do it with you so you could see it as well.”

For the first time she could remember, Drake looked genuinely surprised. “You told me you were an abjurist, not a diviner!” His tone wasn’t accusatory; quite the opposite. He broke into a broad smile. “Keep pulling pleasant surprises like this and you’ll be my new favorite person on the team.”

Allura blushed at the praise. “Scrying’s always been a specialty of mine,” she said, addressing her spellbook to hide her smile. Her fingers toyed with the corner of the envelope. “I wrote my thesis on different methods of detecting and blocking it.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” said Drake. “What do you need?”

“We’re doing this right now?” she squeaked.

“We could wait until after me and Sirus’ve told you what we found.”

“No, no,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Now is fine. Do you have, um, any chalk? Is it alright if I draw on the floor, or would you prefer the blackboard?” Drake pulled out his gnarled wand and flicked it; a piece of chalk zipped to his hand from the tray under the blackboard. He handed it to her. “Might ask you to wipe it clean afterwards, but go ahead.”

She flicked to the appropriate page in her spellbook. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Everyone move back a bit, this needs to be fairly large… Am I including everyone or just you?”

“As many as you can, I think.”

She chewed her lip. Group scrying was a little out of her depth. She wasn’t sure if she could get a clear enough image with it spread between more than a few minds, but if it was important for others to know what it looked like… “Um,” she said, “pick one person other than you.”

Drake thought for a moment. “Kima.”

“Okay.” She studied the floor, selecting the place where the floorboards were most evenly aligned, then got down on her hands and knees and sketched the circle. Filling in the glyphs took some time (she winced at the estimated energy allocation—this would probably be the last spell she cast today) but it was easy work, and she soon fell into the familiar rhythm of it. She only occasionally needed to glance at her spellbook to remember the correct wording or the exact placement of a line. When she was done, she balanced her wand upright in the center of the circle and sat before it.

The circle was a little cramped; she had needed more space than she’d thought, and when Drake and Kima sat down cross-legged next to her their knees were almost touching. She could feel Kima watching her.

“We all need to hold hands,” she said, and took Drake’s broad hand. Kima offered hers; she took it before she could think too hard about it. “Close your eyes.” Taking a deep breath, trying not to think about the steady grip on her left hand or the callouses that brushed against her palm, she voiced the incantation and a surge of energy coursed through her. Her vision greyed out. Kima’s hand twitched in her grip; it must’ve surprised her. She tightened her focus and the grey darkened, then gradually coalesced into an image. She blinked, and the image jumped into clarity.

A lump of matted fur and muscle hulked by a hearth, lit only by the firelight. The guards had been right, it did resemble a bear—but only at a glance. Its legs were visibly mismatched, as if they had been taken from four different bears and Frankensteined together. Allura was sure that if it was standing, the difference would be even more pronounced. Bulbous, fist-sized eyes glittered through the fur, clustered like acne at random all over its body, catching the firelight as it breathed. Blood seeped from multiple sword and arrow wounds. But that was not the part that made her stomach churn.

The head of the bear was shriveled, like a bearskin rug, and from its mouth protruded a naked human torso, covered in eyes just like the bear body. Its hair was greasy and hung over its face, which Allura was grateful for; she didn’t think she could endure seeing its expression. Its arms were unnaturally long—she thought that if the creature was standing, they would reach the ground—and on its palms were more tattoos of arcane glyphs, done in a jet-black ink.

A human figure came into view, out of focus due to the nature of the spell. It bent over the head of the creature, petted its hair like a master pets its dog. It murmured something Allura didn’t catch and the creature grumbled and shifted.

Allura looked on in fascinated disgust as the figure tended to the creature’s many wounds until the spell ended. She blinked rapidly as her eyes readjusted to the sunny common room, aware of the expression on her face.

“What the fuck,” said Kima, “was that?!”

Allura stood and almost fell over as a wave of dizziness struck her, she stumbled forward and caught herself on Drake’s shoulder. Her skin was tight, like the day after a bad sunburn, and her muscles ached as if from fever. Definitely the last spell of the day.

“Sure as hell ain’t a werebear,” said Drake, helping her stand. “You all right?”

“I’m fine!” she said, her voice higher than normal. She cleared her throat. “I’m just… that was a big spell.”

Ghenn wordlessly tossed her the last of the bread.

“If it wasn’t a werebear, then what was it?” Dohla asked.

Drake described the beast. “Safe to say this confirms our suspicions. All three events—the victims at the temple of Sarenrae, the monster attacks, and the intruder in the tunnels—are connected.”

“How do you know?” said Dohla. “I hate to break it to you, honey, but that’s pretty thin evidence. Not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that, if we were to, say, alert the Council—”

“Because,” said Sirus, speaking up for the first time. Allura jumped; she had forgotten he was there. “An entrance to the Clasp is hidden in the empty shack 500 feet to the north of the warehouse the monster attacked.”

“I knew it!” shouted Allura. Everyone looked at her. Her cheeks pinked but she kept going. “A monster attacking an empty warehouse over and over again, making a big noise but not doing any real damage, and escaping before it could be killed, it doesn’t make sense if it’s a mindless beast. It has no motivation. But if someone’s controlling it, a big, ugly, flaming bear thing is the perfect distraction for going somewhere you’re not supposed to be. I asked the man we spoke to if he knew about an entrance, but he didn’t say.”

“An unwise move,” said Sirus, “but understandable. I don’t recommend bringing up the Clasp to anyone during an investigation, least of all a member of the Clasp.”

“She knows,” said Kima.

“Hit the nail on the head, though,” said Drake. “That entrance was the one the Clasp detected the intruder at. Sirus and I took a look at it, and with a little magic and a little logic we deduced that the door had been bypassed six times in total, twice on each night of the monster attacks. It took us a little longer to figure out which exits they used inside the city, but each had been bypassed in a similar manner.”

“So someone’s sneaking into the city, tattooing curses on people, and using the monster as a distraction,” Allura mused. “I wonder what on earth they’re trying to do with those poor people.”

“No idea. Some people are just sick bastards, I guess,” said Drake. “Only one way for us to find out.”

Kima groaned. “Stakeout.”

Drake grinned. “Stakeout. Tomorrow we’ll go see the victims—I’d like to see them in person and see if we can’t find a way to remove those tattoos. Then we’ll split up into teams and stake out the warehouse and the Clasp entrance.” He clapped his hands. “All right, meeting adjourned.”

Everyone started moving towards the door. Ghenn levered themself up off the couch, stretched, then murmured something about needing a nap and headed downstairs. Dohla and Kima followed close behind. Sirus stayed where he had been through the whole meeting, leaning against the wall to the left of the blackboard.

“Allura, could I speak with you a moment?” Drake pulled her aside.

“Sure.” She tucked her wand under her arm and smoothed down her dress.

“Still thinking about joining? You seemed a little hesitant, but it looked like you enjoyed today and Kima seemed reasonably pleased with you as a partner.”

“Kima was pleased?” She thought back to the halfling’s many grumblings and generally begrudging attitude and couldn’t think of a person who seemed less pleased with anything.

“Trust me, you’d know if she wasn’t.” Drake’s eyes twinkled. “Our Kima’s got a temper fit to match Tiamat herself. Sure, she’s grumpy now, but she’ll get used to you.”

“I guess,” said Allura. “To tell you the truth, I’m still not sure.”

“What’s your hangup?”

“Well…” she said, and described her situation with her lack of finances and clients. She found herself confessing all her fears about not being able to support herself, about disappointing her father, and how the few clients she did manage to get were either creepy or misguided. “It’s not that I don’t like freelancing, she finished, “it’s just… well. I’d hate to give it up now, you know? I worked so hard to get here, I don’t know if I can give it up just like that, even if it is for something as interesting as this.”

“What do you mean, give it up?” Drake looked astonished. “Just cause you’re joining our little club doesn’t mean you have to give up on your dream. You’ll still have plenty of free time you can freelance in. Hell, I freelanced myself the first year or so after I founded the Slayers.” He smiled and clapped her warmly on the shoulder. “We’d be happy to help you too, if you’ll let us. You mentioned an augury? I’d bet my wand Ghenn can do that. And that slug, Harald or whatever you called him—I’d love to pay him a little visit.”

Allura blinked rapidly, overcome. “I—I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

“So that’s a yes, then?”

“Absolutely.”

The victims were in five beds, cordoned off from each other by wool curtains. They matched exactly the descriptions Ghenn and Dohla had given: one was blind and deaf, two were gasping and laboring to breathe, one was covered head-to-toe in a grayish, flaky shell, and one who Allura could see the light of the oil lamp on the bedside through his torso. She couldn’t help but stop and stare for a moment. The man slumped miserably on the bed, head in hands. The colors of his clothes seemed to shift and blend into each other with every passing breath of air. It was a disconcerting sight.

“I think we should focus on those whose lives are most in danger,” said Drake in a low voice. He nodded to the two struggling for air.

Dohla tapped gently on the second curtain from the left, saying, “Darin? My friend and I are back, we’d like to try some things, if that’s all right.”

“Come… on in.”

The man was lying on the cot, dressed in soft pajamas. His breath wheezed in and out as if he had been running, but Allura knew he had hardly left the bed since the incident. He did look tired though, his eyes sunken and heavy-lidded.

The Slayers arrayed themselves around the bed, Dohla giving the patient a friendly smile and a little wave. Allura hung back a little, uncertain if she was welcome.

Ghenn took his pulse. “Any changes since yesterday?”

“I don’t… think so. Didn’t… sleep much.”

“Completely understandable.” Ghenn turned the patient’s hand over and Allura noticed that his fingers were slightly webbed, which was in line with the Alter Self spell. “My friends and I are going to try and cure you, is that all right?”

“Please,” said the patient. “Be… my guests.”

“Can we see the marks?” Drake asked, getting down to business.

The patient nodded and sat up. He bowed his head and pulled his hair aside, baring the back of his neck and revealing spidery black lines of glyphs. Drake made an interested sound and bent closer to look.

“You were right, this is Alter Self,” said Drake. “This line here—it’s the aquatic variant.”

“That would explain… why I can’t… breathe air,” said the patient. “It feels like… I’m not… getting enough.”

“Have you tried breathing water?” said Drake.

“Dear gods,” said the patient.

“No, Drake, he hasn’t,” said Dohla. “This is a hospital, not a torture chamber. Besides, if he’s having this much trouble breathing air, breathing water can’t be much better for him.”

“The enchantment does seem to be malfunctioning somehow,” said Drake. He scratched his beard. “Shoddy work. My mentor’d’ve whipped my ass raw if I’d turned in a transmutation project like this. And that’s disregarding the ethics of the whole thing… You said you tried a restoration, and nothing worked?” He directed the last words at Ghenn.

“Lesser and Greater.” They frowned, remembering. “It eased the symptoms for a while, but then they returned. Nothing else I tried did any better.”

“I’d like to try a Dispel, if that’s all right,” said Drake to the patient, who nodded his assent. Drake pulled his wand out of one pocket and his spellbook out of the other, flipped to the appropriate page, and began the familiar incantation. The cromson light that snapped from the end of his wand and hung in the air above the patient’s neck had a lively, electrical look, Allura was interested to note. It writhed in the air as the spell took shape.

With a near-inaudible pop and a feeling like pressure equalizing after exiting a deep tunnel, Drake dispelled the magic. The patient gasped in a full breath and then sighed as his breathing slowed, the rasp easing.

“Wait for it,” said Ghenn.

And sure enough, after a minute or so, his breath hitched again, picking back up to the pace it had been at when they entered. Disappointment was clear on the patient’s face. Drake frowned.

“Well that’s not supposed to happen,” he said. He prodded the tattoo. “Why are you still active? Allura, any ideas?”

Allura jumped as all eyes turned to her. “Me?”

Kima rolled her eyes.

“We could—here, let me try…” And she cast Detect Magic. It took her two false starts with everyone watching. She could feel her cheeks getting pinker each time. Finally, the spell was stable, and she directed her attention to the tattoo on the patient’s neck.

It wasn’t anything surprising; it was transmutation magic, barely, and it originated in the tattoo and influenced large parts of his body. She could sense it messing with the lining of his lungs, trying to make them breathe water, and it was active in his liver and in his bloodstream, presumably to help process the dissolved oxygen it wasn’t receiving. The spell was very poorly executed, as Drake had said, since Alter Self usually included redundancies which made it possible for the target to breathe both air and water, whereas this rendition apparently allowed him to breathe… neither.

There was also the mechanism which kept the enchantment from being dispelled, some sort of feedback loop of energy which reactivated it every time it halted. The problem seemed to be that the spell didn’t run out of energy to sustain itself, and so could just continue to exist.

“What did you say yesterday about enchanted tattoos, Drake?” she said. “They draw their energy from the target’s body?”

“'S about it,” said Drake.

“We can’t heal it because the spell treats it as part of the body, and we can’t dispel it because it’s like a living being, right?”

“Right.”

“Hmm.” Allura rubbed her chin, frowning. “We could try and isolate it somehow… a Resilient Sphere might work, a very localized one. Or we could cast another Alter Self on him and try and negate the effects.”

“Do you know anyone who can cast that, though?”

“Or we could just cut it off,” said Kima.

Everyone stared at her for a moment in silence, then Drake and Allura started talking at once.

“We can’t just—”

“You’re a genius.”

“—Cut it off—”

“Cut it off?” The patient’s eyes were wide. “My whole neck?!”

“No, no,” soothed Drake. “Just the bit with the tattoo. Have to be careful to get it all, of course, but Ghenn can heal you after. Might not even leave a scar. And I can put you to sleep during, if you like.”

The patient nodded slowly. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean… it can’t… be worse than this. Go… ahead, I guess.”

“Done.” Drake reached forward with both hands and touched his fingers to the patient’s temples. There was a flicker of arcane energy and his eyes rolled back. Drake lowered him to the cot.

“Alright, who wants to do this?”

Sirus drew a foot-long dagger from his sleeve, flipped it, and handed it hilt-first to Drake without a word.

Drake shook his head. “My hands aren’t steady enough. Feel more comfortable if I’m not the one doing it. Ghenn? Dohla?”

Ghenn nodded and held out their hand.

After another minute of discussing exactly what to cut, Ghenn poised the dagger over the sleeping patient’s neck and pushed the edge into the skin below the lowest glyph. Dark blood welled up before Allura could look away and dripped down the blade. They held their free hand out without looking up. “I need a cloth.”

She diverted her gaze towards the ceiling, but it was too late, her stomach was already rebelling. She took a deep breath and placed a hand over her mouth in what she hoped was a casual manner.

“Make sure you get deep enough,” Drake was saying. “Tattoos are put in under the dead layers of skin, down where all the nerves and stuff are. There we go—look at his breathing, the enchantment’s breaking already.”

“In the dermis, yes,” said Ghenn. “Is there somewhere I can put—? Thank you.”

Allura sneaked a glance and regretted it. Ghenn was placing a fistful of bloody tatters into a bowl Dohla was holding out. Her stomach lurched dangerously and she had to bite her fist to keep from throwing up.

“Halfway there,” said Drake. “Allura, would you—are you all right?”

“Mhm,” she said to the ceiling, in a voice that didn’t even convince herself.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Kima burst out. She rounded on Drake. “Are you serious? You’re letting her join the team when she can’t even stand the sight of—”

“Enough.” Drake placed a heavy hand on Kima’s shoulder and gave her a warning look.

“Allura, it looks like you could use some air, why don’t you step outside. Kima, I need to talk to you in private. Ghenn, Dohla, let me know when you finish, we’ll be in the hall.”

She nodded and ran for the door.

The slight morning breeze was cool against Allura’s clammy skin. She leaned against the sandstone wall of the temple and wiped her mouth with a shaking hand. The white-and-gold robed clerics trickling in and out of the door to her left spared her the occasional glance, but none stopped. Good.

She took a few steadying breaths and wondered how long she could postpone going back inside. Finding out whether cutting away the tattoos was successful was important, sure, but the thought of that bloody knife and those ribbons of flesh made her queasy. She slid down the wall into a sitting position and tried to focus on the sky, the clouds, the sun, anything but the scene inside.

A quiet cough caught her attention. Sirus was leaning against the wall not three feet away, his dark clothes stark against the white granite. She hadn’t noticed him appear. Silent as a whisper, he crouched down to be at equal level with her, his back still against the wall. “They’re all done in there,” he said, “you can go back in whenever you want.”

“Thank you,” said Allura.

Sirus leaned closer and spoke softly. “But if you want to learn something interesting,” he said, “I would go in right away and stop before you round the corner of the last hallway.” He pulled back and made no move to leave, his intense gaze never leaving her face.

She studied him for a moment, trying to gauge his intent. He said nothing more and his face remained impassive. Narrowing her eyes, she got to her feet and started slowly for the door.

“Better hurry,” he said. “And stay quiet.”

Following his instructions, Allura walked quickly through the grand foyer of the temple and into the more modest hallways of the infirmary. When she reached the corner he had indicated, she stopped and waited, wondering what exactly he intended for her to learn. But as her breathing slowed, she heard Kima and Drake’s voices coming from around the corner. She edged closer to listen in.

“...underconfident and squeamish,” Kima was saying. “I can’t work with someone who I can’t trust not to run away at the first roar of an owlbear. Sure, she can do some fancy magic, but that won’t matter if she can’t handle herself in the field.”

“She’s just a little green,” said Drake. “Give her time, she’ll ripen up.”

“I don’t have time, Drake!” said Kima. Allura imagined her throwing her arms out in frustration. “There is a fucked-up bear monster waiting out there right now that we have to go and kill. I need teammates I can rely on, not trainees.”

“And I need a team that isn’t tearing itself apart because one member refuses to cooperate with another,” said Drake. “Your concerns are legitimate. If she doesn’t improve, I’ll reconsider her placement on the team. But right now, this team needs an abjurist, and she’s what we’ve got. I won’t force you to be friends with her, but I need you to be civil. Deal?”

“Fine,” said Kima grudgingly. “Civil it is.” “

Wonderful,” said Drake.

Allura sagged against the wall as she heard them reenter the infirmary room. This time, her shivers weren’t from the aftereffects of throwing up. She clenched a fist in the fabric of her dress. She’d show Kima. There wasn’t much she could do about the blood thing, but she wasn’t incompetent. She’d prove she deserved her place in the Silver Slayers, whether Kima wanted her there or not.

Quiet footsteps interrupted her thoughts. Sirus was coming down the hall towards her. As he passed, he jerked his head in a motion for her to follow him; she grasped his meaning and fell into step behind him as if he was bringing her back in from outside. He pushed open the door and ushered her through without a word.

The patient, she was relieved to see, was breathing evenly, still sound asleep. The back of his neck, while still a little raw, was tattoo-free and the skin was unbroken. Dohla and Ghenn were talking to Drake, and Kima was scowling on a stool on the other side of the bed.

“Good, Sirus, you found her,” said Drake. “We were getting worried. Allura, it looks like we’re successful! He’s been breathing easy for a good ten minutes now.”

“Great!” said Allura.

“Ghenn and Dohla are going to see what they can do about the other patients,” said Drake. “In the meantime, it may be a little early, but I’d like to start a rotation of stakeouts at the warehouse. Looks like it’ll be nights only—”

“Thank the gods,” said Dohla.

“—and I think we aught to consider leaving the entrance to the Clasp unsealed for now. A sealed tunnel would arouse suspicion in our friend, or force him to pick a different entry point, one we can’t predict. Besides, this way we can lay a trap. Our primary goal should be stopping these experiments, and our secondary goal should be apprehending him. Which, if we play our cards right, we should be able to do both.”

“Two birds with one stone,” said Dohla.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” said Drake.

Eight grueling nights of stakeout. Drake insisted that they take the shifts in pairs, so they drew straws to see who would be on duty, and each shift required two pairs, one at the Clasp entrance and one at the warehouse. Allura drew shifts on the first, third, fourth, sixth, and eighth nights.

She quickly grew to hate it. Waking up at dinnertime and going to bed at breakfast was dizzying, and watching today tick over into tomorrow in the middle of her “day” threw off her sense of what day it was. Sitting around waiting for the beast to attack, all the while scraping grit out of their eyes and fending off sleep made everyone miserable. The only thing that made it bearable, Allura thought, was that they were all doing it together.

Her shifts where she was paired with Dohla were almost pleasant. Dohla was a good conversationalist, and talking to her made her feel at ease. She told her about her time studying at Soltryce, and she listened to Dohla talk about growing up on the outskirts of Emon, and her tales of adventures with the Slayers.

Ghenn was quieter, but not unfriendly. They focused more on the task at hand than Dohla, but didn’t hesitate to comment on the people moving past their lookout spot, or speak whatever quiet observation came into their head. They were a person, Allura thought, that she could be comfortable sitting in companionable silence with without feeling the need to say anything.

Sirus, in contrast, was all business. Their one shift together they perched in the rafters of the warehouse, looking out over the Bay of Emon without saying anything that wasn’t strictly necessary. She sensed his silence wasn’t a reflection of how he felt towards her; rather, she suspected he was just a man who valued privacy and economy of word. She was more than happy to respect that.

Her last shift she was paired with Kima. She tried not to let her apprehension show when both their hands emerged holding short straws and she met her gaze; she wasn’t supposed to know the full extent of Kima’s opinion of her. So she said something chipper and Kima replied with forced enthusiasm.

They spent the shift sitting on a heap of piled stone left over from the lot next to the warehouse, some sort of building project that had lost funding. Kima sat beside her, meticulously cleaning and filing the head of her mace. She was wearing a partial suit of plate armor which looked to be assembled from several mismatched sets, even to Allura’s untrained eyes. The pauldrons sat too low on her shoulders, the straps slipping down under her elbows even though they were as tight as they could go. A jagged crack on the breastplate had been repaired with a strip of some lighter metal and several haphazard rivets. A short, patched cloak was draped over her back, warding off the nighttime chill.

Allura alternated between scanning the landscape for the beast (as if she could possibly miss it) and studying Kima. What was her deal? Allura realized that aside from her apparent dislike of her, she actually knew very little about her. She seemed to be entirely devoted to the Silver Slayers. She had asked Dohla about her, but she had shrugged and said that Kima had joined a few months after she did and she didn’t like to talk about her past. She worked hard, and that was all that mattered to Drake.

She eyed the crooked angle of her hairline at the nape of her neck, clearly the result of a home haircut. Kima seemed to be all about proving your worth and doing things yourself. In order to redeem herself in Kima’s eyes, she concluded, she would have to do something impressive. But what? She’d never been much of a fighter, that was evocation terrain. The scrying spell had impressed Drake, but Kima seemed to value physical acts more than magical ones. Maybe, if the beast appeared tonight, she could try and take it on…

A hand clapped her on her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Kima met her gaze. She pointed out towards where she knew the water was, a noisy flat blackness behind the textured blackness of Emon. “Is that it?”

Allura squinted. At first she saw nothing, but then she glimpsed a hulking shadow pass in front of a lamp hanging in a window. Something flickered near its feet; a fiery orange arcane light. “I’m not—”

Then the beast passed by another light, illuminating the dozens of glittering eyes. “Yes! That has to be it.”

“Message Drake,” said Kima. Drake was on watch with Ghenn at the Clasp entrance. “I’ll raise the alarm.”

Without waiting for her to reply, she hefted her mace and jumped down off the pile of rocks, running for the nearest guard. “Ware monster! Coming from the east!”

Allura hastily yanked her wand out of her sleeve and cast Message. “Kima’s seen, I mean I’ve seen it too! The bear-thing’s here!”

Drake’s voice came through, gravelly in her ear. “Stay out of the melee,” he said. “Don’t engage it directly. Let Kima and the guards do the heavy lifting. Our friend should be here any minute. If it’s still here when we get him, Ghenn or I will come and help.”

“Understood.” She ended the spell. The first screams were already filtering up from the next street over. Hobnailed guards’ boots clattered on the cobbled road as they rushed to the defense. The night suddenly seemed a lot less comforting.

“Hurry up!” Kima was standing on the edge of the road, beckoning with her mace. Allura lifted her skirt with her free hand and clambered down off the rocks. She stood there awkwardly for a moment before Kima huffed and said, “Are you going to ward me or not?” “Oh! Right.” They had discussed with Drake last week what she would be expected to do. She pulled her spellbook out from its pocket in her coat and flipped through it till she found what she hoped would be an appropriately strong ward against fire and physical damage. Kima tapped her foot impatiently. It took her a second to review the spell, and only a little longer than that to cast it. The second she lowered her wand Kima took off, sprinting towards the guards’ shouts. Allura followed at a cautious jog.

The second she rounded the corner she stopped dead. The beast was even bigger in person. It hulked taller than a firbolg and four times as wide, its back scraping the eaves as it passed by a closed shop. It was surrounded by a half dozen crossbow-wielding guards, who were shooting at it intermittently between sweeping blows from the first set of bear legs. When they parted momentarily, she glimpsed the pale human torso jutting out from the bear’s shoulders.

As she watched, the beast reared, and the human hands landed on an unlucky guard, which it grabbed by the neck and lifted off the ground. Flames exploded outward. The guard shrieked and kicked, trying to free himself as his skin and clothes burned, but the beast’s hands were like vices, crushing his windpipe even as he burned to death. Once his struggles stopped, the beast tossed the still-burning body at the remaining guards like a child throwing away a doll.

Kima. Where was Kima? Allura glanced around frantically till she spotted her in the line, a head shorter than the guards on either side. She clashed her mace against her breastplate, egging the beast on.

The best lunged and the line broke. Guards scattered to either side. Ignoring the hail of bolts that followed it, it loped up the street towards her, and she could do nothing but watch it get bigger and bigger, the ground shaking with every footfall, the cobbles hissing and cracking every time the human hands hit the ground. It smelled like rotten meat and burning flesh. It pulled back a paw to strike her and—

Something barreled at her out of the corner of her eye and tackled her to the ground. Her head bounced off the cobblestones and her vision flashed white; something huge and heavy whooshed over her and slammed down on her other side. Kima was sitting on her.

“How did you—”

Kima grabbed her shoulders and rolled with her to the left. The beast’s paw slammed down right where they’d been a second before. Allura looked up and saw its face, blank and dead, haloed by matted, filthy hair. Kima jumped up and pulled her roughly to her feet, then turned back and clobbered the beast over the head with her mace. It hissed.

She turned back and shook Allura by the shoulders. “Pull your weight!” she snapped. “I’m not here to babysit.” Then, to the guards: “To me! Form a line and drive it back! Aim for the head!”

Allura scrambled back, tripping over herself in her haste. All thought of spells had left her head. The guards formed a line again, one gave a command, and half a dozen bolts found their mark in the beast’s torso. It roared and shook itself, flinging drops of water in every direction. One landed on her lip and she licked it reflexively; it was salt.

The beast charged but the guards held their ground. More guards were arriving, ones with swords and axes and pikes, and although its appearance was alien she could swear it looked nervous. It snarled, pawing the ground, then appeared to come to a decision. It turned and ran for the water.

“After it!”

“Faster!”

“Cut it off!”

Allura jogged after them, knuckles white around her wand. The orange glow from its hands was pulling ahead of the guards’ torchlight; they were going to lose it. She increased her pace and caught up just in time to see it disappear over the rocky bank and enter the water with a huge splash.

Kima was resting with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. Something dark was splattered all over the front of her armor. As Allura approached, she straightened up and spat on the dirt with a glare.

“All that work, and it got away,” she said. “Fuck!” She flung her mace down. It stuck at an angle in the dirt. “No thanks to you. What, exactly, do you call that!?”

“I…” Allura could feel her cheeks burning. “I didn’t know what to do! Drake told me to stay out of the fighting, and it came right at me!”

“You’re supposed to help your teammates!” Kima jabbed a finger in Allura’s face. “Buff me, shoot it, distract it, it doesn’t matter. But if I have to focus on rescuing you, I can’t do my job. You need to shape the fuck up, or get off the team.”

Allura drew herself up, blinking back tears. This always happened when she got angry and she hated it, it made her look hysterical. The guards were watching but she didn’t care. She inhaled, a heated response already forming on her lips, but Kima had already turned away, squinting out over the bay to see if she could discern the beast in the darkness.

“Better call Drake and tell him the bad news,” said Kima. “The bear-thing’s lost, I can’t see shit out there.”

She took a quick breath to steady herself. “I… may have a spell that could help,” she said, her voice not as steady as she’d have liked. “I might be able to track it. I think so, anyway.”

Kima didn’t turn around. She took that as an invitation to start the spell. It took a while to find in her spellbook, since it wasn’t one she used often—in fact, she wasn’t sure she had cast it at all since she learned it in class—but once she found it, it only took a moment to cast.

“There!”

Her wand tugged her hand gently forward, pulled by an unseen force. “It’s out in the bay,” she said. “About 50 feet out. There’s some interference from the water, but I think it’s swimming south.”

“Good.” Kima was suddenly all business again. “Tell Drake I’m going after it. Anyone coming with me?”

The guards looked at each other. Three of them raised their hands.

“Let’s go.”

Allura filled Drake in on what had happened. “Be careful,” he said. “No sign of our friend yet, so he might be waiting for you. I’m sending Ghenn with you to help.”

She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her and said “Okay.” Recasting the locating spell was more costly than she wanted to afford, but she didn’t really have a choice if they wanted to track it all the way back to its lair. The steady stream of energy down her arm fizzed and tickled as she jogged to catch up with Kima and the three guards.

An hour passed as they followed the beast south along the shore. It didn’t swim any farther offshore, for which Allura was grateful, because it was already at the edge of her spell’s range. She was starting to get worried that she would have to renew the spell again—she could do it, she thought, but no more than once.

They were getting close to the mouth of the Bay of Emon, where the land rose and the neatly-stacked rocks of the shore gave way to tumbled stone cliffs and rocky islands. A breakwater jutted out a quarter-mile or so into the bay. At the end was a squat lighthouse, though whether it was manned or unmanned she didn’t know. Every minute or two, the light flashed, a brilliant white illumination on the choppy sea. To the left of the breakwater the Ozmit Sea threw itself at the cliffs, mindlessly performing its endless task of eroding the shore.

“Stop!” Allura sensed a change in the beast’s motion. “It’s stopping… no, it’s climbing out.”

The six of them—Ghenn had caught up just outside the city—halted and squinted through the spray. The light flashed. Sure enough, the unmistakable bulky shape of the beast was hauling itself out onto the breakwater.

“Is it climbing over?” Ghenn asked.

“I’m not—no,” said Allura as she felt the spell shift again. “No, it’s moving away from us.”

“It’s going to the lighthouse,” said Kima.

The next flash confirmed what she said.

“Is it attacking, or does it live there?” wondered Allura. “We’d have heard something about the lighthouse being attacked, right?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Kima. “Once it’s inside, it’ll be contained, and we can surround and ambush it."

“I’ll tell—” Allura started to say, but Kima wasn’t waiting. She drew her mace and started climbing down onto the breakwater. “...Drake, I guess…”

She cast the spell. “The bear-thing’s in the lighthouse,” she said. “Kima’s already gone down there, I couldn’t stop her.”

“Keep your guard up,” said Drake. “Our friend never showed. He may be waiting.”

The spell ended and she relayed what Drake had said to Ghenn as they followed Kima and the guards. The rocks of the breakwater were slick with spray and algae; she shuddered to think of what slimy things could be hiding underneath them, waiting for a misplaced foot or hand. The ocean spray was frigid and it quickly soaked through to her skin. She shivered.

“That’s not ideal,” said Ghenn, frowning. They were barely audible over the crash of the waves. “I don’t want to walk into a trap, but if he knows we know this is his base, then this might be our only chance to attack him here. If he figures out we can track his monster, he’ll change tactics.”

“So we don’t have a choice?” Allura’s voice was higher than she intended.

“There’s always a choice,” they said, “it’s just that it’ll be easier to do it now, even if it’s a trap. That way all our work isn’t wasted.”

“I see.” Allura hauled herself up the next boulder, fingers shaking. “I won’t let you down.”

Ghenn gave her a strange look. “You haven’t so far.”

The lighthouse loomed ahead of them. It wasn’t particularly tall or ornate, no more than three stories tall, and made of the same gray stone as the breakwater. Though there was a door set into its base, she suspected that it was largely unmanned, since no path led up to it and no jetty lay in the water below. The light, which was too bright to look directly at now that they were close, was distinctly magical in color.

“Look,” said Ghenn. Scorch marks scarred the wood of the door, and the doorknob was black with soot. “It’s definitely in there.”

Kima gestured for two of the guards to circle around the front of the lighthouse to check for additional exits. When they returned negative, she pressed an ear to the door, then, apparently satisfied, turned the handle and eased the door open.

It was pitch black beyond the door. Kima beckoned with her head for them to follow, then slipped inside. Allura gave Ghenn a panicked look, who shrugged and followed Kima, their fingers resting on their symbol of Avandra.

Now’s not the time to chicken out, she thought. If I want to be on this team, I have to act. She took a deep breath, fingers tight on her wand in her sleeve, steeled herself, and stepped inside.

Her eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom and to her surprise she recognized the area immediately: it was the same dark chamber she’d seen when she scryed the beast. It was round, like the lighthouse, with a hearth against the far wall which must’ve been magical because no chimney had been visible on the outside. A staircase curved up to the right of the door and disappeared through the ceiling. In front of the hearth was a rug and on the rug sprawled the beast.

Lining the walls was shelf after shelf of all manner of curiosities. Books, of course—Allura recognized the safe shorthand commonly used by wizards to record spells on many of the spines—but also jars of multicolored fluids, mummified small creatures propped up on stands, preserved body parts that looked distinctly humanoid, racks of tiny delicate instruments, intricate machines of unknown purpose, globes of blown glass, live insects in tanks, ropes of dried snakeskin, and piles of less identifiable stuff that made her head spin to look at. Whether it was a workshop or some deranged collector’s museum it was hard to say.

Kima gestured silently for everyone to spread out and surround. Miraculously, the beast hadn’t noticed them. It just lay there, panting, blood and seawater seeping out onto the rug. The guards—two with crossbows and one with an axe—readied their weapons. Ghenn held their holy symbol. Allura held her breath.

As Kima inched into range with her mace held high, Allura suddenly became sure that the beast wasn’t actually resting. She wasn’t certain what told her that—a twitch of a claw, a tensing of a muscle—but she knew beyond a doubt. Cold fire raced along her nerves, kicking her heart into overdrive. Kima brought her arm down.

“Look out!”

Before her mace could complete its arc, the pale hand of the beast shot out and halted it in midair. Orange light flared and fire raced up Kima’s arm. The beast surged to its feet, impossibly fast.

“Kima!”

Blue light flared in response to the fire—her ward! Kima and the beast looked equally surprised. Kima recovered first. She let go of the mace and dived to the left, out of the beast’s reach. The bear snarled, a horrible mixture of human and animal sound. Crossbows snapped; two more bolts appeared in the beast’s sides.

A humming like a tuning fork being struck filled the chamber and suddenly Ghenn was holding a lance made of golden light. They jabbed. The beast’s snarling turned into a roar. It lunged at them, swiping with a bear paw while its hands snatched at the air. Ghenn ducked but not fast enough, one hand closed on their shoulder and tossed them into the guard with an axe, who toppled with them into a shelf, sending piles of curios cascading down on top of them with a deafening crash. They yelled; the lance vanished. She could see a smoking black handprint in the fabric of their robes.

Kima retrieved her mace from where the beast had dropped it near the hearth and sprinted after it. The mace tore into the beast’s hindquarters with a gout of blood once, twice, before the beast whipped around and sent her flying with a blow from its paw.

Allura realized she was just standing there rooted to the spot, clutching her wand. Time to act. Twirling her wand, she fired three bolts of arcane energy directly at its face. She hadn’t bothered to put much power into the spell, but it did what she needed it to: get the beast’s attention. Its head whipped around to face her, residual blue streaks of energy crackling in its matted hair. Its eyes locked onto her and it charged. Fuck!

She did the only thing she could think of: run away as fast as she could. The stairs were right there and she ran up them, skipping steps in her haste. She could hear the beast coming up behind her, feel its feet shaking the staircase, smell its fetid-meat breath.

Someone yelled behind her; she wasn’t sure who. Fingers swiped through the ends of her hair and then she was through to the upper floor, in a room made of glass.

She glanced around. The room was dominated by the great lens, almond-shaped and multifaceted, twice as tall as she was. The magelight inside pulsed innocently. There wasn’t much space for anything else up here. I didn’t think this through, I didn’t think this through, this thing’s going to kill me, KIMA’S going to kill me—

The beast forced itself through the hole in the floor. Its reflection leered at her, upside-down through the concave back of the lens, its multitude of eyes staring at her from every angle. She held her wand out like a sword in front of her.

“Don’t try it!” she found herself saying. “I’m warning you! You don’t want to fight me!”

The beast’s shoulders shook. She imagined it was laughing. Focus, focus!

She selected the strongest shielding spell she could and cast it right as the beast charged. It sparkled in the air before her, insubstantial as a cobweb. Time seemed to slow down as the beast pounded towards her.

Then it struck her shield. Like a train hitting a watermelon, the shield shattered, and all the energy of the spell dissipated at once with a sound like breaking glass. Allura was flung backwards. She braced herself for the impact with the glass wall.

But it didn’t come. She opened her eyes and found herself falling, glass raining down with her. The night seemed much brighter now, and she realized in a delirious moment that the great lens had broken, along with much of the glass encasing the upper floor of the lighthouse. She fell for one, two, three full heartbeats, and then—

CRASH!

The water hit her like a solid wall. Her breath left her body all at once, faster than a sneeze, and her skin seared with both the pain of impact and the icy temperature of the Ozmit Sea. All sense of up and down abandoned her; all she could feel was motion and freezing and water and water and water—

Her head broke the surface and she choked in a breath that was only partially air. She gasped and coughed as she treaded water. Above her, the light blazed, the magelight like a sun at the top of the tower. Her throat was raw; she swallowed convulsively and gagged on salt. Her arms were getting harder and harder to move and she panicked for a moment, slipping back under the water, until she realized her coat was weighing her down and she ripped it off.

Waves were pushing her closer and closer to the lighthouse. In the darkness she wasn’t sure how close she was until her feet scraped against dark rock hidden under the water. Another wave pushed her forward and she scrambled up onto slimy boulders. She clung there, shivering, water draining from her clothes, hair a snarled net around her arms and shoulders.

A dark shape blotted out the beacon above. She craned her neck and squinted. It was hard to make out against the blinding light, but she could see several figures moving on the upper floor. One—six-legged and hulking—was clearly the beast. It crouched near the destroyed window, on the defensive, taking swipes at the other figures which periodically appeared over the lip of the lighthouse. As she watched, it landed a blow, and the figure crumpled with a shriek just audible over the waves.

She had to do something. It was tearing them to shreds.

She stood all the way up and immediately slipped, her leather soles finding no purchase on the algae-covered rocks. “Ouch!” Gritting her teeth, she ignored the pain from her scraped palms and hauled herself up until she reached the base of the lighthouse. A flickering orange glow joined the blue-white magelight—was the lighthouse on fire? She could only smell salt. The lighthouse was built of pitted gray stone, slick with moisture, the paint long since worn away by the sea. Impossible to climb. She tried anyway, digging her nails into the cracks in the mortar, wincing when one broke, but it was a futile effort.

Noise from above. She recognized Kima’s voice, rough from shouting. “Don’t let it move forward! Keep it pinned! Let’s make this bastard fall!”

Make it fall, thought Allura. I can do that.

She reached for her spellbook—but instead of the secret pocket in her coat, her hand met only the flimsy fabric of her dress, soaked through with seawater. An icy cold jolt of panic shot through her from head to toe. Her spellbook! All her notes, all the spells she’d recorded and invented and improved on since her first day at the academy, everything was in that little book. Her eyes stung. Not only had she failed as a member of the Silver Slayers, she had failed as a wizard. Without her spellbook, all she could do was party tricks. Her knees buckled and she slumped against the lighthouse.

It was over. She’d be kicked off the team, if not by Kima then by Drake. She couldn’t afford the room over the Green Rat anymore, so she'd be out on the streets. She’d have to move back home and face her father’s disappointment.

A tear overflowed her eye and splashed onto her hand, the one that was still clutching her wand. She ran her thumb over its familiar shape: a slim switch of silver birch the length of her forearm, sanded to a velvety smooth finish. It had been so much nicer than wasting money on spell components; it had seen her through… well, only about ten months, but it still felt like an old friend. She would miss this, miss being a wizard.

Something hot and angry reared its head inside her. You’re not not-a-wizard yet, it said. Come on, Allura Vysoren. Don’t be a quitter. You got yourself into this, you can get yourself out.

She wiped her eyes—not that it mattered, she was still soaking wet—and took a shaky breath. Kima and Ghenn were still in danger. Her spellbook was still at the bottom of the ocean. She couldn’t do anything without her spellbook, so that was the first problem she needed to solve. But how?

She fingered her wand. There was a simpler variant of that locating spell she’d used to find the beast, she knew, used to find inanimate objects. She couldn’t recall the exact wording, or the wand motions required, so she’d have to improvise. Which was risky. But, she reasoned, all magic was a bit risky. She wouldn’t be here without taking a few risks.

“It’ll be just like back in school,” she said. She stood and cracked her knuckles, inhaling sharply as her scraped skin stretched. “Just another equation to be balanced.”

The actual spell only took a moment to cast, once she had worked it out. She based it on the Locate Creature spell, cutting out the sections for identifying a specific living thing and cutting down the energy allocation accordingly. When she was ready, she released the spell, and a steady stream of energy trickled down through her arm and into her wand. A silvery-blue glow emanated from the tip of the wand, which alarmed her—she didn’t remember the spell doing that before—but then she felt the familiar tug as the spell pointed her in the direction of her spellbook.

“All right. Let’s do this.”

She steeled herself and stepped back into the freezing water. It swirled around her calves and she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to take another step. A wave splashed into her mouth and she spat it out. Before another could come and knock her off balance, she half-jumped, half-dove belly first into the water.

It felt like being encased in fire, not water. Somehow it was worse the second time, despite already being soaked to the skin. She reflexively gasped and found it hard to breathe out again, the water’s icy grip making it impossible to relax her lungs. Her skin burned.

The wand tugged her downward. She took a deep breath and dove. Even with her eyes open, she could see nothing outside of the tiny dim radius of the light from her wand, so she could only kick out and trust her spell not to run her into solid rock.

Her ears popped painfully, first right and then left. She wondered how deep she was. The thought made her lungs start to ache, though she had only been underwater a few seconds. The swell of the waves was different from the swimming holes she had learned to swim in as a child, pushing her off course and carrying her bodily back towards shore—for every two strokes she took, it took her one stroke back.

Her outstretched hand met silt. She’d reached the bottom. Her lungs were really starting to hurt now, and she bit her lip hard to keep from exhaling. The wand was still pointing her forward, so she felt blindly along the bottom, trying to be fast and thorough at the same time.

Something flat and squishy. Seaweed. No, her coat! She brought the wand close to double check and saw the familiar brown felt. Frantically she pulled it towards her. Waterlogged as it was, it was so heavy that she could hardly move it through the water. Too heavy to bring back to the surface. She followed the collar down the front of the coat and felt for the secret pocket. Undoing the button with hasty fingers, she reached inside. For one heartbeat her fingers found only the inside of the pocket, and then they closed on soggy leather.

No time to celebrate. She clutched the book and her wand to her chest and kicked off from the bottom and rocketed towards the surface.

An interminable time seemed to pass between the seafloor and the surface. Her dress and shoes dragged her downwards; her spellbook was like a brick in her hands. She kicked as hard as she could. Her lungs seared and she couldn’t stop bubbles from escaping her mouth and nose. Surely she hadn’t been down that far. She’d only been gone a minute. Where was the surface, she needed air, she needed air—

She broke the surface with a gasp right as she was certain she would drown. The dead-fish-and-rotting-seaweed stench of the ocean air was the sweetest perfume. She started swimming towards the lighthouse again, doing a one-armed breaststroke while holding her spellbook and wand to her chest with her other hand.

There was no time for recovery. After hauling herself back up onto the rocks, she peeled her poor, soggy spellbook open with hands shaking so hard she could barely turn the pages. It was in a sorry state. The cheap walnut ink had run terribly; whole spells were now little more than blooms of ink across the page. The pages near the front were totally lost, but towards the middle more of the writing was legible. Allura vowed to herself that as soon as she got dry, she would invest in some waterproof paper and ink.

She looked up. The magelight was still blazing, and so were the flames she could see now crackling over the lip of the lighthouse. The beast was roaring, and she could hear people shouting, but between the waves and the chattering of her teeth she couldn’t make out what was being said. A bulky shape was still visible, silhouetted against the magelight: the beast. She had to work fast.

The spell she needed was mostly intact, thank the gods. She scanned it quickly, reviewing the wording. Then, balancing the book open on her arm for reference, she cast the spell.

An enormous Hand of magical energy, royal blue, materialized in the air in front of her. At her command, it shot upwards to hover level with the top floor of the lighthouse. As her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she could see the beast, pacing along the edge. She couldn’t see who was fighting it, but it seemed like they’d reached a stalemate. The beast lashed out with its claws but hit only air; her teammates swiped and jabbed with their weapons but did little damage.

Allura smiled grimly. “Let’s make this bastard fall.”

The Hand shot forward and grabbed the first beast part it touched: a hind leg. Allura yanked it backwards with all her strength. With a yowl of surprise, the beast was pulled off the tower, but it was heavier than she had anticipated and she dropped it. It landed with a splash and a screech in the water below and disappeared beneath the surface.

An ominous silence followed, broken only by the crash of the waves. A head peeked over the edge.

“Allura, is that you?”

“Kima!” A surge of relief flooded her and she almost collapsed again. “Is everyone okay?”

“Mostly!” Kima gestured behind her with her mace. Drops of blood splattered on the stone next to her a moment later. “We’ve all got some cuts and burns, and Kip’s hurt pretty bad, but Ghenn’s seeing to him.” Kip was one of the guards, Allura surmised. “Everything’s a little on fire up here. Did you kill it?”

“I don’t think so,” Allura shouted back. “If I can survive that fall, so can it.”

A sigh, audible even at this distance. “I’m coming down.”

Kima’s head retreated, and Allura turned back to the sea. It took a minute for her eyes to readjust. She started fishing around in the water with the Hand, trying to find the beast.

Movement, about 50 feet out. She thought at first it was a piece of flotsam, or seaweed floating on the water, but then the beast’s shoulders rose up behind it, followed by the weird deflated bear mouth, and she knew it was the beast. Her heart jumped up into her mouth.

“Kima!”

The beast drew closer. She could see the many gashes on its chest and shoulders now, the thicket of crossbow bolts protruding from its flanks. The Hand was still underwater and she moved it close to her, hoping the spray and the dancing reflections of the magelight would camouflage its blue glow.

“Kima? Ghenn?”

The beast was almost upon her now. She pressed her back up against the lighthouse wall. A horrible wound had almost severed its right hand, which was dangling by a quarter inch of gristle, draining gray slime into the water. A huge patch of fur on its shoulders and chest was burnt off, revealing gray skin and haphazard stitches.

“Anyone! Help!” Just a little closer.

Its front legs found purchase on the stones in front of her and it began to haul itself up out of the water. Its breath was labored.

Now!

Allura whipped her hand up and the Hand mirrored her action, surging up out of the water and closing around the beast’s human torso. The beast howled, a sound cut off as she clenched it tight. She brought the Hand up, lifting it completely out of the water, and slammed the beast down on the rocks as hard as she could. Then did it again, and again, and again, and again. On the third slam it burst, splitting open at the seams like a rotten orange, spilling stinking entrails over the rocks and over Allura, but she didn’t stop, needing to make sure it was really, really, truly dead before she risked letting it go.

A hand closed on her arm and she shrieked, lashing out involuntarily. She lost control of the spell and the hand vanished, the remaining shreds of the beast splattering back into the ocean. But it was just Kima.

“Hey! Easy!”

Allura stood there, panting, eyes wild, adrenaline still storming through her veins.

“I think it’s dead now,” said Kima, surprise clear on her face. “I… didn’t think you had it in you.”

“That was really violent,” she said, and threw up.

Kima awkwardly patted her on the back as she heaved up her breakfast onto the rocks. When she was done, she hooked Allura’s arm over her shoulders and helped her around to the front of the lighthouse where Ghenn was waiting, heedless of the monster entrails, blood, and vomit she was currently coated in, something she was grateful for. Between hypothermia and throwing up, she wasn’t sure she could have walked anywhere without help.

Ghenn looked a little worse for wear. Their white robe had a charred, hand-shaped hole at the shoulder, and the skin underneath was angry red and weeping. Their hair was all over the place and their face had the drawn, tense look of someone on the edge of their spellcasting limit for the day. They took one look at Allura and said, “What happened? Are you hurt?”

“Allie went for a swim,” said Kima. “The bear-thing’s dead. She killed it.”

Ghenn touched their holy symbol and it emitted a soft golden light. They held it up so its light illuminated Allura’s face, felt her forehead, pressed a fingernail and watched the blood flow back. “Are you in any pain? Did it touch you at all?”

She considered. She felt bruised all over from hitting the water, her palms were scraped, and her nose still hurt from the saltwater. She shook her head. “I’m f-f-f-f—“

“Good. For now, let’s just try and get you warm. Kima, can you give her your cloak?”

She wordlessly shucked it off and wrapped it around her. It smelled like burnt wool and armor grease.

“I’ve got to get back to Kip, he’s stable but I shouldn’t leave him. Galla and Harris said they’d carry him out; I’d better find out what’s keeping them.” They tucked the coat more tightly around her and hustled away.

Allura sank down where she was, her knees finally giving way. Everything was a lot right now. It was the middle of the night, she was still filthy and freezing, and the combination of exertion and adrenaline was making her feel weak. She could hardly remember ever feeling so miserable. But at least the stars were out. And she was alive.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” she said, words tumbling from lips that still felt numb and slow, “I sc-screwed up. I shouldn’t have attacked it.”

Kima looked at her sharply. “What are you talking about? That was badass. Hiding the hand under the water like that and then surprising the thing like that? You were like a little alligator. An Allie-gator.”

“N-no, I meant before, in the lighthouse. I hit it and it ch-chased me up the tower and I fell off, I should’ve stayed b-back like Drake said, it was so st-st-st—” Unwelcome tears welled up in her eyes, painful and hot, and she tried to stop them but they overflowed and dripped down her cheeks. She buried her face in her knees.

“It wasn’t stupid.” Kima’s voice was still rough, but no longer hostile. A hesitant hand touched her shoulder. “It was ballsy. You just need a little training.”

“Then I’m not off the team?”

“Nah.”

She could’ve fainted with relief. Kima didn’t seem to notice. She squinted up at the lighthouse door, still lit from above by the broken beacon, though it looked like the orange flames had died down. “What in Exandria is taking them so long?! I’d better go make sure they haven’t gotten lost.” With a sigh, she shouldered her mace and trudged towards the lighthouse door.

Allura was about to follow when a familiar voice sounded in her head, loud and urgent. “Allura! Where’s the monster? Our friend showed and he’s headed your way, you need to get out of there right now. He’s a very powerful—” The message cut off.

“What happened? Are you and Dohla okay? We killed the monster but one of the guards is hurt, I think Ghenn is helping…” Several things fell into place all at once and a terrible sense of foreboding overcame her. She jumped up and sprinted after Kima.

“Kima! Don’t go in—”

Her right foot crossed the threshold and froze in place, her muscles and joints locking up unbidden in an instant of searing pain. Her momentum carried her forward through the doorway and she toppled face down onto the floor. Her face hit with an agonizing crunch; she would’ve screamed if she could’ve taken a breath to do so.

A heavy boot kicked her over onto her back. Something hot trickled down her cheek into her ear. Through a film of tears she looked up into a hooded face, illuminated from below by a thin strip of metal giving off an ugly whitish glow, held by a gaunt hand. The face under the hood looked at her with angry ambivalence.

“So nice of you to join us,” said the face. He had a nasal, bored voice; Allura was strongly reminded of her instructor who taught theoretical palmistry, a notoriously dull subject. “When my beastling was repelled before he even reached his destination I knew something was amiss. I waited to see if your friends trying to ambush me would follow, but they were being stubborn and staying in my way, so I… taught them a lesson.” Her stomach twisted. The man’s expression soured. “But then you had to go and kill my beastling. My poor, beautiful beastling.”

The man wandered out of her line of sight. She couldn’t track him with her eyes but she could hear him talking as he moved around, picking items up off the downed shelves. At the edge of her vision was a motionless armored figure, mace held high, lips slowly turning blue. Farther back, she thought she could see another cluster of people halfway down the stairs, equally still and silent. Drake had been right; if he was able to hold this many people with a single spell, the hooded man must be a very powerful spellcaster.

“It was hardly in this world a month,” the man continued. “Innocent. An infant. All those months of work, gone in an instant. Yet I am a busy man, so my revenge must wait until another day.” A soft scraping sound of something being dragged across the floor—the rug? For the second time in an hour, Allura wished she could breathe. She struggled against the spell but it held strong.

The hooded man reappeared in her field of vision, peering at a golden timepiece in his free hand. “Now—before I go, I’d like to know who I have to thank for the death of my beastling.” He locked eyes with Allura and crouched down. “Rumor has it, it was you.” Long, pallid fingers grasped Kima’s cloak and flipped it back, revealing her hand clutching her ruined spellbook. Interest sparked in the hooded man’s face and he wrenched it free and peeled it open. “A little wizard! How cute.”

Get your hands off my spellbook! She tried to glare at him and failed.

“Clumsy of you to drop it in the water though… Ah.” One slim finger traced a line on the inside front cover. “Allura Vysoren. A pleasure to meet you.” He straightened up, snapping the spellbook closed, and checked his timepiece again. “I’d best be off. Until we meet again, Miss Vysoren.”

Allura didn’t see what he did next, but a moment later a flash of sickly white light illuminated the chamber ceiling and she sensed a surge of magical energy course through the space next to her, a freight train passing by her cheek. In the same instant she felt the energy holding her vanish and the room was filled with a chorus of coughs and gasps as the others were released as well. She sat up, blood rushing back into her head and limbs, and saw the residual glow of a teleportation circle where the rug used to be.

Kima was on her hands and knees, breathing like she’d just run a marathon. Ghenn and the two uninjured guards were in a similar state, coughing and staggering their way down the stairs. The third guard, Kip, appeared to be unconscious, though whether that was because of the spell or from some other injury she couldn’t tell.

“Is everyone all right?” Ghenn recovered first. “Allura, that’s a lot of blood, is it yours?” Her nose suddenly seared with pain and she clapped her hand to it; it came away smeared with red. She felt faint.

“I! Hate! Fighting! Wizards!” Kima smashed her mace into the nearest fallen shelf with each word, until it resembled less of a shelf and more of a splintered pile of wood and trinkets. “They’re always bastards! Unpredictable bastards!” She shot a guilty glance at Allura and added, “Not you, you’re okay.”

Allura shrugged and grimaced, trying to communicate no offense taken without moving her face too much.

Ghenn prodded her nose with gentle fingers. “Yep, it’s probably broken,” they said, unconcerned. “Tip your head back and pinch it—yeah, like that. I can take the pain away and stop the bleeding, but I can’t heal it completely till I’ve had some sleep.” She believed them; they looked about to drop. Healing Kip must’ve really taken it out of them. She nodded consent and with a whispered word and a flash of golden light, her nose went from a screaming pain to a dull ache. She took an experimental breath—it was still tender, but much more functional—and wordlessly smiled her thanks.

“Harris, can you take Kip?” Ghenn brushed their hair out of their eyes and straightened their robe, gathering their strength. “He’s not going to die but he should really go to the Temple of Sarenrae. I’ve done all I can. Galla, Kima, see if you can get some recognizable uh, bits from the bear-thing, we’ll need them if we want to collect that bounty. Otherwise… let’s go home.”

Allura flopped back on the bed in the room that used to be Gomor’s and groaned. Every muscle in her body ached.

In the three weeks since their defeat of the bear-monster, Drake and Kima had worked her relentlessly. Drake had insisted she work with him every morning in the little courtyard behind the Slayers’ base, practicing combat magic. He put her through her paces and she quickly improved, and he even taught her a few new evocation spells, though her role in team combat would be mostly defensive, not offensive. He wanted her to be prepared if a situation ever came up again where an enemy targeted her and her teammates weren’t there to help defend, like with the beast in the lighthouse.

It turned out that even though Drake was much more experienced in combat, her knowledge of abjuration actually exceeded his, which gave her a small measure of satisfaction. Especially when, after he circumvented her wards for the fourth time in a row, she managed to counter his next attack with such precision that he lost his balance.

“Well done, Allura!” huffed Drake as he picked himself up off the ground. He was still a little stiff from the damage dealt to him by the hooded man. “Do that again in a real fight and you’ll be just fine.”

She laughed, mainly because she wasn’t sure what else to do, and helped him up. In addition to that, Drake had also asked Kima to teach her the basics of hand-to-hand combat, “In case you ever drop that book again.” Kima took to this with gusto. Allura found it frustrating and exhausting. Every hold made her limbs shake and muscles burn, and no matter what she did Kima always was able to break free in a matter of seconds. She ended each session covered in bruises and sweat, a sensation she discovered she loathed. And even after three weeks she had barely improved. Hence, sore muscles.

Still, she was determined not to complain in front of Kima. The halfling’s attitude towards her had improved considerably, and she now seemed to view Allura as a sort of apprentice in need of her protection. Allura wasn’t sure whether she should find this patronizing or endearing, but it was such an improvement over her previous hostility she decided she preferred to be endeared.

It took her a while to get used to the necessary intimacy of practicing unarmed combat. Nearly all of the moves Kima taught her involved breaking the arm’s length bubble of personal space she was used to, and the unbroken eye contact she had her use to track and predict her opponent’s moves made her self-conscious. Still, Kima made her feel oddly comfortable, and she suspected that if it had been anyone else teaching her she would’ve been much less at ease.

The bounty they received from the city guard for killing the beast was hardly a king’s ransom, but it was enough to have paid Allura’s rent at the Green Rat for more than a year. Ghenn, the Silver Slayers’ unofficial treasurer, had decreed that a third of it should go into the group’s emergency fund, which was unanimously agreed to be a good idea. The remainder was split between Ghenn, Kima, Allura, and the three guards that had fought the beast with them, with a slightly larger portion going to Allura for having delivered the killing blow. The amount of money that was suddenly hers made her head spin.

The first thing she bought with her new fortune was an enormous chocolate-filled croissant from the bakery across the street from the Green Rat, hot out of the oven, which she devoured piece by piece, savoring each bite. Once that was gone, and all the chocolate wiped off her fingers, she set out to find a suitable replacement for her spellbook.

Drake had recommended a bookbinder in Abdar’s Promenade who specialized in arcane books, though he had suggested she think about other options. “It doesn’t have to be a book,” he had said. “Knew a wizard once who embroidered all his spells onto the sleeves of his coat. Bit of an odd duck, him. But still, as long as it’s written down and makes sense to you, it doesn’t matter what form it takes.” He showed her his own spellbook, a cleverly constructed volume with a hinged metal case, which hung from a chain around his neck tucked under his shirt. He demonstrated how each page folded out to many times the book’s size, each of which was covered with Drake’s miniscule handwriting. The case had a large tarnished spot, like someone had spilled acid on it and then wiped it away.

Allura didn’t think she’d go for anything too non-traditional, but she thanked him anyway. The bookbinder did sell reams of unbound paper for wizards who preferred to bind their own spellbooks, and she did consider for a second the idea of making it herself, but… she’d never been particularly crafty. Magic had always been her focus, and she needed something that would last.

As she was heading out the door there was the crash of the kitchen door bouncing off the wall followed by the pounding of booted feet. A moment later Kima grasped her by the shoulder, a little out of breath.

“You going out to buy stuff?”

She nodded. “I need a new spellbook. And a coat.” It was still the height of summer but fall would come eventually, and if they were doing any more night missions she would need it.

“Great. I’m coming with you.” Kima flashed her a smile. “You owe me a cloak.”

It was true. The combination of seawater and monster viscera had rendered the cloak beyond salvage. She winced, remembering. “Sorry about that.”

“No biggie. Let’s go.”

Their first stop was the bookbinder, since the specially-prepared paper and sturdy bindings necessary for most wizards’ spellwork tended to be very expensive. She spent a while talking to the shopkeeper about specs and prices while Kima browsed the books on display, running her fingers over smooth leather covers and flipping through creamy linen pages.

She left the shop with an ordinary leather-bound spellbook and considerably less gold in her pocket. Her new spellbook was smaller than her old one but thicker, with a simple clasp on the front holding the covers shut. At her request, the shopkeeper had stitched a piece of oilcloth onto the spine, which could be folded tightly around it when the book was not in use or opened quickly when she needed it. The only other deviation from the norm, which the shopkeeper had talked her into, was a loop of leather on each cover that would allow her to hold the book and turn the pages one-handed.

“It’s the perfect spellbook for an adventuring wizard,” the shopkeeper had said. Allura had started to protest, that she was just a freelancer, but stopped. She supposed she was that, now. She was part of an adventuring party. She’d been on an adventure. Ostensibly, she still did freelance work, but she’d been so busy training these last few weeks she hadn’t had time to follow up on any leads. It was a sobering realization but not, she thought, a negative one.

“You’re awfully quiet,” said Kima as they turned down the street with the bookbinder and headed towards the section of the city she knew housed several tailors and dressmakers.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing serious,” she said. “It’s just strange. I never thought I’d be an adventurer. I thought I’d be a scholar, get my Master’s and a PhD or two. But my father wanted me to do something more practical instead of sitting in school for the next decade, and frankly… I loved school, but it’s nice knowing I’ll never have to sit an exam again or worry about late homework. I really thought I could make it as a freelancer, though.”

“I always knew I was gonna end up doing this,” said Kima. “Or merc work. I’ve always been fighty, and school never really agreed with me. Not that we could ever afford anything fancy…” She looked a little surprised at herself. “I dunno. This is what I’m good at, so this is what I do. The Slayers are fun, though. That ettin fight…” She grinned. “Such a rush. You have no idea.”

“Did you grow up in Emon?”

“Nah.” Allura waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. They turned onto a busier street which although it was still early was already bustling with foot traffic, carts, and carriages. Shopkeepers were just rolling up the blinds in their display windows and the first few tourists were making their way slowly past the shops. She thought it was lucky the bookbinder was open so early.

“I’ve been with the Slayers about three years, though,” she continued, a little apologetic. “I joined up right after Dohla. I saw them—back then it was just Dohla, Drake, Sirus, and Gomor—I saw them getting their asses kicked by one of those sewer monsters, a what’s-it-called, an otyugh. I finished it off and Drake hired me on the spot. It’s a nice gig,” she said, nimbly stepping over a patch of cobbles where they were lifted by a tree root. “Free rent and people who care if you bite it? Works for me.”

They arrived at a square filled with white canvas stalls. Allura slowed their pace as they passed; the stalls were full of bolts of fine fabric and expensive-looking clothes. She sighed as her fingers met the cool silk of an elegant dress. It rippled blue and black. But even if she hadn’t just spent most of her money on a spellbook, she strongly suspected she wouldn’t be able to afford it, so she made herself continue on.

The heady scent of a strong perfume wafted out of some of the stalls. Kima wrinkled her nose. "I've never understood why they do that."

“I used to do this all the time,” said Allura, trailing her fingers through a row of scarves. “Just come here and pretend I was going to buy things, even though I couldn’t afford them. It’s stupid, I know,” she said, laughing a little, “but it made me feel… I don’t know. Fancy.”

“I get that,” said Kima. Allura looked at her, surprised. “I used to go down to the barracks every morning to watch the guards drill when I was little. I liked their armor and swords and stuff. I used to want to be a guard more than anything.”

“What happened?”

“Life,” said Kima. She looked a little uncomfortable, so Allura didn’t press her.

Allura had visited the far end of the square many times before. Long tables were set up under an open pavillion and on the tables were piles of shirts, pants, coats, dresses, and a hundred miscellaneous other items. A banner overhead proclaimed “CLOTHING EXCHANGE.”

“We’re not going there, are we?” said Kima.

“No,” said Allura. She steered them towards the stall next door, which sold plain but serviceable new clothes. The shopkeeper waved and smiled as they stepped inside. Next to a shelf of folded shirts was a rack of cloaks of varying lengths and sizes; she made a beeline for it.

“Which one do you want?” she said. “Your old one reached about… mid-thigh, do you want one that’s the same length?”

Kima shrugged. “It’s gotta be a little big to fit over my armor. I don’t want it too long or it’ll get in the way. That’s all that matters.” She cracked a smile. “I won it from this human dude at a bar last year. Bet him he couldn’t beat me in a game of mumbly-peg. It never fit me right but hey, I won it fair and square.” She frowned. “Maybe a little smaller would be good.” Allura held a cloak up to her, squinted, then replaced it on the rack. “Dare I ask, what’s mumbly-peg?”

Kima grinned. “It’s the best drunk game. You stand about twenty feet apart—” She pulled a dagger from her boot and flipped it, catching it deftly by the blade. The shopkeeper made a sound of protest. “—And you throw a dagger at each other’s feet.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

Kima shrugged. “Depends how drunk you are. You want it to stick within a dagger-length of their foot. If it sticks, they move their foot to where it landed. If it doesn’t stick, or if it sticks outside of a dagger-length, it doesn’t count. The goal is to make them do the splits.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It is.” She flipped the dagger again. “If you’re flexible, or if you’ve got good aim, you have an advantage.” She pulled back her arm and flicked the dagger at a mannequin. It stuck, quivering, between two cobbles. “And I’ve got very good aim.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said the shopkeeper. “This is a clothing store. Can you not—?”

“How about this one?” Allura pulled a pale green cloak off the hanger and wrapped it around Kima’s shoulders.

“It’s a little long. Not a huge fan of the color, either.”

“How about red?”

“Yeah!” Kima grabbed the red cloak and put it on. It was a little roomy, but not as much as her old one, with a fancy clasp. Plenty of room for armor underneath. She did a few practice swipes with her dagger and grinned as the cloak flared out. “This is more like it!”

“Ma’am, please,” said the shopkeeper.

“That one it is, then,” said Allyra. As she reached for her purse, a rack of coats caught her eye. That’s right, I still need a coat! She mentally tallied up how much gold she’d have left after the spellbook and the cloak. As long as she didn’t get one that was too fancy, she thought she’d be all right.

Kima saw where she was looking and said, “You should buy one. Treat yourself. You don’t kill a monster every day.”

“What one should I get?”

“Do I look like I know anything about clothes?” Kima gestured broadly. “Get whatever you like. Go nuts.”

Allura dove into the coat rack. After a minute’s indecision, she emerged with two coats.

“What do you think, brown or blue?”

Kima leaned back, sizing them up. “Blue. It’ll match your eyes.”

She put the brown coat back on the rack and paid the shopkeeper, who took the money and shooed them out.

“You’re not going to be able to wear that, you know,” said Kima as they made their way back to the Silver Slayers’ base. “It’s too long for anything practical, and armor will shred it.”

“I don’t wear armor,” said Allura.

“I could get you some armor, if you want,” said Kima. “I know a guy who can get you some secondhand for cheap. Cheap-ish. He might have your size, even. Can’t guarantee it’ll all match, though.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Allura, “but metal interferes with magic. I’m not sure why, exactly, I think it’s got something to do with the conductivity of the material… But anyway, using any kind of magic around large pieces of metal like that is risky and takes a lot of very specialized training.”

“Suit yourself,” said Kima. “At least let me get you a shield. A wooden shield.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Allura.

In her room back at the Slayers’ base, Allura gazed up at the coat she’d bought and smiled. It may be plain, but it was hers. Even if the constant training meant she might not get to wear it for a while, it still represented a brighter future ahead.

She stretched, joints cracking. Now that the post-workout tiredness had abated somewhat, she realized she was ravenous. I should see what they’ve got in the kitchen. She heaved herself up.

Drake was seated at the kitchen table, frowning over a book. He grunted in reply when she greeted him, barely looking up when she walked in. She went to the cupboard and selected a slice of yesterday’s pie and was halfway out the door when Drake called her name.

“Allura.”

She stopped. Was she in trouble?

“You happen to know anything about teleportation?”

“I gnow the thm—” She stopped and swallowed. “Sorry, the theory.” She’d taken an elective sophomore year on teleportation, but the class had been intended for grad students and she had never dared attempt such a powerful spell. “Why?”

Drake held up his book. A Novice’s Guide to Teleportation. “Can’t quite seem to wrap my head around it,” he said. “Conjuration’s always given me migraines. Evocation is easy, Abjuration I can handle, but Conjuration…” He rubbed his temples. “There’s just no logic to it.”

“Let me see.” She pulled the book towards herself. “What are you trying to do?”

“Figure out where that bastard’s gone,” said Drake.

“The hooded man?”

“Aye.” He scratched his beard. “Thought maybe I could parse where he went by looking at the circle in the lighthouse, but…” He trailed off.

“That sssshould be possible,” said Allura, scanning the book. “It depends on the type of circle he used, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be. I’d have to see it in person again though, I think.” She took another bite of pie.

“Good idea.” Drake pushed his chair back and stood up. “Let’s go.”

“What, right now?”

“No time like the present. Get your coat.”

The lighthouse was significantly less threatening by daylight. Scaffolding surrounded the shattered windows on the upper floor, though no workers were currently present. A pathway of wooden planks had been laid out on the breakwater, rendering the end of their journey somewhat less treacherous.

Inside, the lighthouse was exactly as they’d left it. The shelves were still tossed, dried goop from shattered specimen jars spattered across the floor, the rug still lay in a heap where the hooded man had thrown it. Allura winced as she saw the bloodstain where her face had hit the floor. The smell of burned wood still hung heavy in the air like a bad cologne.

Drake raised his hand and cast a large magelight. It crackled as it neared the ceiling, emitting a healthy red glow. He crouched down and examined the remains of the teleportation circle.

Allura held A Novice’s Guide to Teleportation open on her knee and peered at it as well. It was about ten feet in diameter, about the average for a standard circle according to A Novice’s Guide. Lines of black soot, smudged in places from passing feet, marked where the lines of glowing chalk had been. It was a far cry from the silver-inlaid circles she had seen at the Academy.

“Look here,” said Drake. Allura hurried over. He rubbed away a little of the soot, revealing a faint groove in the stone floor.

“What is it?” She touched the groove. It was barely perceptible, little more than a hairline crack in the flagstone. “Some sort of a… secret tunnel? A trapdoor?”

“I don’t think so,” said Drake. “I think our friend may have been trying to make a permanent circle here. Look, it continues along this whole line, and I bet…” He scuffed his foot across a sigil. “Yep. Every part’s slightly indented.”

Allura had a vague memory of learning that a circle could require up to a year of daily recasting before becoming permanent, but the implications of that had never quite clicked with the image of the pristine academy circles until now. She examined the groove again. The stone seemed to have melted away, seared by some powerful magical energy.

“Wait,” she said. “If he was trying to make this a permanent circle, that would make it…” She flipped to the appropriate page and read aloud. “‘Circle classifications: Type II Circle. A Type II teleportation circle is as a fixed point in a singular location, acting as a beacon for any mages capable of utilizing its power. Unlike a Type I circle, a Type II circle may be used for both egress and ingress, as it is not sending the mage to a locale but instead focusing his spell and granting unto it clarity in direction.’ I see what you mean about this book. This is meant for novices?”

“Apparently.” Drake squinted at the marks on the floor, his brow furrowed. “If I understand that correctly, with a Type I circle you can only go, and then the circle vanishes. But with a Type II—”

“You can come or go,” said Allura. “You can use a Type I circle to teleport into a Type II circle, or if you’re powerful enough, teleport onto a Type II without using a circle at all. From what I’ve read, teleportation is not an exact art. Type II circles make it a lot harder to miss. But that means—oh, no.”

“If this is a Type II circle, not just a quick escape,” said Drake, “then this probably isn’t our friend’s main hideout.”

“Do you think he’s coming back?” A sudden stab of fear twisted her gut.

“Maybe.” Drake shrugged, palms up. “That’s a lot of effort wasted if he’s not. I don’t know enough to tell how far along this circle was. Judging by the experiments, maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. Bit dumb of him to start experimenting before his circle’s done, but maybe he just got impatient.”

“He got lucky, then,” she said. “That he’d drawn out the circle but hadn’t cast the spell before we showed up.”

“Lucky, or good planning,” said Drake. “We should try and figure out where he went.” Allura set to work copying the half-made circle into her new spellbook. She didn’t want to spend one more minute here than absolutely necessary.

“Are there any teleportation circles in Emon? The permanent kind, I mean,” she asked Drake as they left the lighthouse.

“There’s a couple in the Alabaster Lyceum,” said Drake. He looked at her, surprised. “I thought you knew.”

“The Lyceum!” Of course! The Tal’dorei equivalent of the Soltryce Academy was bound to have at least two, if not more. “I went to school in the Dwendalian Empire. I’ve never been inside the Lyceum.”

“That’s right, I forgot!” said Drake. “Foreign exchange student, eh? You don’t sound like you’re from the Empire.”

“No, I’m from Westruun. I had to learn Zemnian, many of the classes weren’t taught in Common.”

“What was that like?”

“It was a bit of a culture shock if I’m being honest.” The ocean wind caught her hair and she tucked it firmly behind her ears again. “I took classes before I left but I was still nowhere near the level of fluency I needed. I really struggled for the first few months.”

“It’s a shame so many schools over here don’t feel the need to teach languages properly. Tal’dorei’s just as diverse as Wildemount. At the very least I think they should teach Sylvan and Dwarvish, there’s a high enough elf and dwarf population here it could be really useful. Gods, I miss speaking Dwarvish.”

“You speak Dwarvish?”

“Sure I do. Before you ask, no, I’ve never been to Kraghammer. Emon, born and raised, here. I think I’ve got a great-aunt or something that lives there, but we never talked with that side of the family much. We spoke Dwarvish in the house growing up, me and my mum and brothers and sister and uncle and cousins.” His face grew thoughtful. “Say, wonder if the Lyceum’s got any books of Dwarvish poetry in the library. You’d like Dwarvish poetry. Folks go on about how wonderful elf poetry is, but elf stuff has nothing on Dwarvish, in my opinion.”

By the time they reached the Lyceum the sun had fallen halfway down the western sky. The spotless marble of the building’s spires was tinted orange in the late afternoon light, and the multicolored windows seemed to glitter. Students bustled back and forth across the courtyard, carrying armloads of books and papers, chatting as they made their way home after classes. Allura was abruptly reminded of her own years as a student. The Lyceum was very different from Soltryce, but students were the same everywhere.

Drake walked through the front doors like he lived there—which, Allura realized, he probably had at some point. The inside of the Lyceum was even grander than the outside; Allura caught herself tiptoeing. Drake ignored the grandeur and flagged down the first student he saw, a curly-haired half-elf with acne on their nose and an overflowing book bag slung over one shoulder.

“Can you tell me where to find Gatekeeper Xanthas?”

The student took him in with several glances, with his wild beard, long robes, muddy boots, and wand stuck behind his ear. Allura wiggled her fingers at them and tried to look nonthreatening. Finally they nodded and pointed to the back of the hall. “He’s probably in his office. Up the stairs and to the left.”

“Thank you.”

The Gatekeeper’s office was down a long hallway in a separate wing of the Lyceum. An aging elf with a narrow nose and perfectly trimmed eyebrows sat primly in a chair behind an antique desk behind a glass partition reading a book. His long gray hair cascaded perfectly over his immaculate robes. Allura imagined he must’ve been grown from the stone of the Lyceum itself like a sapling springing from the root of its parent plant.

“Xanthas!” Drake slapped his hands down on his side of the glass partition. “Buddy! Been a while, how’ve you been?”

Xanthas gave an exaggerated sigh, closed his book and laid it down perfectly perpendicular to the edge of the desk. His voice was dry and unamused when he spoke.

“Young Master Thunderbrand. It has not nearly been long enough. Have you finally gotten yourself an apprentice?” His pale blue eyes met hers.

“No, I, um, I actually graduated. Last year. From Soltryce?” She gripped her books tighter. Xanthas made her uncomfortable.

"Not an apprentice then," said Xanthas. "You're still doing that adventuring nonsense, I take it?"

"Ah, Xanthas, I missed you,” said Drake. He circled the desk and gave the elf a jovial slap on the back. Xanthas looked distinctly ill. “Been making quite a name for ourselves of late. The bear-monster at the lighthouse? That was us. Allura here dealt the killing blow herself. She’s our newest member.”

Allura smiled warily and held out her hand. “Allura Vysoren, abjurist. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Xanthas ignored her in favor of straightening his robe. “Your wanton disregard for public property and safety never ceases to amaze me,” he said. “That lighthouse will take weeks to repair, not to mention the cost… But I digress. Are you here just to bother me, or did you come here for a reason?”

“It’s actually Allura who needs your expertise today, not me,” said Drake, which was news to Allura. “I have some research to do in the library.”

“Use of the Traverse Junction requires written permission from the Department of Transportation,” said Xanthas dismissively. “And if you intend to operate the circles yourself, you must have a valid magical practitioner’s certificate as well, stating that you are capable of performing spells of a level sufficient to activate a teleportation circle without harming yourself or others.”

“I don’t want to use the circles, I just need to study them,” said Allura. “And ask a few questions.”

Xanthas looked at her through narrowed eyes. “That is highly irregular outside of a class,” he said. He glared at Drake. “I am still going to need you to fill out some paperwork—”

“Ah, come on, Xanthas, buddy,” wheedled Drake. “It’s just for research purposes. Bet she won’t even have to cast any spells, right, Allura?” She nodded vigorously.

Xanthas sighed, clearly torn between following procedure and getting rid of Drake as soon as possible. After a moment’s indecision the latter won. “Fine. No paperwork. But if word gets back to the headmaster that I’ve let someone into the circle chambers without it, I’m not to blame.”

“Fine by me.” Drake clapped him on the back once more—Xanthas winced—and rejoined Allura on the other side of the desk. He took her by the shoulder and said, “Don’t mind him. He’s a load of hot air, but he’s a pushover. Do what he says around the circles; he’ll answer any questions you have.” He smiled. “I’m off to the library. I’ll see you later.”

Xanthas relaxed fractionally when Drake’s heavy footsteps had disappeared around the corner. He stood and smoothed down his robe. “This way, Ms Vysoren,” he said, still unsmiling. “Though this is really not the proper way to be doing things…” He stepped delicately around a scuff left on the floor by Drake’s boots. “Adventuring. In my day being a wizard meant studying in a tower, not galavanting around in the mud like a madman with axe-wielding hooligans.”

“Kima’s not a hooligan,” said Allura before she could stop herself.

Xanthas paused in the middle of pulling a key out from the pocket of his robes. “No offense meant, Ms Vysoren.”

The key opened the door behind his desk, which led to a darkened hallway. “The main entrance is heavily guarded,” said Xanthas, who was walking so briskly Allura had to jog every few steps to keep up. “Ordinarily that is the way I would take you, but since you have not filled out any paperwork—” His voice became brittle with distaste “—This is the way we must go. Consider yourself unusually fortunate.”

Allura didn’t say anything. Her hands were sweaty against her books.

The hallway ended in an antechamber lit by flat gray magelight. In the center of the room was a rectangular archway large enough to walk through covered in magical glyphs, next to a folding table with a stack of trays. On the opposite wall was an ornate door she was fairly certain led to the Traverse Junction itself.

“Please remove your shoes and coat and any weapons or magical items on your person and place them in the receptacles,” said Xanthas.

“What? Why?”

“I am simply following correct procedure, Ms Vysoren,” said Xanthas through gritted teeth. “We must keep track of all potentially dangerous items going into and out of the city. It is a matter of public security.”

“But I’m not going anywhere!” Allura spluttered.

“It does not matter,” said Xanthas. “This is what the rules say.”

“Very well.” Allura stripped off her new coat, folded it carefully and placed it on a tray, then unlaced her shoes, still a little damp from visiting the lighthouse, and set them next to it. She set her books on top of her coat and her purse on top of her books. Xanthas tapped his fingers impatiently.

“Please step through the archway,” he said.

She complied, flagstones cold against her stocking feet. The second she passed through, several of the glyphs flared with bright red light and a bell sounded, making her jump out of her skin. “What was that?!”

“Something set off the sensor,” said Xanthas. “I’m going to need to pat you down. Raise your arms above your head.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Allura. She crossed her arms over her chest instead. “I don’t have anything! What reason could I possibly have to harm someone inside?!”

“Ms Vysoren.” Xanthas’ voice was deadly serous now. “You are very lucky I have allowed you this far without the proper documentation. I am risking my job for your miserable sake. It is not my place to question the rules laid out for me, nor is it your place to demand I break them. You are on thin ice. Raise your arms.”

“Fine.” She raised her arms.

Xanthas drew a wand from the inside pocket of his robes—a very old-fashioned model with black lacquer and white-painted ends—and frisked it up and down her sides and along both legs. It buzzed when he reached her left thigh. “What’s in your pocket?”

“I have no idea,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her dress and her fingers met a small glass cylinder. She withdrew it. “Oh! I forgot that was there. It’s just perfume.”

“I’m going to have to confiscate that,” said Xanthas. “It’s showing up as a magical item on the scan and it exceeds the one-ounce maximum for sealed containers of fluids.”

“It’s not even a magical perfume! I’m sure it’s just a stasis spell.”

“Regardless.” Xanthas held out his hand. Reluctantly she relinquished the bottle. “Bring it in something smaller next time.”

Xanthas had her step through the archway again to ensure that the perfume was what had really set it off, then scanned the wand over her belongings. He spent quite a while thumbing through her spellbook (she gritted her teeth and dug her nails into her palms to keep from saying something) and A Novice’s Guide, then quickly turned her purse inside out, scattering pens and spell components across the table. A stray copper piece rolled across the floor and hit the wall.

“It’s not a bag of holding.”

“Just making sure.” Xanthas slipped her wand out of its pocket in the sleeve of her coat.

“This is your wand?”

She couldn’t tell if it was an insult or just a simple question. “Yes.”

“Without paperwork, I cannot allow you to take it inside the Traverse Junction,” he said. “Ordinarily you would be sworn under magical oath not to use it for anything but the act of teleportation within the chamber, but—”

“I understand,” said Allura. “Will I get it back afterwards?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Allura. “Excellent. Are we done here?”

“Unfortunately we are,” said Xanthas. “You may collect your things.”

“If I wanted,” she said as she tied her shoes, Xanthas waiting impatiently by the ornate door, “I could’ve just blasted my way in here and you could’ve done little to stop me. What’s the point in all this? I feel like you’re doing it just to scare me.”

He shrugged. “As I have stated, I am not the author of the rules, merely their executor.”

She shoved her things haphazardly back into her purse. “Please, let’s go.”

Xanthas tapped the ornate door with his wand, which swung open with barely a whisper, revealing a brightly lit chamber beyond. The first thing she noticed was the massive Type II circle, thirty feet across, made of inlaid silver and studded with diamonds at each point of intersection. The stone floor had even been carved around the circle, adding a decorative border of lilies and twisting vines. To the left and right were open archways through which she could see two other, lesser circles, and in front of them was a massive double door even more ornate than the one they’d just come through. The whole chamber was cold, like the rest of the Lyceum, but it smelled fresh, like a recently-cast spell. She looked up. The ceiling had a beautifully painted map of the world, with glowing emeralds showing—she presumed—the locations of other teleportation circles. The chamber was lit with a directionless white light that felt quite natural until she looked around and realized there were no windows to let it in.

A guard by the door raised her palm in greeting and Allura jumped—she had thought she was just a suit of armor, there for decoration. “Hail, Gatekeeper.”

“Yes, yes,” said Xanthas. “Ms Vysoren here wishes to study the circles. She has been disarmed and poses no significant threat but watch her closely regardless. There will be no unauthorized activation of the circles, and there are no scheduled arrivals or departures until 8:45 PM. Understood?”

The guard nodded. “Yes, Gatekeeper.”

He turned to Allura. “If there is an unscheduled arrival or departure, you are to retreat to the antechamber and remain there until the magic has subsided and the travelers have left.”

“I understand.”

“Very well.” Clearly reluctant, Xanthas gestured broadly to the circle. “You may begin.”

Despite everything, Allura found she was excited as she strode out onto the main circle. There was nothing like the prospect of new magic, of figuring out how each component fit together into the whole, to get her heart racing. It was the best kind of puzzle.

Holding her spellbook open to the page with her sketch of the hooded man’s circle in one hand and A Novice’s Guide below it in the crook of her elbow, she stood on tiptoe, trying to see all of the circle at once. She needed to orient herself. According to A Novice’s Guide, some of the lines on the circle were for safely channeling the magical energy around the caster and some of them were for marking the coordinates of where the circle was in space. The book gave an extremely simplified example using an imaginary hemisphere with a radius of 10 miles and a pattern of regular points in place of a starry sky. She squinted at the diagram. The mock-circle was much less complex than the one she was standing on, and not a quarter as beautiful.

A footnote caught her eye. *For the making of functional circles, see star charts in Appendix A. Do not attempt teleportation with simplified circles. Doing so may result in death, dismemberment, dematerialization, vitrification, or the permanent transport of the target to other planes of existence. She flipped to the back. Sure enough, there were star charts, organized first by hemisphere and then by latitude. Each section had a diagram showing how to work out the correct configuration of lines for a circle, which was then annotated with direction for modifying it based on the season (for Type I circles) or for use over very long periods of time (for Type II circles) so the circle would still function as the heavens slowly shifted.

After several long minutes of study, she was able to identify the three key sections which would correspond to constellations and tell the circle where it was. What those constellations were, and what precise measurements were encoded in each tangled mess of geometric lines, she had no idea. The complex mathematics needed to work out each line were making her head spin.

“Some people do this for fun?” she muttered. “Without a book?”

“It does take some practice,” said Xanthas from where he stood by the door, watching her like a hawk. She jumped. “As with all things, it becomes easier over time. You begin to see a pattern in the calculations and you can get a sense of where a circle will take you, even without working out all the angles.” He strode slowly across the circle, scattered light from the diamonds playing over his stiff gray robe. “It is not unlike the sense of the navigator of a sailing ship, who can tell you where a location is just by the latitude and longitude… It is an underappreciated and under-studied art. The most common reason for error in targeting is miscalculation of the required coordinates. Second-most common is error in drawing the lines.” He addressed the ground, as if speaking to the circle. “I drew this circle myself when the Lyceum was built. I used the most precise tools money could buy. And look.” He gestured broadly. “Perfection.”

He turned to her. “Don’t ever draw a circle without a compass and straightedge. Anyone who freehands is a fool.”

Allura met his gaze warily, a little shocked by his sudden intensity. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good.” Xanthas turned away and strode slowly back across the circle. “You seem to be a person of at least… some… common sense, Ms Vysoren.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, going back to poring over the diagrams. “I think.”

“Actually, Gatekeeper,” she said, after another minute passed where she stared at the circle and it made no sense, “I was wondering…” She bit down on her pride. “Could you help me understand this? I’ve been trying to work out how to read where this circle goes, and it’s just not—working.”

Xanthas strode back over and peered down at the circle. “You see the three master points?” She nodded. “In the northern hemisphere, one will always refer to the North Star. All the other calculations reference that.” He pointed out one intersection of lines, marked by a particularly large and sparkly diamond. Sure enough, both of the other key sections she had identified had multiples lines joining them to it. “These lines describe the angles between that star and these, and these lines show how those stars will sink in the heavens as the season changes to winter. This mark—” He indicated a small hash mark crossing a longer line “—indicates that this constellation will not be visible over the horizon for a portion of the year.” He continued explaining the intricacies of how each star related to each other and to this specific location. He was right, there was a pattern to it; it was easier to understand than she’d originally thought. She could feel the pieces starting to come together in her head. She asked to see one of the other circles and he obliged, the armored guard following them into the secondary chamber. The second circle was smaller, but no less complex. She studied it for several minutes but could see no obvious difference between it and the larger circle in the central chamber. She felt her ego deflate slightly.

“They look the same,” she said.

“They are, or very nearly so,” said Xanthas. “Nothing that you can see without a ruler, though. Can you tell me why that is?”

“Because…” She thought for a moment. Her mind felt like it was overheating. “Because… these are both circles for people coming in, and they’re almost in the exact same location?”

“Close,” said Xanthas. “The similarity in location is what makes them so similar in appearance. But there is no functional difference between inbound and outbound Type II circles. The outbound location is simply stated in the incantation.”

“But why?”

“Because Type II circles, when used for egress, can only connect you to other Type II circles. If you want to go somewhere without a circle, you must teleport without a circle.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It is very dangerous.” Xanthas looked both serious, like he was warning her not to try it, and smug, like he was certain he could do it with ease.

“So if I went and looked at the circle on the other side of the big one, it would look the same as this?” She began walking back towards the central circle. Xanthas nodded. “Then why do you have three?”

“Traffic flow,” he said. “There is a small but not insignificant chance that two people will try and teleport in here at the same time. If there was only one circle, one person would succeed and the other would fail. I’m sure you’ve read enough of that book to know the danger that poses.”

Death, dismemberment, dematerialization, vitrification. Allura swallowed.

“The third circle is there in case the other two are in use and one is needed for an emergency,” he said, “which happens only rarely. I have witnessed it perhaps twice in the last decade.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.” Allura laughed nervously.

“It is an important fail-safe,” he said.

She looked down at the circle under her feet. She felt so close to understanding; it would be really nice to see some circles that corresponded to other locations so she could really hammer the concepts home… Her eyes fell on her spellbook, still open in her left hand. She’d been so focused on the circles and A Novice’s Guide she’d almost forgotten her original reason for coming to the Lyceum. She wanted to kick herself.

“Gatekeeper,” she said. “Could you tell me where this circle goes?”

Xanthas took the spellbook and slipped a pair of reading glasses out of his robe to peer at the page. The lines on his face deepened as he traced the drawing with his eyes.

“It’s hard to say,” he said at length. “The drawing is inexpert and the circle is incomplete. This is not your handiwork, I hope?” When she shook her head, he continued. “It is not a circle I am familiar with. If I were to estimate where it goes…” He looked up at the ceiling, mentally calculating. “I would say it would take me somewhere deep in the Torian Forest, perhaps a little closer to Kraghammer than to Kymal.”

Allura breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I was worried it would be on another continent, because then we would be in trouble.”

“Might I inquire as to why?”

“The bear-thing that we killed—that I killed?—it was made by a pale man in a black hood who teleported away after Holding six of us at once for over a minute. He used this circle to do it. Drake and I went back to the lighthouse to try and figure out where he went. It looked like he was trying to create a permanent circle.”

Xanthas’ focus on her became razor sharp in an instant. “A permanent circle? Are you sure?”

“Reasonably sure. The floor had a groove in it where all the lines were.”

Allura had never seen an elf blanch before. Xanthas wasn’t exactly a jovial person, but every shred of amicability fled his face all at once. “Is that a problem?”

“It is a very serious problem. Did you learn nothing from what I taught you today?” He pointed to the drawing in her spellbook. “This is not a Type II circle.”

“Oh,” said Allura, not quite getting it.

“Type I circles are not intended to be permanent,” said Xanthas. “There’s a reason why they aren’t. They can’t handle the stress. This man, whoever he is, is dangerously, suicidally incompetent. I must notify the Council immediately. If a person of that power who misunderstands magic that badly were to, say, conduct an experiment in the city—”

“That would be bad,” said Allura.

The exasperated glint returned to Xanthas’ eyes. “Yes, that would be very bad,” he said. “If I were you, I would run and tell your adventurer friends so you can all have some fun before disaster strikes.”

“I should be getting back,” she said. “Drake and the others need to know.”

Xanthas handed her spellbook back, tucking the oilskin back around it before hustling her out of the Traverse Junction. He steamrolled past her as she grabbed her wand from the tray in the antechamber and hustled down the hall. He bid her goodbye in his office without looking at her and left, leaving the door open behind him in his haste.

Drake was waiting in Xanthas’ office, sitting in his chair. When he saw Xanthas rushing out, hair flying, his eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. “My word, Allura! What did you do? Don’t think he even saw me! Proud of you.”

“What? I didn’t—no,” said Allura. “It’s not like that.” She explained as quickly as she could about the hooded man’s mistake. The humor left Drake’s face.

“I hate to say it, but he’s right, this is very serious,” said Drake. “In fact—” He broke eye contact and sketched a pattern in the air; Allura recognized the gestures. “Dohla, are you home? I’m calling a meeting. Thirty minutes.” He paused, listening to a voice she couldn’t hear. Then he repeated the spell, using Sirus’s name this time.

“They’ll be there,” he said, getting up. He took one last look at Xanthas’ desk before heading out the door at a brisk pace. “These two’ll tell the others. Save me a couple spells.” Allura was surprised to see that the sun was setting when they exited the Lyceum. The even light in the Traverse Junction had tricked her into thinking it was still noon. Her stomach rumbled. Had they really been in the Lyceum for that long?

They traveled the rest of the way in silence, both too preoccupied with the dilemma before them to be much in the mood for conversation. Allura listened to the mismatched tempo of their footsteps and tried not to think about how she’d probably have to present her findings to the group somehow, like Drake and Ghenn and Sirus had at the last meeting. She’d only just learned all this stuff about teleportation. Sure, she was pretty confident she understood it now, but her head still felt like a bookshelf with too many books jammed in it. She needed time to process.

It was dusk by the time they made it back to the Slayers’ base. Drake pulled the heavy front door open and ushered her inside.

Dohla and Ghenn were already in the common room, seated on the couch. Ghenn looked tired but relaxed. Dohla was fletching arrows again; she wondered if it was a nervous habit or just something she did to relax.

Sirus was in his usual spot, leaning against the wall next to the blackboard. Now that she knew to look for him he didn’t make her jump, but she was still surprised at how little attention he drew to himself.

Drake kissed Dohla on the cheek and began wiping the blackboard clean. Ghenn smiled at Allura and made room on the couch.

“Where’s—”

“Downstairs,” said Sirus. “She’ll be here any moment.”

Sure enough, a moment later a door slammed downstairs, followed by running footsteps. A breathless Kima appeared in the doorway, a towel draped over her shoulders. “Sorry! I had to take a bath, I was smelly.”

“It’s fine, you’re here, go ahead and take a seat,” said Drake. He was pacing back and forth in front of the blackboard, impatient to get started.

Kima grabbed a pillow and threw it down in front of the couch, then sat on it, leaning against Allura’s legs.

Drake immediately started the meeting. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. We have the start of what could be a very serious situation on our hands, and if we don’t act now it could wind up getting blamed on us. But before I explain—Sirus, any news from the Clasp?”

Sirus shook his head, ginger hair catching the last rays of the sun setting through the window. “As far as they are aware there have been no more incursions.”

“Kima?”

“I’ve kept in touch with the guards.” Her hair prickled against her leg as she shook her head. “No more monsters. Kit’s doing better, he’s out of PT.”

“Good. And Ghenn?”

“No more weird patients at the Temple of Sarenrae.”

“Excellent. Then I can share with you the one good piece of news I have for you. Allura?”

All eyes turned to her. She swallowed. “We know where the hooded man is, well, approximately. He’s somewhere in the Torian Forest. Gatekeeper Xanthas thinks he’s closer to Kraghammer than to Kymal.” She blushed and looked down. “It’s where his teleportation circle took him, in any case.”

Smiles broke out all around the room. Dohla and Ghenn applauded. Kima punched her gently on the knee. Even Sirus’ mouth turned up on one side.

“Unfortunately,” said Drake, “we also came across evidence that he is much more reckless than we originally thought. He either misunderstands magic to a serious degree or, worse, he has been intentionally breaking the rules of magic set out a long time ago for everyone’s safety. Either way, he’s messing with teleportation.”

Only Ghenn had any significant reaction. They winced. “I’m no wizard, but that’s pretty high-level stuff, right? The kind that’ll cause a huge explosion, or burn you alive from the inside out if you fuck up?”

Allura and Drake both nodded.

“Pleasant,” said Kima.

“You understand now what we’re dealing with,” said Drake. “And since we’re the ones that pissed him off—”

“By stopping him from experimenting on people!” interrupted Kima.

“—the Council will blame us if he comes back and does something worse.” Drake resumed pacing. “We have to act as soon as possible. He’s already three weeks ahead of us. Xanthas has already informed the Council of the danger, so at least if he attacks the city we’ll have help fighting him off.”

“But how do we get all the way to the Torian Forest?” said Allura. “And how do we find him once we’re there? I can’t teleport us there, but maybe Xanthas—”

She was interrupted by a loud chuckle from the end of the couch, which slowly built into a cartoonish, maniacal laugh.

“I’m sorry, I don’t underst—”

“Camping trip!” Dohla cheered. “This is my specialty. You haven’t even met Bubbles yet!”

“Bubbles?”

“All right, let’s wrap it up,” said Drake. “I’ll make a list of things we need to get up here, feel free to add to it. I’d like to leave by noon tomorrow, if at all possible. Dol, how long of a trip do you think it is?”

“On foot? Six days round trip, maybe a little more.”

Six days! Allura had never been camping for one day, let alone six. The closest she’d been was the nights spent out under the stars on the roof of her parents’ villa as a child. But that was a far cry from dirt and trees and wild animals.

Kima must’ve seen her panicked look because she said, “Don’t worry, Dohla takes good care of us. Between her woodcraft and Ghenn’s cooking you’ll hardly notice we’ve left the city.”

“But—I don’t have anything to wear!”

“That’s okay, you can borrow some of my stuff.” Kima frowned. “Actually, maybe borrow Ghenn’s. You’re taller and skinnier than me. You can have my backpack though, I’ll take my old one.”

“That’s… very kind of you, Kima.” She chewed her lip, still a little nervous.

“Wait a second,” said Ghenn. “If we’re gone six days, we’re going to miss Highsummer.”

Everyone groaned. The holy festival of Pelor, the most important holiday in Emon, began in two days. Public feasts and block parties were standard fare, and gifts were exchanged for the whole week. Allura could’ve kicked herself; she’d promised her father months ago that she would go home for Highsummer. Somehow in the flurry of joining the Slayers, killing the beast, and training with Kima she’d forgotten that the holiday was so close.

“Only the first four days,” said Drake firmly. “And if we don’t stop this bastard and he attacks in the next week, there won’t be any Highsummer at all.”

The planning resumed, but it was less enthusiastic than before. Kima was the only one who didn’t seem particularly bothered.

Allura spent the evening trying on clothes and equipment and putting them into Kima’s backpack. They decided that since it was summer and they were in a hurry, they would forego tents and instead sleep under the stars. This left more room in the packs for food and water, which they split evenly between the six of them. Allura was glad she didn’t have any weapons or armor as she watched Kima carefully wrap her pauldrons and breastplate in rags and put them into her backpack, then hoist the whole thing up onto her shoulders. It must’ve weighed sixty pounds. Kima carried it with ease.

It took her a long time to fall asleep.

They headed out early, as soon as the shops opened and Drake could pick up the last of the supplies they needed. Allura’s pack was lighter than she had feared, and the boots she was borrowing from Ghenn were only a little too big (she had made them fit with two pairs of thick socks).

They left Emon via the north gate and followed the road as it curved gradually east. This early there were only a few people on the road, most of whom saw their odd group with their heavy packs and array of weapons and gave them a wide berth.

The sun was hovering a hand’s breadth above the eastern horizon ahead of them. Allura shaded her eyes with a hand. The morning was still cool, but brisk in a way that promised to become a scorcher of an afternoon. She knew the road continued through farm and pasturelands for several miles; she hoped they’d reach a more wooded area before it got too hot.

Three hours into their journey they stopped to rest under a scraggly oak tree that looked like it had been trying to establish itself for a decade and never really succeeded. Allura accepted its shade gratefully. The thrill of adventure had worn off somewhat since the morning, replaced by aching shoulders and tired feet. But she was determined not to be the first one to complain.

She gulped water and waited for the rest of the group to catch up. They had straggled out along the road as they walked, still within sight of each other but out of earshot unless someone were to shout or whistle. Dohla and Drake had taken the lead and Allura had pushed herself to keep pace with them, letting the others trail behind.

"You holding up okay?” said Dohla. Allura nodded.

“Don’t exhaust yourself, all right?” said Dohla. “We’ve got a long way to go. Here, have some nuts.”

She accepted the bag of peanuts and almonds and took a handful, pleasantly surprised to find chopped dried dates among the nuts. The burst of sugar on her tongue made her feel better right away.

Kima and Ghenn arrived next, red-faced and sweaty, followed by Sirus a minute later. She tossed Kima the bag of nuts.

Allura didn’t feel nearly rested enough by the time Drake called for them to set off again, but she shouldered her pack again without complaint.

They stopped at noon for lunch by a stream that rushed between the pastures, headed to the Ozmit Sea. Some kind traveler had arranged a circle of stones in the water to form a still pool where they all could refill their waterskins without disturbing the silty streambed. The air was cooler down by the water and Allura sighed at the temporary relief. It was fresh and clear and cold enough to make her teeth ache.

Allura was dismayed when they stopped for the night in a little copse of birch trees and they still hadn’t left the pasturelands. She knew logically that a city as large as Emon required a lot of food and therefore would need a lot of farmland to grow it on, but seeing it in person was a humbling experience. It had flown by much faster from the inside of a carriage.

A previous camper had left a fire pit in the flat area in the center of the copse. Dohla was already stacking wood for a campfire, Drake sitting next to her on a fallen log. Allura unbuckled her pack and let it slide to the ground, stifling a groan.

Drake looked up at her and winced. “Looking a little pink, Allura. That looks nasty.”

“Oh no!” She put her hands to her face. She’d thought it was just the lingering heat of the sun, but now that it had been brought to her attention she could feel the telltale throbbing of a fresh sunburn. “Is it bad?”

“Like a lobster. That’ll peel for sure.” Drake’s own nose and cheekbones weren’t much better off. “Ghenn should be able to heal it, if they have any spells left.”

Her arms each had a stripe of red down the outside, worse on the right where the sun was strongest, and the back of her neck felt hot and tender. Craning her neck she could just see the stark white line where her backpack strap had crept up over her shirt. The movement alone sent lines of fire across her skin. “Ow. Ow.”

Kima trudged into the campsite and dropped her pack with a clatter, then threw herself down on the ground and groaned. Ghenn followed not long after, leaning their pack against a tree and then sinking to the ground with a sigh.

Sirus didn’t seem tired at all when he walked into camp. He walked with the same unwavering stride he had been using all day, and when he set his pack down it was without a trace of discomfort. Allura had thought he was crazy this morning, wearing his heavy black hood in the scorching heat, but now as he lowered the hood and revealed pale, unburned skin beneath, she understood.

“The fire should be ready in about twenty minutes,” said Dohla to Ghenn. They nodded tiredly. “In the meantime… does anybody want a back rub?”

A chorus of tired cheers broke out around the campfire.

“Let’s get in a circle,” said Dohla. “It’ll be faster.”

Allura had a moment of panic trying to decide where to sit. She still felt like an outsider. How much contact was appropriate? Drake was like the leader, would it be weird to give him a back rub?

She was relieved when Ghenn waved her over. “This way I can heal that sunburn,” they said. “Two birds, one stone.” She slipped between them and Kima and sat down.

Gentle fingers settled lightly on the inflamed skin on the back of her neck. She heard them mutter an incantation—or what she assumed was one; she didn’t recognize it—and then a soothing coolness spread out from their touch and the burning subsided.

“You might still get some peeling,” said Ghenn. “I can grow new skin, but I can’t make dead skin live again. At least it won’t hurt.”

“Thanks,” said Allura. She breathed out tension she didn’t know she was carrying. She set her hands on Kima’s shoulders. “Can I start?”

“Sure.”

There was a large dark stain in the center of her back where she’d sweated through her shirt, but Allura was surprised to find she didn’t mind. She was sweaty too. She dug her thumbs into the muscle on either side of Kima’s spine, trying to keep the pressure even. She knew she smelled, too—she cringed internally when she thought of how long it would be before any of them saw a bath—and tucked her elbows in self-consciously as if to hold it back. Ghenn was rubbing down her back with long, firm strokes which she tried to imitate, hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence.

Kima’s back was muscular, much more so than Allura’s own. Her backbone sat in a channel of flesh that ran all the way up to her shoulders instead of standing out like a tiny mountain chain like Allura’s did. Kima was having trouble reaching Dohla’s shoulders and kept leaning forward out of Allura’s reach, so she scooched closer until she was practically sitting in her lap. She found a knot under her left shoulder blade and worked her fingers into it.

A log fell in the fire with a crackle and a spray of sparks. Ghenn leaned over and peered at the coals.

“The fire’s almost ready,” they said. “I should start dinner. If you’ll excuse me, Allura.” They stood and left the circle. Everyone pressed closer and Sirus moved forward to fill in the gap. His hands were larger and rougher than Ghenn’s and they moved with a more clinical feel.

“Can you get my neck, Allie?” Kima asked.

“Sure.”

She ran her thumbs up the back of her neck, rubbing circles into the muscle where it met the base of her skull, tilting her head down to give her easier access. Her hair must’ve been recently cut; the stubble on the back of her neck was still prickly. Kima gave a soft hum of pleasure. “That’s the spot.”

“Your ears are red,” said Sirus quietly so only she could hear.

“I got sunburned.”

Dinner was a simple but hearty stew with root vegetables and salt beef. Kima was right, Ghenn was a good cook. She hadn’t been feeling particularly hungry, but as soon as the first spoonful touched her lips a ravenous demon awoke inside her stomach and she gobbled down the rest in minutes. She swiped a finger through the dregs left in the bowl and licked it clean, feeling sleepy and full.

The day was no more than a fading glow on the western horizon by the time they finished washing up. They set up their bedrolls in a circle around the fire, heads facing in. Allura burrowed under her blanket and looked across the circle at Kima, dark skin orange in the firelight.

Kima grinned. “Anybody know any good ghost stories?”

“Kima, we want to sleep tonight,” said Drake.

“Come oooooon,” wheedled Kima. “You say that every time. It’s the first night out camping, it’s tradition. You know a bunch, is there any we haven’t heard yet?”

Drake shook his head. “You know all my stories by heart.”

“But Allie doesn’t. Don’t you want to hear a ghost story, Allie?”

“Um,” she said. “Maybe?”

“See, she wants to,” said Kima.

“That wasn’t a yes,” said Drake, “that was a very tentative maybe.”

“I’d like to hear one,” said Dohla. “It’s been a while since we’ve been camping. And it is tradition.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Drake. He got up with a very affected groan, and Allura began to suspect this all was a dance they’d been through many times before. “We’ve got an early morning tomorrow, we can’t stay up late.”

This was met by protests and booing from around the circle. Drake made a show of puttering about camp, putting items away in his backpack or organizing the dishes, as the other members of his party continued to berate and cajole. Finally, when Kima and Ghenn escalated to throwing handfuls of grass and dirt at him in the dark, he relented.

“All right, all right, stop! We’ll call a vote. All in favor of hearing a ghost story?”

Four hands shot up around the circle. After a moment’s hesitation, Allura put hers up as well.

“Well, guess that settles that.” Drake brushed the dirt out of his beard and sat with a sigh on his bedroll. He sounded gruff but Allura saw his eyes twinkle. “Just one ghost story, and then sleep.”

They waited while Drake slowly unlaced his boots and set them next to his bedroll. He stretched his toes, then crossed his legs, leaned forward, and began to speak.

“This happened when I was still a student at the Lyceum. I was maybe eighty, ninety—young and foolish. None of your parents were born yet—well, maybe not your parents,” he said, and nodded to Sirus. “Anyways, I had just finished the last exam of the semester and I had gone out drinking to celebrate. Now, I’m a proud dwarf, I can hold my liquor, but on this occasion, I hate to admit it but I got wasted. Absolutely hammered. Not quite blackout drunk, I still remember most of it, but suffice to say I was not walking straight.”

Drake rubbed the back of his neck and grinned sheepishly. “Got it into my head that it would be the perfect time to visit my great-aunt Tiffany, who, of course, is a priest at the temple of Erathis. In Vasselheim.” Chuckles from around the fire. “So, naturally, I went down to the docks and boarded the first vessel I saw.

“It… wasn’t a great ship, to say the least. It was small and shabby, with patched sails and a flag so bleached by the sun you couldn’t see the pattern on it anymore. But my drunk ass was convinced it could take me to Vasselheim. No idea how I made it up the gangplank, but I managed to get aboard and sit myself down on a barrel. It’s funny, as much as that night is a blur, I can still remember the ship’s name… the Merrow’s Call.”

“‘The Merrow’s Call,’” said Kima along with him.

Drake gave her a stern look. “The Merrow’s Call,” he continued. “I sat there for quite a while, not sure how long—could’ve been a minute, could’ve been an hour. I was mostly just staring into space trying not to pass out or be sick. But I was startled out of my reverie by the ringing of the ship’s bell and the call to cast off.

“The whole time I’d been sitting there the crew’d been loading up boxes and barrels of stuff and stowing them in the hold. Never mind that it was well after midnight. I thought, whatever, sailors keep odd hours, tides wait for no man, this is probably completely normal. But I was technically stowing away so I hunkered down behind some barrels and waited.

“It was a calm night but we still made good speed. We were out of the harbor and clear of the bay in fifteen minutes. I couldn’t believe my luck, I’d be in Vasselheim in no time.

“I started to relax. I came out from behind the barrel and staggered around the deck a bit. None of the crew batted an eye. I was feeling a little seasick, so I went up to the bow and put my face in the wind. Nobody stopped me. I think I dozed off there for a minute, leaning over the rail, but no one woke me or questioned me or asked me what the hell I was doing there on a ship to Vasselheim without a ticket.

“It was then when I started to get the feeling something was off. I know, dull of me, but I was really drunk. All the crewmen as far as I could tell were human, which wasn’t odd, but there was something about their appearance, something about their movements which seemed not quite right. They all moved in perfect sync, along paths they seemed to know by heart—and in absolute silence. Hauling lines, climbing the rigging, furling the tattered sails… No matter what they were doing, there was none of the usual shouting, talking, or cursing that sailors’re normally prone to. The navigator gave no headings. The first mate shouted no orders. They all just moved like clockwork, doing whatever was needed ot keep the ship moving.

“I decided to experiment. I stepped in front of a man swabbing the deck. He stepped around me without missing a beat. I waved my hand in front of his face. He just stared through me, his eyes colorless, bleached by the sea. I shouted, ‘Hey asshole!’ as loud as I could and you know what? Fellow didn’t even flinch.

“This was great, I thought. Free ride to Vasselheim and nobody would yell at me for stowing away.

“I was feeling kinda thirsty so I went down into the hold to crack open a barrel. I couldn’t find a tap so I just snapped my fingers—” The fire flared, making Allura jump, “—and out popped the stopper. But instead of water or wine or rum, the only thing that poured out was rancid dust.

“Coughing, I tried another barrel—same result. I pried open a crate. It was filled with the mummified remains of a pile of apples. I tried crate after crate and was met with only death, dirt, and decay.”

Drake paused to take a sip of water, then leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “Drunk me was starting to not enjoy this quite as much. I went back up on deck and made a beeline for the first mate, who was up on the fo’c’sle gazing out to sea. ‘How long till we get to Vasselheim?’ I demanded to know. ‘I’m starving!’ But the first mate didn’t react. I repeated myself, louder, and when I still didn’t get a response I grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Instantly his hand shot up and grabbed my wrist, faster than I could see. His hand was crusted over with layers and layers of tar from the ropes, as if it had been years since he’d washed his hands. His skin was gray, like a week-old corpse, and his grip was like iron. When he spoke, his breath was as foul as the contents of the boxes I’d just opened.

“‘Trespasser,’ he said, and all the clockwork motion of the crew came to a halt. I could feel every eye on the ship turn to look at me. ‘What are you doing here?’

“I tried to pull away but he would not let go. ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘I’m just hitching a ride to Vasselheim.’

“‘None may trespass on the Merrow’s Call,’ said the first mate. Whispers broke out among the crew and as I looked around I could see them getting closer. ‘This ship is not for mortal men.’”

Allura caught Kima’s gaze across the circle. She grinned and winked at her. Allura grinned back.

“The thought of being captured by all those gray-skinned, tarry-handed zombie-men sent me into a panic. Summoning my strength, I wrenched my hand free and cast the world’s messiest Fly spell on myself and took off from the deck of the Merrow’s Call. Clumsy though it may have been, it was still effective, and the last thing I saw before it disappeared into the night was dozens of those sea-bleached eyes, all staring up at me, furious at the sudden loss of their latest catch.

“I was farther out to sea than I thought I was. The land wasn’t even in sight. I barely made it back to Emon before the spell ran out and dumped me in the harbor.” Drake chuckled. “The dock workers were not pleased at having to fish me out, let me tell you. But I made it back home to my bed all right, and woke up with the worst hangover I’d had in years.

“As soon as I could stand to be in a brightly-lit room again, I asked the harbormaster if he had seen the Merrow’s Call. But there was no record of a ship by that name having docked in Emon, and when I asked around, no one had seen it land or had spoken to its crew. All the proof I had was the fading tar on my wrist and some bad memories.”

Drake let the silence stretch for several moments, then stretched and started to get up.

“Think that’s it for me tonight, kids. Moral of the story: don’t get drunk and try to go to Vasselheim.” He stuck his feet in his boots without bothering to lace them. “I’ll take first watch.”

“I’ll join you,” said Dohla. She got up, shrugging a blanket over her shoulders like a cape, and followed him to the edge of the copse.

“Goodnight everyone” said Ghenn.

“Sleep tight. Don’t let the zombie sailors bite.”

“Shut up!”

Allura rolled over under her blanket and stared up at the sky as she listened to the others bicker as they got ready for bed. A few clouds had rolled in with the sunset but it was still clear enough she could see some stars through the leaves, much clearer now that she was away from the city and its many lights. Despite the relative mildness of the night, she shivered.

It wasn’t Drake’s story that frightened her—he’d made that up, she was fairly sure. It was more the mood his story had invited in. The thought of being surrounded by danger while being miles away from any substantial help chilled her to her core. Somewhere out there—hopefully far away—the hooded man was waiting to teleport into her home, bent on destruction, and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what might happen when they got to his hideout in the woods.

Gradually—because of the rocky ground beneath her and the unfamiliar tickle of the night breeze playing with her hair—she drifted off to sleep.

She was woken from a light sleep by the sound of someone dropping the cookpot. She bolted upright, heart pounding. Ghenn winced apologetically from beside the fire, setting the pot down with exaggerated care, and mouthed, “Sorry!”

As her pulse quieted, she looked around. It was barely dawn. Sirus was already up—he and Ghenn had taken third watch. Kima was a lump under her blankets across the circle; she grumbled and stirred as she watched.

Allura yawned and couldn’t suppress a cry of pain as her muscles stretched. Her shoulders were so sore she could hardly move and her legs weren’t much better off. Did she have blisters? She was afraid to check. She threw off her blankets and hobbled over to help Ghenn.

Breakfast was simple oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins, and a variety of teas to choose from. Allura picked mint and sipped it while the oatmeal cooked.

Once everyone was fed and watered, Drake called a quick meeting.

“All right, Slayers,” he said. “Got another long walk today. Good news is, Dohla says we should reach the forest about midday today, so we won’t have to put up with the heat as long as yesterday.”

Cheers all around.

“That’s about all I have to say. Pace yourselves, stay hydrated, let’s go.”

The coolness of the morning quickly burned off into another scorching hot day. The group spread out again, and Allura found herself walking in the center cluster with Kima and Ghenn.

“I’ve never really traveled by foot before,” she admitted, a little sheepishly. “I always went by carriage. Or on horseback, a couple times.”

Kima’s jaw dropped. “Not even once? Walking to the next town over?”

She thought about it, then shook her head. “I don’t think so, no. We never really had much reason to leave Westruun. I think we went to Foramere Basin once on holiday, but we had everything we needed at home. I didn’t really travel much until I went to college.”

“You must’ve been loaded,” said Kima, an odd tone in her voice.

“We were,” said Allura uncomfortably. “Are. My father is very well-off. But I wanted to prove I had what it took to make it on my own, so after I graduated I moved out here.

“Hm,” said Kima.

“My family was rich too,” said Ghenn. “Not that they’d share a penny of it with me. Even if they did, I wouldn’t want any. But anyway, that story’s a real downer. What’s your dad like?”

“He’s a collector,” said Allura. “He buys and sells artefacts. Fossils, jewelry, old books, bones… If it was dug up out of the ground, he wants it. He runs a little museum of all his favorite things. It’s more of a hobby than a business, now I think about it,” she said, the uncomfortable feeling returning.

“I wouldn’t mind going there,” said Ghenn. “You haven’t seen my room yet—I love collecting knickknacks. I bet he’s got some good ones. That must’ve been an interesting place to grow up.”

“I suppose it was,” she said. “It just seems normal to me. I’m surprised I didn’t grow up to be a collector too.”

Kima snorted. “Normal.” She quickened her pace and pushed past them, too fast for her to see her expression. She watched her pull ahead with dismay.

She exchanged a confused look with Ghenn, who shrugged. “Must not be a fan of knickknacks,” they said.

To Allura’s relief, the endless pastures gave way gradually to clumps of trees and patches of untamed thicket. They turned off the main road and onto a narrow path that led north towards the Torian Forest. Within three hours a dark line was visible on the horizon, which gradually resolved itself into a dense wall of trees.

She was startled out of the trancelike state she had settled into while walking when Dohla gave a piercing whistle. The whole party came to a halt. Ahead of her, Dohla seemed to be listening intently, squinting into the trees. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled again.

Something moved at the treeline, something huge. Allura’s heart jumped into her throat. It shifted again, coming closer, and then the largest direwolf she had ever seen broke from the trees and bounded towards them.

Dohla whooped and sprinted towards the wolf, arms outstretched. To her shock, it let her run right up and throw her arms around it, bowling her over as it greeted her with enthusiastic licks like a giant dog, tail wagging madly. She scratched behind its ears and it rolled onto its back for belly rubs. Unlike a dog, though, the wolf was completely silent apart from the thump of its tail on the ground.

After a minute, Dohla got to her feet and jogged back to the group, the wolf trotting behind. The sheer length of its legs gave it a galumphing stride, which was almost endearing until it got closer and she had to tip her head back to look it in the eye. Allura took several involuntary steps back.

“Allura, meet Bubbles,” said Dohla cheerfully. “Bubbles, Allura. It’s OK, she won’t hurt you.”

Allura felt relieved until she realized she was talking to the wolf. It shouldered Drake aside and approached her, whiskers twitching as it sniffed her from head to toe, its yellow eyes boring into her. Its fur was jet black and patchy on the rump where there were several mostly-healed wounds, and its breath was foul. When it licked its lips she glimpsed yellow fangs the size of her hand. A whole foot of some small furred mammal was caught between two molars.

“I found him when he was a puppy,” said Dohla. “His mom was killed by poachers. He used to blow snot bubbles out his nose, that’s how he got his name. He hates it in the city so I can’t see him as much as I’d like, but he’s a good boy who knows how to take care of himself. Isn’t that right, Bubs?” The tail swung back and forth, narrowly missing Drake’s head. “Try not to show fear, he won’t respect you if he knows you’re afraid of him.”

“Good puppy.” She swallowed hard. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“Dead sure,” said Dohla. She patted her thigh and Bubbles turned away from Allura and sauntered over to her. She reached up—way, way up—and ruffled the fur between his ears. “Like I said, he’s a good boy. I trained him myself. He’s gonna help us find the hooded man’s hideout. Aren’t you, Bubsie? Aren’t you?”

The direwolf sneezed in her face. She wiped it off with a laugh. “C’mon, let’s go.”

It was a relief to walk under the shade of the trees, even if the path was becoming more difficult. The trail they had been following petered out within a few miles, fading into first a game trail and then into patchy undergrowth. The ground rose as they left the lowland plains and they had to stop more often for breaks to catch their breath. They walked as a tighter group now, the denser trees and lack of a trail making it dangerous to string out like they had on the road, and Bubbles trotted in circles around the group to keep them together, his huge feet making surprisingly little noise.

Even several miles into the forest there were still signs of humanoid habitation: a tumbled stone wall, a blaze cut into a trunk, roots grown around a rusted axe head. Allura wasn’t terribly clear on the history of the area; perhaps this had at one point been farmland which the forest had been allowed to reclaim.

She tried walking next to Kima to try and ask her what was wrong, but somehow she always wound up on the other side of the group from her, or Kima was talking to someone else, or she was just out of earshot from her. By her fourth attempt she was certain Kima was avoiding her. It left her with a hollow sort of feeling in her stomach; things between them had finally started to feel comfortable.

The forest got denser the higher they went in the foothills of the Cliffkeep Mountains. The trees were older here, evergreens outnumbering deciduous trees, large enough that Allura doubted two people could touch hands around a trunk. The ground was invisible beneath a thick carpet of sword ferns, which left trails of orange spores on their clothing wherever they touched. Lichen hung in great green swags from the bowed limbs of the trees; fallen needles and sphagnum moss cushioned their footsteps. The toppled corpses of fallen trees became the parents of green saplings, the rotten wood releasing the rich, earthy scent of decay and regrowth.

It became increasingly hard to navigate; the chest-high foliage proving just as effective a barrier as any wall, and the frequent streams which hid in the undergrowth and turned the ground to mud made the footing treacherous. Only Dohla seemed comfortable here, never missing a step as she led them through ever more difficult terrain.

Though by Allura’s estimation they had several hours to go before sunset, Dohla called a halt as soon as the light began to fade. She could guess why: the thick canopy above them filtered the afternoon sun into a dim twilight, and she didn’t relish the idea of setting up camp and eating dinner in the dark.

The place they stopped was less of a clearing and more of a marginally flatter spot between the trees. One of the giant pines had recently fallen, tearing up its roots in a twenty-foot circle, which now formed a wall of tangled dirt and stone and wood on the downhill side of their camp. Dohla set about gathering wood for a fire and rocks for a fire circle while everyone else removed their packs and sank to the ground. Bubbles patrolled the surrounding area with enthusiasm, crashing through the underbrush, sniffing everything, leaving eye-level scent marks on several trees before flopping down at the edge of camp, his watchful eyes luminous against his black fur.

They set up their bedrolls in a semicircle around the fire—Dohla had built it against the root wall—picking as many rocks out as they could before settling in. They ate in exhausted silence.

Drake spoke, keeping his voice low to match the hush of the forest. “Everyone sleep hard tonight. Dohla thinks we’ll reach his hideout sometime late tomorrow. Sharpen your swords, prep your spells, be ready for a fight.” Drake looked around the group, meeting their eyes one by one, his features cast into sharp shadow by the firelight. “It may not come down to that, but be prepared regardless. Kima, I want you in your armor before we break camp. Allura, I’d like to go over that ward against fire with you before we turn in tonight, if you’re not too tapped.”

“Of course.” Now that she had some food in her, she was fairly confident she could work some magic.

“We’re getting close to where Allura said he went,” said Dohla. “I can feel it. Tomorrow I’ll ask Bubbles to see if he can pinpoint him.”

Privately, Allura doubted how much help he would be. Direwolf or no, the hooded man was still miles away, and was more than likely warded magically against detection. She looked at Bubbles, who was busily gnawing an entire sapling. At least he might be useful in a fight.

They did the dishes and got ready for bed. Drake drilled her on her ward, having her cast it three times with minor adjustments until he was satisfied she could cast it with speed and precision at a moment’s notice. Then Drake bid her goodnight and she crawled into her bedroll and fell asleep.

She was woken for the second watch by Dohla shaking her awake. Her breath clouded in the chill night air.

“Kima’s over there,” she whispered. “Everything’s been quiet. I thought I heard something earlier, but it was just an owl.”

Allura nodded sleepily and forced herself to sit up and throw off her blankets. The cold hit her like a slap, her arms erupting instantly in goosebumps. She laced her boots on, scrubbed sleep from her eyes, grabbed a blanket from her bedroll and went to find Kima.

She found her pacing back and forth atop a fallen log just within earshot of the camp, mace in hand, squinting out into the darkness. She met Allura’s gaze as she walked up, then quickly looked away.

“Hello, Kima,” she said. The log was very high; she looked around for a way up and found it: a pile of moss-covered rocks that formed a natural staircase. Holding her arms out for balance, she climbed to the top of the log.

“Hi.” Kima kept her eyes down.

Allura shook out the blanket, sending bits of grass and dried birch leaves flying into the night, and draped it over her shoulders. It was colder here at night than in the plains, and she had goosebumps. “It’s certainly dark out,” she said to fill the silence. Then, cutting straight to the chase: “I’m glad Drake has us on watch together. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Oh boy.” Kima squeezed her eyes shut. Her knuckles were white on the handle of her mace.

Allura sat down on the log, her legs dangling over the edge. She patted the log next to her. “Here, sit.”

Kima swung her mace hard and it stuck with a thok! into the side of the log. She sat cross-legged with a sigh next to Allura. “I kind of thought you might corner me here.” At least she didn’t sound angry.

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

Kima blew a slow breath out of her mouth. She gazed out into the darkness, then looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. “It’s… complicated. I’m sorry for being a dick.”

“I’m not angry, I’m just confused. What’s wrong? Did I do something to offend you?”

“No, I—” Kima huffed. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Then please, try and explain so I don’t do it again.” She tamped down her growing exasperation. “I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together these last few weeks. Joining the Slayers and becoming an adventurer has been a big change for me, and I know we didn’t have the best start but you’ve really made me feel at home here. I liked what we had going and I’d hate to ruin it.”

Kima finally looked at her directly. Her eyes were dark brown, nearly black in the darkness, and they were full of surprise and a little vulnerability. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, I like hanging out with you, too. When you first joined up I thought you didn’t have what it takes, with your fancy dresses and your hair…” She glanced sideways at her. “You should really think about putting it up or something, you’ve got moss in it.”

“Do I?” She pulled a hunk of it over her shoulder. Sure enough, it was peppered with little black bits of vegetation. “Oh no.” She started picking them out one by one, but it was a hopeless task without a hairbrush.

“Anyways, I—” Kima gripped her hands together in her lap. “I should probably tell you, shouldn’t I.”

A dozen questions jumped to Allura’s tongue but she bit them back. She looked up at her through the curtain of her hair.

Kima craned her neck to look back at the campsite, a flickering orange light through the trees. Apparently satisfied, she hunched her shoulders and stared off into the trees.

“I grew up in Stilben, with my mother and my dad and my sister Rita and my brothers Ascal and Japeth. Mother was a seamstress, dad was a laborer, breaking rock for construction of the Silvercut Roadway, so most’ve the time it was just us kids at home. There was never much money—Dad was always in debt for something or other, and us four were a lot of mouths to feed. Plus I was always getting into trouble…” She trailed off, her jaw set. “I swore I’d get the hell out of there as soon as I could. And I did.”

Allura stayed quiet, unsure how to respond.

“Everything I have, I’ve had to fight for,” continued Kima. “The Slayers is the most secure I’ve been in my whole life. I feel like if anyone finds out I’m just a slum rat from fucking Stilben, they’d—well, treat me like one.” Her fingers tightened in her lap, nails digging into the back of her hand. “And now you’re probably going to go blab all my secrets to Ghenn and Dohla and everyone and get me kicked out.”

“Oh, Kima,” she said, and placed her hand lightly over Kima’s. “Of course I wouldn’t. I would never.”

Kima’s hands softened under her touch. She pretended not to see her wipe her nose.

“Thanks, Allie.”

They sat in silence for a minute, listening to the rustle of pine needles overhead, the chirp of frogs in a nearby stream, and the distant pop of the campfire. Kima’s hand squeezed hers.

“Anyways,” said Kima, “it just makes me a little crazy when rich folks talk about like. How hard it is to do stuff only rich people can do. I kind of lost my temper, and then I didn’t know how to explain why, so…”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I won’t talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“Nah, that’s stupid,” said Kima. “I can’t stop you from talking about growing up.”

“Even so, I’ll try and be more considerate.” Allura noticed goosebumps on Kima’s arm and shifted, readjusting the blanket so she wasn’t sitting on so much of it. “You look chilly, would you like a blanket?”

“Sure.” Kima accepted it and scooched closer. “Can I—?”

“Of course.”

Kima slid an arm around her waist and wrapped her half of the blanket tight around her shoulders. Her hands were rough but not indelicate and her arm was soft and strong.

“I like you,” said Kima. “You’ve got guts.”

They set out the next day when it was still dark, breaking camp by magelight and fumbling sleepily with their backpack straps. Allura found herself walking next to Kima, the uncomfortable dam of yesterday finally broken down, and once they both woke up enough to talk, chatted happily as they hiked.

When the blue light of morning finally started filtering down through the trees, Dohla whistled for Bubbles and Drake called a halt. Bubbles melted out of the trees and trotted up to Dohla and waited patiently while Dohla scratched behind his ears.

Allura was about to ask why they had stopped when Dohla twisted her hand in an unfamiliar gesture and she sensed the buzz of magic. Her eyes widened.

“Hey, Bubs,” she said to the wolf. His ears pricked up. “We’re looking for this human guy who was causing trouble in Emon, he’s tall, thin, pale skin, wears a hood—” She looked to the group. “...Help?”

“He’s a powerful mage,” said Drake. “Misuses magic in a dangerous way. Experimented on people. He made the bear-creature.”

Dohla relayed his words to Bubbles. The direwolf listened intently, then to Allura’s surprise gave a very humanoid nod and bounded off into the trees, pausing at the edge of their visual range to look back at them as if to say, you coming?

“He says he knows where he is,” said Dohla. “He says he doesn’t like to go there because there’s ‘bad creatures’, but he’ll show us the way.”

Allura shuddered to imagine “bad creatures” that could scare a direwolf, but she set off after Bubbles and the others all the same.

They followed Bubbles further east, cutting across the slope of the hills, into dense old-growth forest where the air was damp and chilly and hardly any sunlight made it to the forest floor. They stopped for lunch by one of the rushing streams and ate their meal in hushed silence. The woods here felt unfriendly.

She found herself next to Dohla as they set off again. Dohla’s overshirt was knotted around her waist, exposing arms the same color as the moss underfoot. Her bow was unstrung and slung across one shoulder in its protective tube; a quiver bulging with arrows was tied to her pack. She had picked up a six-foot branch and was using it as a walking stick as they clambered across the rough terrain, sweating despite the relative coolness of the forest.

“Dohla,” she said carefully, “did I see you doing magic back there?”

“I guess you could call it that,” said Dohla. “I didn’t like, go to school for it or anything like you and Drake. It’s more of a… self-taught kinda guesswork kinda thing, like sometimes I feel like I can just sort of push—” She moved her hand like she was turning a dial. “I can make things happen.”

“So back there—”

Dohla stopped suddenly and flung out a hand, catching Allura across the chest. She wavered for a moment as the weight of her backpack carried her forward, then caught her balance.

Dohla twisted around to face the group. “You guys! Stop!” she said in an urgent whisper. Everyone stopped in their tracks, even Bubbles, who regarded Dohla with an even yellow stare.

Sirus ghosted up to her. “What is it?” he said, his voice barely audible.

“The cedar to our right,” said Dohla without pointing. “The one next to the big boulder. Look in the lower branches.”

Allura slowly turned, trying not to be obvious about it, dreading what she’d see. It took her a moment to locate the tree, a giant with thick branches that dipped low to the ground like curtains. She followed the trunk up, traced the bowed limbs—

There.

A dark shape hunched on a limb, eyes reflecting the dim light from above. Watching them. Allura wasn’t sure whether it was a bird or an animal; it sat malevolently on the branch, never taking its eyes off the group. Off of her.

Kima drew her mace from where it hung from a loop on her belt. “What the hell is that?” she said in an undertone, moving closer.

“Spies,” said Sirus. “Watchers. Guard dogs.” He moved around Dohla and turned his back on the creature, casually setting his hand on Allura’s shoulder in such a way that his cloak shielded Dohla from the creature’s view. Instantly Dohla crouched down and strung her bow.

“On three,” she said, fitting an arrow to the string. “One, two… three!”

Sirus hit the ground and Dohla sprang to her feet and loosed in one quick motion. Allura gasped as not one but three dark shapes burst into flight. Dohla’s arrow missed by a hair and buzzed into the trees; she drew and fired a second before Allura could blink. It hit its mark with an explosion of black feathers and a strangled screech.

A dagger appeared in Sirus’ hand and he flipped, caught, and threw it at the second creature. It struck point-first and pinned it to a nearby tree, where it struggled for a moment and then died.

The last creature looked like it was going to get away; it fluttered away from them at a rapid pace, zigzagging through the trees too fast for Dohla to find a target. But just as it was almost out of sight, Bubbles exploded out of the underbrush, jumping a full twenty feet into the air. His jaws clapped shut on the creature and he landed back in the bushes, licking his chops.

“Good boy!” Bubbles trotted over to her, tail held high. Two black feathers were stuck to his nose.

“We must be very close,” said Drake as Dohla retrieved her arrow. “We should be careful.” Dohla held the creature out at arm’s length for them to see. Allura had only seen the bear-creature but she knew at a glance this had to be more of the hooded man’s handiwork: a squirrel with a crow’s head and wings, stitched clumsily together, leaking rancid ichor. Two huge reflective eyes took up the crow’s entire head. Allura shuddered.

“Definitely a sentry of some sort, look at those eyes,” said Dohla. “We’ve just got to hope they were going to tell him the regular way, and not that they’re magical and he was looking through their eyes or something.”

Dohla yanked the arrow out of its chest and Allura jumped back to avoid the spray of blood. Bubbles sniffed it and then looked at Dohla with a pleading expression.

“No,” she said. “You’ve already had one and this smells rotten, it’ll make you sick. Actually, Ghenn, would you mind?”

Ghenn had been hanging back, still staring in the direction the creatures had been going. They shrugged. “Sure.”

Dohla set the thing on the ground and they touched their symbol of Avandra; a moment later golden flames appeared out of nowhere and engulfed it. The whole thing was consumed in a matter of seconds, leaving behind nothing but charred bones and a few back feathers.

“Let’s assume the hooded man knows we’re here,” said Drake. He pulled out his gnarled wand. “Stay behind Dohla. Be ready for anything.”

They followed Dohla deeper into the woods. No one dared to speak. The hush of the forest seemed oppressive, the air cold and humid, sticking to their clothes and hair and making them shiver and pull on their coats. Allura jumped at every bird call and insect chirp, afraid it was another sentry. Kima noticed her flinch and placed a comforting hand on her arm.

Allura tripped over the first sign of civilization since entering the deep woods: a low stone wall overgrown with brambles at the top of a steep rise. She bit back a shriek as she lost her balance, the heavy backpack throwing off her sense of her own gravity, and wavered for a moment before Kima’s strong arm shot out and steadied her.

“You okay?” whispered Kima. Allura nodded. “Look.”

She pointed ahead. Though the trees blocked much of the view, and though much of what they were looking at was overgrown, there was some sort of building at the top of the rise, half-buried by the forest. A walled stone tower. This had to be it.

They crept forward and more of the structure was revealed. It seemed to be several buildings around a central tower, all in various stages of decay, surrounded by layers of crumbling walls. The tower was the only building that was completely intact. Dohla moved stealthily towards it, sliding over a fallen section of wall, her feet making no sound on the forest floor.

They fell unconsciously into a line, Dohla and Sirus in front, Ghenn taking up the rear, as they passed into the courtyard before the tower, a space that was once clear but now the paving stones were buckled by the roots of the surrounding trees. A statue of some four-legged creature with a snarling face rested at an impossible angle at the base of the western wall, simultaneously tipped aside and held in place by the roots of the tree growing right next to it. Leaves had collected and mulched in its open mouth and a single white flower had taken root and bloomed there. A lily.

Beside her, Kima suddenly went rigid. Allura stopped a step after she did and turned to look at her in confusion, which quickly turned to worry. The blood had drained from Kima’s face and her eyes were darting around, looking at something she couldn’t see.

“What is it? Are you all right?”

“Everybody get back!” said Kima in a strangled whisper, urgency clear on her face. “We have to get back RIGHT now! Listen to me!”

“Kima, what—”

Allura was interrupted mid sentence as Kima grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her back down the hill, taking a confused Ghenn by the shoulder and turning them around as well. Her pauldrons clanked against her breastplate as she moved and they all flinched.

“No time to explain,” she said. “Drake! We have to move, now!”

Belatedly Drake turned, and in his haste to follow, tripped over a paving stone and went sprawling, wand flying out of his hand. While he was still shaking his head and trying to recover, Sirus swooped in and set him on his feet, hustling him to where the rest of the Slayers were crouched behind the outermost wall. And it was just in time.

Ghenn, who had been pressed against the wall next to Allura clutching their necklace, suddenly gasped. Then, in the barest ghost of a whisper: “I sense undead.”

No sooner had they said this than Allura heard something move between them and the courtyard. The rustle of dried needles, the impact of a hoof on the ground. Her blood ran cold. Now she could hear slow, wheezy breathing, like an asthmatic horse, and smell something… decayed, like meat left out in the sun. More hoofbeats, irregularly spaced, shaking the ground. It was coming closer.

Moving in slow motion, she dared to peek over the wall.

Something like a stag—a dire stag?—loomed over them. She blinked and squinted, trying to make sense of it. It looked like a stag but it was several times larger, at least fifteen feet at the shoulders, and there was something wrong with its legs. They had too many joints, or bent the wrong way—it was hard to tell from her point of view—and there were too many of them. Globular, jelly-like eyes winked from all over its body like ticks on a dog, just like the bear-thing, marking it clearly as the work of the hooded man.

It turned its head towards her on a too-long neck and she clapped a hand to her mouth to stop from screaming. It had two faces, one on top of the other, eye sockets empty and staring. Antlers bloomed from both heads like branches of a dead tree. Seeing the heads made the legs make more sense; she guessed it had been pieced together from at least two dire stags, though how the hooded man had found them and killed them was beyond her. Hands grabbed her shirt and pulled her back down behind the wall. Kima’s face was tight with fear. She opened her mouth to describe what she saw but Kima shook her head and pointed silently.

Atop the wall adjacent to them was another monstrous shape, this one small and lithe. It leapt soundlessly from one wall to the next, its too-big head swiveling like an owl to survey the terrain. Something flopped on its back—wings? No, arms; a pair of human arms in addition to its four catlike legs.

The ground shook as the doublestag turned. It was coming closer, moving onto the natural pathway formed by the collapsed sections of walls they had been using to approach the tower. Allura braced her feet against a root and pressed herself as flat as she could up against the wall, thorns digging into her shoulders, praying the climbing brambles would be enough to hide her. Kima’s nails bit into her shoulder. Ghenn was shrinking into the foliage on her other side, curling tight around their holy symbol, eyes squeezed shut. Beyond them was Drake, face white and bloodless against his thick black beard as he watched the doublestag slowly emerge around the corner one multijointed leg at a time.

A fresh wave of its fetid stench washed over them, making her stomach churn; she gagged and swallowed and bit down hard on her lower lip. It took one, two, three steps forward, bringing its gray-furred chest and shoulders level with their hiding spot… and then stopped. It sniffed the air. The root her feet were braced against was beginning to give way, the dry wood threatening to crack and send her sliding down the hill. She shifted her weight and prayed that it would hold.

Kima tensed next to her, preparing to move or attack, Allura wasn’t sure. Moving as fast as she dared, she placed a hand on Kima’s knee. Hold. Wait.

The doublestag lowered its heads to the forest floor and sniffed. Dried needles scattered as its breath whuffed out. It pawed at something on the ground and sniffed again.

Drake’s wand!

The gnarled piece of wood lay innocently in the dirt where it had fallen, smelling, she was sure, of magic and sweat and Drake and things that should not be here, deep in a forest full of monsters. Her pulse sounded loudly in her ears; she was sure her ribs would break from how hard her heart was beating.

A branch cracked above them and they all jumped. The smaller monster, the catlike one, leapt back into view, landing on the top of their wall. She could see tawny fur, sharp black claws, the mottled edge of an elbow. It prowled towards the doublestag, making a rapid clicking sound.

The doublestag raised its head and groaned, a sound Allura felt more than heard, like the creaking timbers of a ship, sending chills down her spine. The cat-thing clicked back, louder and faster. The doublestag snorted and stomped a foot, and Drake sucked in a sharp breath as the heavy hoof landed a hair’s breadth from the wand. Abruptly the clicking cut off and the doublestag’s heads whipped around, its ears flicking in every direction. Allura held her breath.

The root was really splintering now, on the verge of breaking; she could feel the fibers in the wood snapping one by one, each one sending her a little closer to her doom. She tried to shift her weight, arching her body to take the pressure off the root, but there was little else to brace against except for thorny vines. Sweat trickled down her arms.

A minute passed like an eternity. She was certain they were going to be discovered and destroyed at any instant. Her legs were shaking, her lungs were burning, her arms going numb. The root bent and bent and… snapped.

At the same instant, the cat-thing crouched and sprang, sending stones clattering over the wall and down the hill. It sailed out of sight and she heard it land on one of the massive trees, claws scrabbling on bark. The doublestag groaned again and turned to follow. She heard the two monsters moving clockwise away from them, continuing their slow progression around the tower.

Allura felt herself beginning to slip and almost cried out, but then a strong hand seized her by the shoulder and brought her to a halt.

“That was close,” whispered Kima as she pulled her to her feet with shaking hands.

Drake retrieved his wand and tucked it firmly into his belt. Allura double-checked that her own wand was secure in its special pocket. Drake drew them in close.

“All right, Slayers” he whispered. “Here’s the plan. We sneak in quick, before the monsters come back around—”

“Are you nuts?!” Kima interrupted. “That’d be suicide. If we don’t take care of the monsters out here, we risk getting pinned between two forces when we fight the hooded man.”

“And if we fight them now, we risk alerting him and losing the element of surprise,” said Drake. “That deer was huge. I’m not wasting spells on something we could easily sneak past.”

“He probably already knows we’re here!” said Kima. “You said it yourself when we killed the sentries.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” said Drake.

“Kima has a point, Drake,” said Dohla. “Look at us. Aside from her, we’re built for ranged combat. If we have to fight inside a teeny tower—”

“We may not have to fight those two at all,” said Drake. “We get in quick, take him down, and get the hell out before they’re any the wiser.”

“It’s too risky.” Kima crossed her arms over her chest.

“We can’t risk fighting the hooded man when we’re already tapped from fighting monsters!” Drake’s face was getting red. He and Kima glowered at each other.

“We’re wasting time.” Sirus stepped between them. He pulled out a gold coin. “We need to decide now. Heads, we’ll stay and fight; tails, we’ll go inside.”

Six pairs of eyes followed the coin as it sailed up towards the branches overhead, flipping end over end, then fell neatly into Sirus’ black-gloved palm. He slapped it onto the back of his left hand. “Heads. We fight.”

“We can’t afford to fight the monsters before we fight the hooded man!” protested Drake. “Sirus, you remember—he’s a very powerful caster. If I had to choose between fighting him and fighting the monsters—”

“We’re going to have to fight both of them regardless!” said Kima. “If we take these two out now, he can’t use them against us later.”

“I have a—a thing I can use,” said Ghenn, speaking up for the first time. They looked pale and scared, their hair stuck to their brow with sweat. “I can try and destroy them. But, uh,” they said quickly as Kima’s eyes lit up, “they might be too strong for it. If they’re too strong it’ll just scare them. And I can only do it once before I’m tapped for the day, so if he’s got more undead shit inside I’d rather use it on them.” They looked at Kima apologetically. “Sorry, Kima. I’m with Drake on this.”

“If we’re staying, we need a plan of attack,” said Sirus. “They could be back any minute. What are we doing?”

“I’m not going into a tower with monsters still alive behind us!”

The cat-thing’s clicking sounded again, farther away but getting closer. Everyone froze.

“What’s the plan?” said Sirus. “We can’t stay here. What is the plan?!”

“Let’s get out of the open, at least,” said Drake. He hefted his pack and started walking towards the courtyard. “There were some bushes near the tower, some of us can hide there. We should spread ourselves out, try and surround ’em. Ghenn, Allura, stay as far back as you can. Don’t waste your big spells.”

The doublestag’s footprints led between the two innermost walls; Allura hoped that was where it would appear again. She found a patch of shadow near the statue of the snarling creature and folded herself into it. Hopefully it would be enough. She pulled out her spellbook and flipped it open.

Drake crouched behind the bushes near the tower door, Dohla right beside him. Ghenn hid themself behind a thick tree on the opposite side of the courtyard, and she saw Kima set her jaw and take up a position just inside the innermost wall, drawing her mace. She caught a glimpse of yellow eyes in the shadows between the walls and knew that Bubbles was there, lying in wait. And Sirus… she couldn’t see Sirus anywhere.

The crunch of needles and the thump of hooves heralded the doublestag’s approach. She could see it clearly this time, its antlers making it look like a small tree was on the move. Clicking sounded from above; she looked up but couldn’t see the cat-thing.

The doublestag took one step past Kima’s hiding spot, then another. Kima hefted her mace. Allura gripped her wand, the first words of a spell ready on her tongue. The doublestag took another step.

Something flashed in the air and the doublestag jerked its heads back like it had been stung, letting out a bellow that shook the trees. It shook its heads, spraying droplets of tarry ichor across the courtyard, and Allura saw the hilt of a dagger sunk deep into one of its eye sockets. A black shape—Sirus!—sprang from the shadows and sank two daggers into the doublestag’s ribs, clinging to its side like an overgrown bat.

Kima jumped out from her hiding place and took a swipe at one of the joints in its six spindly legs; it connected with a crack! and the leg buckled. But the monster remained standing, kicking and biting at Sirus on its side.

There was an earsplitting screech and the cat-thing plummeted out of the trees above, an arrow embedded in its shoulder. It hit the ground in the center of the courtyard and Allura got her first clear look at the creature: a cougar with the head of an oversized owl—no, an owlbear, she realized, seeing its fuzzy round ears. It scrambled to its feet, the human arms on its back flopping awkwardly, and hissed.

Dohla put two fingers to her mouth and whistled; there was a pounding of paws and an instant later Bubbles leapt into the courtyard, sailing over the doublestag, and landed on the owlbear-cat, latching on with powerful jaws. It let out another piercing shriek.

A bolt of lightning crackled out of the bushes where Drake was hiding and stuck the doublestag on the flank with a clap of thunder. But the monster didn’t even flinch; on the contrary, the magic just seemed to enrage it. It shook itself violently—Sirus hanging on like a leech—then lowered its heads and swiped at Kima, who dove to the side a fraction too late and the branching antlers caught her and sent her flying like a doll across the courtyard. Allura screamed.

The owlcat bit and clawed at Bubbles, wriggling like a fish, but the direwolf had it firmly in his teeth. Its human arms came to life and wrapped their pallid fingers around the direwolf’s jaws, slowly but surely prying them apart. Bubbles snarled and fought to keep the monster pinned.

Kima was lying on the ground on the far side of the courtyard. Heedless for her own safety, Allura abandoned her hiding spot and dashed over to her.

“Are you all right?”

Kima coughed and gasped and color rushed back into her face. She groaned and sat up. “Just winded,” she said. “Armor took the brunt of it, I think.” Her nose was bleeding; she wiped it on the back of her hand. Allura helped her to her feet.

“Let’s get out of here!” Allura grabbed her hand and hauled her towards the nearest ally: Ghenn. They were peeking around the tree, the golden light of a prepared spell gathered around their hands.

“Where’s my—?”

Kima’s mace was lying several feet away from where she had fallen; Allura grabbed it with her mage hand and pulled it over to them. Kima grinned. “Thanks, Allie.”

Sirus, Dohla and Drake were still harrying the doublestag. Arrows stuck out of its neck and chest like needles on a fir tree, but it didn’t seem hampered at all. It was bucking and spinning, trying to dislodge Sirus, but he like a valiant cowboy was still clinging to its side, hanging from one dagger and carving pieces from its flank with the other. As she watched, Drake was caught by one of its flailing hooves and he crumpled to the ground. Dohla dove out of the way, loosing another arrow mid-roll, which caught it underneath its chin.

The doublestag continued past her, its broken leg dangling limply from its shoulder, and threw itself against the tower. Dust rained from the aged masonry. There was a crunch and a shout of agony. Allura clapped a hand to her mouth, afraid to watch but unable to look away. Somehow Sirus had avoided being flattened, but he hadn’t entirely avoided being hurt; his right hand was crushed between the monster and the wall and he was being dragged along as the doublestag moved, his feet dangling a foot above the ground.

Ghenn grabbed her shoulder. “I have to help him! Kima—”

“On it!” Kima dug her fingers into the crack between two paving stones and wrenched up a loose tile. “Hey! Monster! Over here!” She heaved the tile at the doublestag.

The stone bounced off its flank and it wheeled to face them. Sirus dropped to the ground. The monster barrelled towards them. She could’ve sworn its empty eye sockets were looking directly at her as it crossed the courtyard in two giant strides, stepping over Bubbles and the owlcat, and lowered its heads to gore her with its antlers. Her feet were glued to the ground; all she could do was stare as it got closer and closer.

“Allie!”

She turned towards the shout, startled, and something hit her hard in the shoulder, throwing her sideways with a crack! A piercing pain jarred through her lip as her chin hit the flagstones; she covered her head and rolled, desperately praying she was going away from the monster and not towards it. Hooves clacked on the stone inches away from her head, and then she heard the familiar sound of metal striking flesh and the doublestag’s bellow, and then the hooves moved away. She risked a look. Kima was beating the doublestag’s noses bloody with her mace, nimbly dodging its strikes when it lashed out with its hooves.

“Come on!”

Ghenn was at her side now, dragging her up. She felt dazed and sluggish. Everything was happening too fast. She allowed herself to be pulled at a stumbling run across the courtyard to where Drake was standing over Sirus.

Sirus had the corner of his cloak wrapped tightly around his hand and he was upright but very pale. His face and armor were covered in fresh scrapes. Ghenn rushed up to him but he waved them away, saying, “No time.”

Drake scowled. He was holding his ribs. “Allura, are you hurt?”

“I bit my lip,” she said thickly, the words accompanied by a spatter of red. She swallowed. “Aside from that I think I’m—”

She had tried to shrug and her shoulder erupted in pain; her words came out as a gasp. She tried to bend her arm but the pain intensified and made her eyes prickle with tears. “Ow.”

“We need to cut and run,” said Drake. “They’re too strong, we’re getting torn to pieces. Kima can’t hold that thing much longer, it’s too strong.”

“And go where?!” said Dohla. Her quiver was noticeably less full; she had an arrow nocked but she had yet to fire it.

“Into the tower,” said Drake.

“Are you insane?!”

A horrible choking sound split the air from across the courtyard. The owlcat had managed to free itself from Bubbles’ teeth and had wrapped its hands around the direwolf’s neck, strangling him.

“Bubbles!” Dohla screamed. She loosed her arrow; it buried itself in the owlcat’s forearm, which spasmed. The owlcat screeched and Bubbles tore himself free.

“Run, Bubbles!”

The direwolf shook off the owlcat and bounded over the courtyard wall. The owlcat sprang after him and caught him mid-leap, and together they crashed through the trees and disappeared down the hill.

“A little help here!”

The doublestag had Kima pinned up against the far wall with its antlers; it was leaning harder and harder into her and her breastplate was beginning to buckle. Drake raised his wand and cast another lightning bolt at the monster’s rump. It started and turned its heads to face them.

The instant the doublestag moved Allura spoke the spell that would take her to Kima’s side. She appeared in a puff of royal blue smoke and before Kima could do more than gape at her in surprise she grabbed her around the waist with her good arm and spoke the spell that would take them back.

It took a lot more energy to transport another person across the courtyard; when she and Kima reappeared next to Drake her knees wobbled and almost gave out, but she stayed on her feet. She wasn’t sure if her hands were shaking from magic or from adrenaline.

The doublestag bellowed and started towards them. Drake ran the remaining few yards to the tower door and spoke a word which made the door spring open under his touch with a hollow boom. “Inside! Inside!”

She sprinted through the doorway holding her hurt arm, followed by Kima, followed by Drake. Ghenn helped Sirus across the threshold, Sirus leaning so hard on their arm they were practically carrying him. Dohla hesitated in the doorway, squinting anxiously after Bubbles, then stepped through and slammed the door behind them. A split second later the building shook as the doublestag threw itself against it. She sank to the floor, clutching her shoulder.

“Great!” said Kima. She threw her hands up, armor glinting in the darkness of the tower. “We’re fucked!”

“What do you suggest?” Drake said, irritation clear in his tone. “I doubt we could outrun ’em, they’re too strong. And like I said before, I ain’t wasting spells on ’em while we still have the hooded man to fight.”

Ghenn sat Sirus down against the wall. He grunted in pain as his hand was jostled. Ghenn took his hand in their delicate fingers. “Let’s see what’s wrong.”

Allura watched them unwrap the injured hand and had to quickly look away; as the sodden cloth fell away she caught a glimpse of the wreckage underneath. There wasn’t much left that could be called a hand; bone and flesh and sinew were pulped together with bits of stone, moss, and fur. Her own hand ached in sympathy. She felt sick, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the gore or the pain in her own shoulder.

“Well, he sure as fuck knows we’re here now,” said Kima as the tower shook again under the direstag’s blows. “Are we still planning to stealth up through the tower? Or do we just sit here until the monster breaks the door down or we die of thirst?”

“Drake, this needs serious healing,” said Ghenn. “It’s going to take a lot out of me. I think I can get him stable without magic, but—”

“Do what you need to do,” said Drake. “You can do more once we’ve killed the bastard and we can rest.”

“Okay.” Allura couldn’t see what they were doing to his hand, exactly, but she heard them whispering something lengthy and complex, and as they whispered a golden light began to form between their fingers. The light grew brighter, became blinding, and then Ghenn transferred their grip to the injured hand and the light traveled with it, sinking into the mangled flesh. Sirus drew a breath across his teeth. A muscle twitched in his jaw, then he sighed.

“Better?” said Ghenn. “Careful now, don’t move it too much. I’ve stopped the bleeding and numbed the pain, but you’re still a long ways from ‘healed.’ You might lose a finger or two.”

Allura dared a peek and regretted it. The hand was red and raw, covered in a layer of papery skin like a premature baby, and was dubiously whole.

“We rest here for a minute,” said Drake, “then we go up. Stealthily. He hasn’t come down to greet us yet, so chances are he’s lying in wait.”

Ghenn approached her, drawn and sweaty. “You’re injured.” They helped her ease her backpack off her shoulders, then cut off the sleeve of her shirt to examine her arm. A necessary sacrifice, but one she regretted all the same. Her skin prickled in the clammy air of the tower.

“Wiggle your fingers.” Gentle hands probed the skin on her bicep. “Make a fist. Can you bend your elbow?”

She could, though the movement brought tears to her eyes. She swore she could feel bones scraping together in her shoulder; it felt like it was on fire. She bit her lip, coating her tongue with fresh blood.

“Nothing broken, I think,” said Ghenn. “Just a dislocation, then. Lie down.”

She did as directed. The floor was very cold and slightly slimy. It smelled of mildew. Ghenn unbent her arm and she cried out involuntarily; every motion sent a stab of pain through her shoulder. Hot tears overflowed her eyes and dripped down her nose. Ghenn pulled steadily on her arm, working the joint up and down.

“Allura, when you have a minute,” said Drake. She cracked one eye open and looked at him, distorted through her tears. “I think it’s best we go in warded. We were caught unprepared just now, and I’d rather avoid that in the future.”

“Mhm,” she said. She wasn’t sure she could unclench her jaw enough to say anything else.

“Relax,” said Ghenn. “If your muscles are tight, it won’t go back in.” They slowly raised her arm towards her ear, keeping the elbow straight. Hot knives stabbed all around her shoulder.

“Ow ow ow!”

“Almost there,” said Ghenn. They pulled on her arm, coaxing the joint back in place. “Almost—there!”

There was a pop! and her arm jolted, and instantly the pain diminished to a mild ache. She gasped and sagged against the floor in relief.

Healing warmth washed through her shoulder. “There,” said Ghenn. “That’ll help with the worst of the pain. We really should immobilize it, though—do you need both hands for spellcasting?”

She sat up and shrugged, testing the joint. “Sometimes. It depends on the spell.”

“Hmm.” They examined her shoulder a final time. “Just try not to move it too much then, I guess, or it’ll pop back out. I’ll heal it properly when… when I can.”

“Thank you.” She clasped their hand briefly and they smiled tiredly.

“Is anyone else hurt? Drake? Kima?”

“Deer-thing caught me in the ribs, but worry about me later,” said Drake. “It’s not bad enough I can’t fight.”

“Kima?”

“I think this breastplate’s hurt more than me,” she said, forcing a grin with blood-smeared teeth. Allura looked at her though narrowed eyes. Her breastplate was badly dented from the doublestag’s horns, and the crack in it had widened. At the very least, it couldn’t be comfortable to wear. “What?” she said. “I’m fine. I can handle myself.”

The doublestag seemed to be giving up; its furious pounding had trailed off into silence. Wheezy breathing and its rotten scent drifted under the door. It was waiting.

Allura placed wards against physical attacks on Kima and Sirus. She was hesitant to ward more people, or put too much power into their wards knowing there was still a fight ahead.

“Drake, what’s our next move?” said Kima. “The longer we hide down here, the longer he has to prepare.”

“We find the hooded man and kill him,” said Drake. “Is everyone ready? Sirus?”

“I can fight.” Sirus’ face was pale and sweaty but his jaw was set. “I’ll take point.”

“All right.”

They followed Sirus up the stairs, moving as quietly as possible. Allura gravitated towards Kima, who was right behind Sirus, mace at the ready, gripped in a white-knuckled hand. Allura gave her other hand a little squeeze, and she smiled back, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She squeezed Allura’s fingers in return.

By unspoken consent nobody spoke. They climbed the stairs in silence, curving up around the tower. With nothing now to distract her, her lip throbbed and her shoulder ached badly; though it was no longer the agony of a dislocated joint, it throbbed and felt very tender. She bit her cheek, determined not to let it show.

The stairs opened onto a dark landing. Sirus made them stop just below the level of the floor while he peeked up to look around, then gestured for them to follow with a jerk of his head.

The landing was pitch black. She wondered how Sirus and the others could see at all; there were no windows on this floor of the tower. She stepped hesitantly out onto the landing after Kima, who took four confident steps and then stumbled over something on the floor, crashing into Sirus with a clatter of armor.

“Ow! Fuck! Sorry, Sirus.”

Drake came up the stairs, a tiny magelight cupped in his hands. Though it was no brighter than a candle by its light Allura could see the toppled cup Kima had tripped over. The landing was a cluttered circular space filled with a mismatched table and chairs, a set of shelves, and a wild assortment of cooking utensils and alchemical equipment which littered every surface. A haphazardly-built hearth was in the center of the room, warming an iron pot on a trivet which smelled faintly sour. It was no wonder Kima had tripped.

“A kitchen? Or a laboratory?” said Dohla.

“Looks like both,” said Drake. “Either way, he’s not here. Don’t touch anything. Let’s keep going up.”

The stairs continued up on the other side of the room. Drake dimmed the magelight to a tiny spark and she strained ot see each step. She kept a hand on Kima’s shoulder for guidance, though she doubted the halfling could see any better than she could.

At the next landing Sirus again stopped and looked ahead, then beckoned for them to follow. This room had a bed and wardrobe and was draped with many furs and blankets. Clearly a bedroom. The wardrobe was open and nearly empty; clothes in various states of cleanliness were scattered around the room, much like the space downstairs.

“Kind of a slob, isn’t he?” whispered Kima. She picked up a piece of clothing from the floor, then flung it away when she realized it was underwear. “Ew!”

“You’re one to talk,” said Ghenn. “I’ve seen your room.”

“I know exactly where everything is in my room,” said Kima. “I have a system. It’s organized chaos. You just don’t like it ’cause it’s not n—”

A noise from above. A woman’s cry. Everyone looked at the ceiling. A moment passed in tense silence.

“Let’s keep going,” said Drake. “Wands and weapons out. Be ready for anything.”

They crept up the next flight of stairs. Drake doused the magelight. As they neared the top, she heard the rumble of a man’s voice which, although she had only heard it once before, she instantly recognized as belonging to the hooded man. Sirus stopped just short of the light coming onto the stairs from the floor above and she pressed up next to him to hear. It was hard to make out individual words—the tower had an echo and someone was shuffling around above them, cluttering the sounds they heard. There was also the steady drip, drip of fluids, though whether it was from something in the room or the tower had a leaky roof she wasn’t sure. The familiar buzz of magic was heavy in the air, leaving a metallic taste on her tongue. A funky smell hung in the air as well, which she had noticed downstairs but which was stronger up here. And under the sound of the footsteps and the dripping was the faint sound of a woman sobbing.

The hooded man was speaking. “…certain you do not know?”

The woman spoke between hiccuping sobs. Something about her voice struck a chord with Allura; she was certain she knew her but she couldn’t place it. “I don’t… I swear I don’t. I haven’t seen her in weeks, I told you.”

“Unfortunate.” The hooded man sounded disinterested rather than threatening.

“I have family,” said the woman, her voice quavering. “Friends. They’ll come and find me.”

“Will they?” said the hooded man. “Do they know where you are? Do you know where you are?” Silence from the woman. “I’d wager they don’t even know you’re gone. I choose my subjects carefully.”

Silence from the woman. There was a metallic snip, and something fell into a bucket of water. Feet shuffled from one side of the room to the other.

“Your fool friends will never find you,” said the hooded man. “I doubt they’re even looking for you…. You’ll die here, and you’ll rot here, and your corpse—”

A jangle of chains and the smack of flesh on flesh; the hooded man cried out. “Idiot!” Magic suddenly flared in the room, like the change in pressure before a lightning strike; sickly white light, blindingly bright, spilled down the stairs. The taste of zinc filled her mouth. She started casting a basic ward against energy at top speed.

But just as swiftly as it had appeared, the light vanished, leaving nothing but the taste of it on her tongue. Hesitantly, she let the spell go.

The hooded man’s labored breathing filled the stairwell. Allura thought he didn’t sound well; his breath was full of phlegm and he wheezed like a leaky bellows.

“You… fool,” he said. “You’ll pay for this! … Do you know what you could have done?!” The woman cried out, chains jangling again.

“You’ll pay,” said the hooded man more quietly. “Another eye, another limb… but… I think not yet. My beastlings have gone quiet. Our guests must be nearly here.” More shuffling feet, moving towards the center of the room. “Or are they here already, lurking in the dark?” He raised his voice. “Come out, Miss Vysoren. I know you’re listening.”

Allura’s stomach dropped down to her knees. Kima was looking at her, eyes wide and scared in the arcane light. She looked at Drake, who nodded. Kima’s hand gripped hers, crushingly strong, and she squeezed it back as hard as she could. Then she took a deep breath and forced herself up the steps and into the room.

It was the top floor of the tower—no stairs led upward from the other side. It looked like a workshop or another lab—shelves and tables along the wall were piled high with books and beakers and small metal tools. In the center of the room was a iron frame, suspended from which was a hulking, spiky shape she couldn’t immediately identify, though judging by the multitude of glittering eyes it was another monster. At least it wasn’t moving. Brackish slime dripped from it into a pan below.

Next to the frame stood the hooded man, though he wasn’t wearing a hood. He was stripped to the waist, and she could see that he was hairless and emaciated. His pale skin was sheened with sweat and steaming slightly. His cheeks were more hollow than the last time she’d seen him, and he had the look of someone who had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. In his hand was a pair of kitchen shears.

And chained to the wall across from him was…

“Nessa?” Allura was shocked out of her fear. “What in Exandria are you doing here?”

Nessa looked awful. Only one arm was chained above her head; the other was a bandaged stump just below her shoulder. Her hair hung in matted, greasy tangles over her face, and as she lifted her head she saw her ragged shirt was caked with blood and her left eye socket was sunken and empty. Still, she smiled weakly when she saw Allura. When she spoke, she addressed the (formerly) hooded man.

“See? I told you someone would come for me!”

The man scoffed. “She didn’t come here for you, she came here for me. I doubt she had any idea you were here.”

“What?” But Allura’s confusion was written all over her face, and that was all the answer Nessa needed. She looed crushed.

“But we will rescue you!” said Allura, trying to save face. “We will! After we stop him from… doing whatever it is he’s doing.”

“How many of your little friends did you bring, Miss Vysoren?” said the man. “Three? Four? How did you enjoy fighting my beastlings without the help of your city guards? This is my property, you know, and trespassing is a crime.”

A chill went up Allura’s spine, but she set her jaw and ignored him. “What happened to your arm? And um, eye?” She tried to move closer to Nessa, but the man stepped between them.

“He took them. Said he needed them for his beastling. The pig-thing there,” she said, and nodded to the creature in the frame.

Allura looked at the monster again and its shapes suddenly made sense to her eyes: a hulking boar, larger than the owlbear-cat but smaller than the bear-thing, whose muscled back and long tail were covered in porcupine quills.

“He—he cut it off, and then—” She nodded towards the boar’s snout. Allura looked closer and her stomach churned; a pallid human arm protruded from its mouth like an overlarge tongue. She wrenched her attention back to the man.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because of you, in part,” said the man. He turned and ran his fingers down the boar’s flank, and Allura bit back a gasp as she saw his back. Jagged, inflamed black lines formed precise geometric shapes on his skin—very familiar shapes. Her eyes widened.

“It didn’t start with you, of course,” continued the man. “It started with that cursed Headmaster Adlam and his precious Lyceum… I showed such talent, such genius, and yet they shunned me, forbade me from pursuing my chosen course of study… So I decided I should make my way alone.”

“Your chosen course of study of mutilating dead animals and experimenting on people?” Allura was proud that her voice hardly shook.

The man gave her a withering look. “You have the air of a university-trained wizard, Miss Vysoren, and yet you do not see,” said the man. “You, too, have been corrupted by those narrow-minded fools at the Lyceum.”

“I went to Soltryce, actually,” said Allura’s mouth before she could stop it. “Over in the Dwen—”

“Soltryce, Lyceum, what’s the difference?” spat the man. “Universities are all the same. I am on the brink of the greatest breakthrough in magic this century, and all you notice are the irrelevant details.”

“A breakthrough in making mutant monsters?”

“Still all you see is what’s right in front of you. So myopic. My beastlings are nothing but a side effect of my research. A useful side effect, but a side effect nonetheless.”

“And what do Nessa and I have to do with this?”

“You, my pretty little wizard, killed my beastling.” The man turned away from the boar and ran a finger down her face. She forced herself not to flinch away. “My poor, beautiful beastling. I needed subjects, you see, test subjects, and those are in short supply out here in the Torian Forest. So I was forced to travel to the nearest populated are and find some… volunteers.”

“Volunteers?!” she said, her voice shaking but not entirely from fear. “They came to you willingly, then? And consented to let you experiment on them?”

The man shrugged. “After a fashion.”

“You’re a monster.”

“You care too much about the details and not enough about the whole, my little university-trained wizard,” said the man.

“What about Nessa?”

“You murdering my beastling changed the game,” said the man. He turned away from her again to gaze fondly at the motionless beast. As soon as his back was turned, she scanned the area for something of the right size and weight and found it, a pestle missing its mortar a stride away on the floor. She snatched it up as quietly as she could and returned to her original stance, pretending to casually clasp her hands behind her back. If her limbs hadn’t already been shaking, they were now.

“You cut off my supply of subjects,” continued the man, “you murdered my beastling. I wanted to hurt you and yours as badly as I could. A petty impulse, I am ashamed to admit, but who can blame me? You set me back months. Years. Do you know how long it takes to enchant a permanent teleportation circle?!”

Allura nodded. “I do, actually.”

“Then you have some idea of how frustrated I was. How angry. So much wasted effort. And in my anger, I was hasty. And for my haste, I have been scourged.” He wrapped his arms around his naked torso, digging his fingernails into the flesh of his back. The angry black lines distorted slightly as his muscles clenched. “I searched for a week for you, your friends, your family, anyone important to you. You are a surprisingly disconnected individual, Miss Vysoren, though I shouldn’t be surprised. Wizards are naturally solitary. It’s in our nature. It wasn’t until I found a note advertising your services on the bulletin board in Abdar’s Promenade that I found any mention of you.”

“Being broke and unsuccessful will do that,” said Allura.

“The note gave me the address of a certain pub,” said the man, “but when I got there, this young woman said you’d moved out several weeks before. Of course, since she was the only person in that cursed city who’d even heard of you, I took—”

“So you kidnapped her?!” said Allura. “She wasn’t even my landlord! She just worked at the bar!”

The man shrugged. “I needed bodies anyway. So she would serve a dual purpose: to lure you here, if I was lucky, and to build me more beastlings if I was not. And it appears that I was indeed lucky.”

“What do you want with me?” she demanded. “Are you going to kill me? Why tell me all this?”

“Of course I'm going to kill you,” said the man. “Slowly. Painfully. I like my subjects to be cognizant of their purpose. But first,” he said, raising a finger, “I need the rest of your friends to come out of their hiding spot. Eavesdropping is so terribly rude.”

One by one, the Silver Slayers climbed up into the room. Kima was the first to emerge and stood defiantly at Allura’s side, mace in hand. Ghenn and Dohla followed, and lastly Drake and Sirus. The man’s eyes flashed when he saw the last two.

“You,” he growled. “The ones who gave me so much trouble at the tunnel entrance… I have a special punishment for you, once I’m finished with Miss Vysoren.”

“I’d like to see you try,” said Drake. “I, Drake Thunderbrand of the Silver Slayers, am placing you under arrest in the name of Emperor Uriel Tal’dorei III. You have committed crimes against the people of Emon and are a danger to the public. Come quietly or we will take you by force.”

The man threw back his head and laughed. There was no mirth in the sound. “As if! Fine, if you’re going to be stubborn, I’d better—” He raised an arm, inhumanly fast, and suddenly a wand was in his hand, thin and sharp as a conductor’s baton. But Allura was ready for him and as soon as his lips moved with the first words of a spell, she raised her own wand and sketched the quick negating gesture of a Counterpsell.

Counterspelling is an inexact art. Rather than counteracting the effects of a spell, a Counterspell attempts to stop the spell from being cast in the first place by cutting the target off from their source of energy, usually a plane that the caster naturally draws on to fuel their spells. This requires the Counterspeller to guess at how powerful a spell is being cast, since if the target spell requires more energy than was put into the Counterspell, the target spell will overwhelm the Counterspell and the Counterspell will fail. A successful Counterspell often causes a recoil in the target as the energy drawn out to power the target spell dissipates.

So Allura was delighted when the spell the man was casting fizzled with a loud POP! and a flash of light and the man went staggering backward, a look of surprise on his face. Then before he could recover, she threw the pestle.

She was throwing with her injured arm, and the pestle weighed several pounds, so she was surprised when it hit him directly on the collarbone with a crunch. He screamed and fell to the ground facedown.

A beat. Drake threw a surprised look at her. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “Well done, Allura.”

“No!” said Nessa from where she was chained to the wall. “Back up! Back up! Get away from him!”

No sooner had she said this then blindingly bright white light erupted along the lines on his back. Allura smelled burning flesh and heard the sizzle of fat. The man screamed and clawed at his back. Something about the quality of the light looked unwholesome, unlike the clean precision of the magic she was used to and more like the deadly glow of the molten glass leaking out of the cracked kiln at the glazier’s she had seen last year. This was magic on the brink of going awry.

She took several hasty steps backward, followed by the Slayers. Panting and grimacing in agony, one arm dangling limply, the man forced himself to his feet, light still blazing from his back.

“You—see?” he said through gritted teeth. “I—have—been—scourged.” With great effort, he slid a foot across the flagstones toward her and took a step. He reached for her with his good arm, his hand a claw.

“I was—hasty,” he said. He was standing straightening and looked a little more in control. “I needed—to do more—research. But—therein lies—the problem, doesn’t it?” Foam was gathering at the corner of his mouth. “Still… you shouldn’t have—hurt me. You broke my—concentration.”

He staggered another step forward. Allura took a step back and felt the wall behind her. The man seemed to be winning the battle against the magic in his back; the light was losing its dangerous edge and becoming a more normal, though still unpleasant, shade of white. He took a deep, steadying breath, teetering on the edge of control, and then—

Something splattered across the back of his head. The man whirled to see what hit him, and in that instant the magic won. The lines on his back blazed bright as the sun. Allura threw up a hand but the lines still burned dark against the back of her eyelids. She could see the bones of her hand though the skin. There was a rush of wind, a sound like a thunderclap, the smell of singed hair, and then silence.

She opened her eyes. Ragged black afterimages danced across her vision; she blinked hard to try and dissipate them. The room seemed shockingly empty until she realized that not only had the man gone, the beast had as well, leaving the frame behind. The Slayers uncurled from their various positions cringing away from the light and examined the room.

“Is he gone?” Drake’s wand was still ready in his hand. “You kill him?”

“Gone, yes; dead, I don’t think so,” said Allura, feeling her mouth speak the words.

“How did you know?”

“I guessed.” Allura picked her way across the room, avoiding all the miscellaneous alchemical stuff on the floor and skirting the iron frame. “Something happened when Nessa hurt him before I went in there, he almost lost control. Then when I saw the circle on his back, I—”

“Put two and two together. Clever.” Drake looked over the iron frame, tapped it cautiously with his wand. “What got him in the end? Looked like he was regaining control, ’n then he lost it.”

“It was me,” said Nessa. Her voice was weak but she sounded satisfied. “I saw it wasn’t working, he was about to win and shut it down. So I spat on him.”

Kima whistled. “I wish I had half your aim. I don’t envy anyone who challenges you to a game of mumbly-peg.”

Allura examined the manacles around Nessa’s wrist. There was probably a spell to open a lock like this—in fact she was sure there was—but she had never learned it. “Can someone help me with this?”

Sirus was at her side in a moment. He took one look at the lock and nodded. “Some light, please. You’ll need to support her weight as well.”

Allura cast a magelight—a soothing blue—and tried to find the most comfortable position to hold up Nessa in. Under the armpits would hardly work, seeing as she only had one anymore. After a little experimentation, she had Nessa grip her with her legs as best she could and supported her under her rear, though she could feel herself blushing. Hopefully the magelight would hide it.

The lock clicked and Nessa cried out as they eased her down the wall.

Ghenn hurried over. Allura laid Nessa down, arm still above her head—she wasn’t sure how long she’d been here and she didn’t want to make things worse.

“I need to talk to Drake,” she told Nessa. “We won’t leave here without you, okay? I promise.”

“Thank you,” said Nessa though her tears.

She made her way over to Drake, who was still examining the frame. He looked up as she approached.

“Can’t quite parse this,” he said. “Frame itself appears to be enchanted…. Not sure what it does, but that doesn’t explain why the construct disappeared when he did. He didn’t come in contact with it that I saw, right?”

“Drake,” she said cautiously, “I don’t think this is over yet. We need to get back to Emon, and quickly. I think that’s where he’s gone.”

“What?”

“The tattoo on his back was a teleportation circle that led to Emon,” she said, the words spilling off her tongue. “Feeding off his body like the ones on his victims in the Temple of Sarenrae. You heard what he said about the Lyceum and—and wanting to hunt me down and kill all my friends? He’s gone to Emon.”

“You certain?” said Drake.

Allura nodded. “Positive. I stared at the circle in the Traverse Junction for a whole afternoon, I know one that leads to Emon when I see one.”

“Then we need to move fast,” said Drake. “It’ll take days on foot, we don’t have horses, and I don’t think Bubbles can carry all of us, even if he’s up to it… I hate to ask this of you on such short notice, especially when you’re injured, but… do you think you can teleport us to Emon?”

Allura knew the question was coming, but still she hesitated to answer. She had reached to same conclusion. The scourged man had proven himself a danger to Emon, he had outright stated as much. Even if he didn’t plan to directly attack the Lyceum/her friends/her family, he still wanted to continue experimenting on people. There was no telling how much damage he’d do in the three days it’d take them to walk back to Emon.

But still, teleportation—real teleportation across a long distance—was stronger magic than she’d ever attempted, and these weren’t exactly ideal conditions for trying out a new spell: an enemy wizard’s tower full of magical junk, with an injured arm, when she was already half-tapped from the earlier fighting. A deep, throbbing ache had settled into her shoulder and she could still taste fresh blood oozing from her bottom lip. But what other choice did she have?

Her eyes landed on Nessa. Ghenn was easing her arm back into position at her side, healing light glowing at their fingertips, and Kima had knelt by her side and was consoling her. As she watched, Kima brushed some of Nessa’s hair out of her eye, and the simple tenderness in the gesture made her heart constrict. Nessa was too badly injured to travel on foot. She turned back to Drake.

“I can do it,” she said. “I just need some chalk. And um, a large clear space on the floor.” The next few minutes were spent clearing a twenty-foot section of the floor for Allura to draw on. Ghenn was reluctant to move Nessa more than absolutely necessary, and Allura decided it was worth the risk to cast the circle in the tower, so Dohla went out to retrieve Bubbles. The direwolf could barely fit up the stairs, and once he was in the room he took up most of the unoccupied space, dripping blood from several deep scratches on his flanks and knocking things over with his tail. Finally Dohla made him stand in the stairwell, where only his head poked into the room, following everything with his watchful yellow eyes.

Allura fretted over her notes on teleportation in her spellbook; she wished she’d brought A Novice’s Guide. She checked and rechecked her calculations for each line before drawing them as precisely as she could with the chalk and yardstick Drake had helped her find. She shuddered at the energy allocation. This would be pushing her limits at the best of times. Let’s just hope I don’t die.

She finished the circle. “Is everyone ready?”

It took some maneuvering to fit everyone inside the circle. No matter how they did it, Bubbles took up most of the space. Eventually Dohla had Sirus sit with her on Bubbles’ back while Kima and Drake sat under his belly. Ghenn sat next to Nessa who was lying down, and Allura stood in the only empty space left. She took a deep breath.

“Okay everyone,” she said. Her wand was sweaty in her hand. “Are we ready?”

Nods from around the circle. Kima said a confident “Yes.”

It’ll be a breeze, she thought. Just like Misty Step, only bigger. Much, much bigger. Remember when you first cast that and how scared you were? It’ll be fine.

She began the incantation. Royal blue light burst into being around the circle, eagerly jumping down the lines she had drawn, sparking at the intersections. When she finished the opener—Fifth Advanced, which she’d memorized in school but never used—and continued to the body of the spell, the light brightened in intensity. She shut her eyes but didn’t dare stop reciting the spell. Power built and built within the circle, filling the air with the buzz of electricity and the taste of toasted almonds. Then when she was certain she could hold it back no longer, she released the magic and opened the floodgates.

Energy blasted though her like water through a firehose; her eyes and body and mind were filled with rushing blue light. Her nerves were on fire, she was sure her clothes were alight. She could no longer see her friends or feel the ground beneath her feet, she tried to breathe but there was only light, light, light—

And then it was gone. Her knees buckled and she collapsed to all fours, gasping and coughing. Her shoulder felt like it was coming apart; she grabbed it with a hand that felt as stiff and slow as an old woman’s, clenched her teeth and tried not to scream. Her head pounded with every heartbeat and the light that seemed under her eyelids was like hot wires stabbing into her brain. Sound started to filter back in. Distantly she heard approaching feet, then familiar hands were on her, helping her up into a sitting position. She cracked open her eyes. “Kima?”

“Allie? Are you okay?” Kima’s brow was furrowed with worry.

“Did we make it?”

“I think so. We’re not in the tower, anyways. I’ve never been to the Lyceum, but there’s a big old sigil on the floor and there’s some old elf guy who looks mad—”

“Xanthas!” She staggered to her feet. The room spun. Her stomach rebelled, and she was glad breakfast was a long time ago. Kima wrapped an arm around her and helped her find her balance.

To her relief, they were in the Traverse Junction. She had never been so glad to see Xanthas’ scowling face.

“More monsters!” he was saying. “The Traverse Junction is closed for repairs! Get out or I’ll—oh. Ms Vysoren.”

“Gatekeeper.” She inclined her head. The room swayed around her; she felt drunk. Her skull felt too small for her head.

Xanthas bustled towards her, brushing Drake aside and throwing a disgruntled look at Bubbles, who was watching him and panting softly. Sirus slid down from the direwolf’s back, landing lightly on the marble floor.

Now that Allura could see a little more clearly, the Traverse Junction did look a little worse for wear. They had come in at one of the auxiliary circles, because the main circle was partially buried by a pile of rubble. The beautiful emerald-inlaid map of the world on the ceiling had cracked, and the great double doors were scattered in pieces across the floor. The guards were nowhere to be seen.

“This is not a scheduled arrival,” griped Xanthas. “No warning whatsoever! None! Do you even have the correct paperw—”

“Xanthas, pal, there’s no time for paperwork,” said Drake. “We’re on a mission. Firstly, this young woman needs to get to the Temple of Sarenrae sooner rather than later, she’s badly hurt. Secondly, we’re looking for a certain bad-intentioned wizard, and we have reason to believe he may be heading here. Or perhaps,” he said, looking pointedly at the demolished door, “he may have already paid a visit?”

“Someone certainly did,” said Xanthas. He brushed specks of marble dust from his robes, his perfectly trimmed eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “Teleported in unauthorized, made an awful racket. Broke down the door and attacked my guards. Very disrespectful. Monsters are never permitted within the Junction.” He threw a pointed look at Bubbles, who was drooling on the circle.

“Monsters?” Drake asked. “What kind?”

“Do you expect me to know everything?!” griped Xanthas. “The usual kind, I don’t know. Unlike some people, I don’t lower myself to such base pastimes as fighting monsters.” Drake rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Can you describe them for us, please, Xanthas?” Xanthas shrugged. “I didn’t get a good look. Two small and fast, one big with horns.”

“The beastlings!” said Kima.

“There was a man with them, too,” said Xanthas. “Bald, human, underdressed. He teleported in with the monsters, lay on the floor a minute—I would have asked him what the hells he thought he was doing, but the monsters looked very aggressive—”

Beside her, Kima gave a tiny scoff.

“—and then he got up, attacked my guards, blasted down the door with a spell, and rode the largest monster out the gap. Dreadful.”

“The hooded man and the beastlings, it has to be,” said Dohla.

“No, he definitely wasn’t wearing a hood, I saw him clearly,” said Xanthas.

“Do you know where they went?” said Drake.

“Out of the Junction,” said Xanthas unhelpfully.

“Great. We’ll be getting out of your hair now, Xanthas,” said Drake. “You’ve been very helpful—would you mind looking after our packs? It’s easier to fight without them slowing us down.”

“My pleasure,” said Xanthas. He did not look pleased.

“Ghenn,” said Drake, as Xanthas crossed his arms and retreated to the edge of the chamber where he hovered, looking caught between wanting to leave and not wanting to let them be in the Junction unsupervised, “do you know how to get to the Temple from here?”

“Yes, but I can’t carry her by myself,” they said. Nessa was sitting up and alert, but she looked exhausted.

“I can get her there on Bubbles,” said Dohla. “I’ll do some recon on the way too, to try and find out where that man is.”

“Excellent.”

Dohla boosted Nessa up onto Bubbles’ back, then climbed up behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist. She waved to Drake, then whistled a quick command, and Bubbles loped out through the hole in the wall. Then the Junction was quiet once more.

“So,” said Drake after a minute, “shall we go?”

Allura wasn’t sure she was ready to go anywhere, but she nodded anyway and gripped her wand tighter.

They followed Bubbles’ pawprints out of the Junction and into the wreckage of the entry hall of the Lyceum. The grand doors were hanging off their hinges, a wide crack running up the lintel. Much of the elaborate tiling on the vaulted ceiling had fallen to the floor and smashed, and two of the statues of important wizards that normally stood in their alcoves had toppled off their plinths. The grand marble staircase was badly chipped. Allura half-jogged to keep up with Drake and the others as they hurried out into the courtyard.

People were scattered around the courtyard in various states of panic and battle-readiness. Wands were drawn, spellbooks were open, and the hum of recently-cast magic made the hairs on Allura’s arms stand on end. The university gates had been reduced to a pile of twisted iron, and several robed figures who looked like professors were clustered around them. A quick look over the courtyard revealed no one obviously dead or injured. She breathed a sigh of relief. A few scattered students watched from the shadows of the buildings.

“Ho there!” Drake hailed the professors. They turned towards him, wary. “You seen a wizard riding a monster?”

One of the professors, an older human woman with curly ginger hair streaked with white, stepped forward. She twiddled a plain black wand between her fingers. “Is that what that was?” she said. “It went by so fast, all of us were unprepared… We only just fought it off. Do you know who it was?”

“No idea,” said Drake. “We’ve been hunting him for a few weeks now. He was the one responsible for the monster down in the… remember? We cornered him up in his hideout just now, but he managed to teleport here before we could capture him. Seemed to have a grudge against higher education, especially the Lyceum.”

“Did he?” said the professor. “Well, that explains why he attacked.”

“You see where he went?”

The professor pointed through the gate. “Down the road to the square. We didn’t chase him far, but you can’t exactly miss him, can you?”

Drake laughed. “That you can’t!” He nodded formally in her direction. “Thank you for your help.” He drew the Slayers into a quick huddle. “This is it, Slayers. We take him down today. Allura, you’re not looking good, can you fight?”

“I—” Allura hesitated. She wasn’t in as bad of shape as she’d been a few minutes ago, but her head still throbbed with every heartbeat and she still felt dizzy if she turned her head too fast. “I think so, if I have to.”

“Don’t put yourself in danger unnecessarily,” said Drake. “You can sit this one out if you need to.”

“I can fight,” said Allura.

Drake put his hand in the middle of the circle. “Allright, let’s do this. One, two, three, Slayers!”

“Slayers!”

They raced down the street towards where the professor had indicated, skidding around the corner. Tables that had until recently been laden with food and drink were tossed across the square and the food was busy being trampled under the feet of people running through the square in a panic. Streamers dangled from broken poles. The bulletin board on the district wall had fallen across a table, forming an island in the sea of fleeing people. She was caught for a moment in the swirl of the crowd, tossed by bodies on either side, and almost lost track of the other Slayers until she spotted the glint of Kima’s armor, standing in the shelter of the island. She shoved and elbowed her way through until she was standing next to them once more.

“Where did he go?” Ghenn shouted over the noise of the crowd.

Allura scanned the square at top speed. Several storefronts seemed to have been damaged, windows shattered and tiles missing from the roofs. With a start she realized she recognized the area, it wasn’t far from the—

An explosion echoed from down the street she was looking at. Instinctively she flinched and ducked, shielding her face, but the explosion was too far away to do her any harm. Her theory was confirmed.

“He’s gone to the Green Rat!” she shouted.

They sprinted towards the explosion. The crowd fought them, running in the other direction, loud and mindless as a river. The Green Rat was ablaze, the burning facade silhouetting the stacked muzzles and branchlike antlers of the doublestag. An alarm bell started clanging; someone must’ve alerted the guards.

But no sooner had she glimpsed the doublestag than she heard a screech from above. She had just enough time to duck as something sailed over her head and landed with a thud in the street. The owlcat! It was even more horrible up close, the fur matted and stinking, the feathers ragged, the glittering eyes clustered like flies on its flanks. One of the arms on its back was missing; only a crusted-over stump remained. It snarled.

The Slayers drew closer together. Drake was quickest on the draw; there was a flash of light and a column of water appeared above the owlcat, freezing on contact as it splashed to the ground. The monster let out a terrible screech, frozen feathers standing out in spikes, and wrenched its paws up off the cobbles. But the spell had held it for long enough for Ghenn to summon their glowing lance and Sirus to draw a dagger in each hand.

But before they could attack, a new sound hit them: a horrible grunting roar that went on and on and on. From a side street bounded a second monster: hulking and muscular, covered in spines, with a human arm protruding horribly from its mouth.

“The pig!” Kima yelled.

The boar-thing pawed the ground, tail lashing; its spines bristled. It charged. The Slayers dove out of the way, but its tail flicked as it passed and Allura heard yells from both sides of the street as the spines caught them. She yelled as points of pain erupted along the arm she had thrown up to cover her face. She heard the owlcat screech and leap up and away.

The boar whirled to face them, sparks flying up where its hooves struck the cobblestones. It roared again.

“Come on!” Kima’s face was sweaty and red as she brandished her mace.

It charged again. Allura and the others backed away to the sides, but Kima held her ground until the last second. As the boar reached her, she nimbly stepped aside, clubbing it on the snout as it passed.

But the boar barely seemed fazed; it wheeled around, gnashing its foot-long tusks, hand grasping at the air like a sea anemone. Its tail flicked towards her as it spun, and this time she was ready. Her shield spell held firm against the deadly spines, but she gasped in pain as she cast the spell—the magic felt like fire in under her skin, reigniting the pain in her skull. Her wand arm suddenly went as numb as if she’d been sitting on it for hours. Lucky she didn’t drop her wand.

She must’ve cried out because Drake said, “Allura!” She tried to act as if nothing was wrong, but her arm was dead weight at her side.

“Don’t put yourself in danger!”

“I’m fine!”

The boar charged at Kima. She caught its hand crosswise with her mace and braced her feet as it bore down on her, forcing her backwards one step at a time.

“Get it!”

Ghenn’s lance flashed through the air and struck the boar in the neck, sending a spurt of brackish fluid halfway across the street, splattering on the door of a shop. Ghenn gestured from where they stood at a safe distance, and the lance withdrew and stabbed again.

She slapped her arm, trying to coax sensation back into it faster. Pins and needles had started in her fingertips. She could feel the spines in her forearm like teeth buried in her flesh.

A screech from above preceded the owlcat’s return. It descended from the roof and flung itself at Sirus, whose fall became a roll which turned the beast’s momentum against it, flinging it over him and onto the ground behind him. He didn’t let it go, however; he followed it over, ending up astride its belly. Blades flashed, black blood spurted; the owlcat screamed.

Kima’s foot slipped on the ice left behind by Drake’s spell; the boar gave a triumphant roar and tossed her aside. It rushed at Drake, who was the closest, and its hand tangled in the front of his shirt, lifting him off the ground. He kicked for a moment, then jabbed his wand hard into its flesh; there was a pop and a flash and the boar squealed and dropped him, shaking its great head. Drake landed on his feet.

“Allura!” he shouted, without taking his eyes off the boar. She thought he was going to scold her, but he just said, “Find Dohla! We need Bubbles!”

She could do that. Putting her wand back in its pocket in her coat sleeve—the last thing she needed was to drop it now—she scrambled to her feet and sprinted away.

She pelted down the side street, the alarm bell clanging in time with her ragged breathing. A second bell joined it and she recognized the alarm for the fire brigade. Good. Behind her she heard her teammates’ shouts, and then the sound of splintering wood, and the boar’s roar. Images of her teammates’ injured bodies flashed through her head and she put on another burst of speed. The Highsummer festival going on around her felt like an entirely different world; people were laughing and feasting, oblivious to the destruction happening on the other side of the city.

The Temple of Sarenrae was in the Temple District, to the northwest of the Erudite Quarter where the Lyceum was and all the way on the other side of the city. The Green Rat was a little bit south of the Erudite Quarter, so Allura cut a path that she hoped would intercept Dohla’s on her way back to the Lyceum.

She stumbled as she ran, her chest burning, blood pounding in her ears. She hadn’t been in great shape before the camping trip, and right now she was far from fresh. But she maintained her pace, though her head swam and her legs felt like lead and her shoulder ached and her other arm was still tingling furiously. She couldn’t allow herself not to.

She crossed the wide boulevard which led from the port to the gates of the Cloudtop District and which marked the halfway point of the Central District. Her wild sprint earned her more than a few curious glances—no one was running from the monsters here, though there were many concerned faces at the alarm bells. She pushed her way through the throng, underneath the aqueduct, dodging across traffic, and then suddenly she was face to face with Bubbles.

The direwolf was trotting down the lane with Dohla still on his back. When she saw Allura, she patted his shoulder and spoke a command and Bubbles came to a halt.

“Allura?”

She stumbled to a halt and braced her hands on her knees, too winded to speak. She pointed back the way she came.

“Monsters… at the Green Rat…. Drake sent—”

Dohla smacked her thigh with an open palm. “Damn him, I told him not to start without me. Climb on.”

She offered Allura a hand, which she took with some hesitation—her arm still wasn’t fully back online yet. With a little difficulty she was settled astride Bubbles in front of Dohla, fingers gripping the wiry black fur. Dohla wrapped a strong arm around her middle and whistled.

Bubbles bounded forward. Even though she was expecting it, Allura was still jolted by the sudden movement. It was entirely unlike a horse—every stride tossed her from side to side and threw her forward onto the direwolf’s neck. She dug her fingers deeper into the thick scruff and tried to grip with her knees. If Dohla hadn’t been there holding her up she was sure she would’ve fallen off. She definitely preferred horses.

An explosion sounded a few streets away. Allura saw the orange flash followed by a column of smoke. Bubbles’ ears pricked up.

“We need a vantage point,” said Dohla. “Bubbles, hup!”

Allura had a moment of warning as the direwolf gathered himself beneath her, then they were sailing through the air, landing with a crunch on the roof of a house. Bubbles scrabbled for a second with his back feet, then found his balance. The building groaned. So did Allura’s stomach.

“Do you see them?” asked Dohla.

Allura squinted at the ground. The Green Rat was easy to find, it was in the center of the cluster of burning buildings, in the midst of which was the bushy outline of the doublestag. City guards were dodging in and out of the smoke, weapons drawn, and by the intermittent flashes of sickly white light she guessed they were engaged with the scourged man.

“I don’t—”

“There!” Dohla pointed. Two streets away from the fires, the two lesser monsters were converging on a cluster of people pinned against a wall. Dohla pulled her bow off her shoulder and drew three arrows from her quiver, fitting one to the string. “Bubbles, over!”

Bubbles leapt across the alley to the roof of the house next door, knocking loose shingles to the ground where they smashed. Allura felt an elbow on her back and she flattened herself on Bubbles’ neck; Dohla drew and fired all three arrows and had another in her hand before Allura could take a breath. She couldn’t see if the arrows had hit their mark, but the owlcat let out another piercing shriek.

“Bubbles, attack left!”

Allura’s stomach flipped as Bubbles dropped from the roof. He landed hard and she felt his jaws latch onto something—the owlcat screeched—and he whipped his head back and forth as he savaged it, snarling ferociously. Gray slime spattered everywhere.

A flash of crimson light filtered through the fur she’d pressed her face in. She risked a glance.

Drake had summoned a large red Hand, like the one she’d used against the bear-thing, and had grasped the boar around the middle and lifted it bodily off the ground, grimacing with the effort. It looked battered—chunks of quills were missing along its back, the tongue-hand had lost three of its fingers, and fluid seeped from several places where the stitches that held it together had ripped. It thrashed and roared, but the Hand held it firm.

Kima—looking grim and fierce with blood running from a gash on her forehead—took advantage of the boar’s helplessness to beat it bloody with her mace.

“The tail, get the tail!”

Ghenn’s lance flashed where it hung in the air; they raised their hand and it darted towards the boar like a wasp towards meat and skewered the tail near its tip. Another gesture from Ghenn and it planted itself in a crack between the cobblestones.

“Bubbles, hold!” said Dohla. The direwolf stopped shaking the owlcat and instead clamped down on its throat. The shrieking cut off with a strangled gurgle.

Dohla slid down off of his back, then turned and lifted Allura down after her. “The crazy guy and his deer are down that way,” she said, pointing with her bow. “How much time will this buy us? Bubs can hold that thing another minute or two I think.” She indicated the two immobilized monsters.

Drake looked much more tired than Allura remembered seeing him; casting Bigby’s Hand must’ve taken a lot out of him. He—and the others—had a scattering of quills across arms, faces, and chests. He brushed his hair back out of his face with his free hand, keeping his wand trained on the boar. “Not sure. I can only hold this spell for a minute or so, and it has a limited range. Whatever we do, we should do it now.” The boar squealed, and he used the Hand to pinch its snout shut.

“Can you throw it?” said Kima.

“I’d rather it stay here, where we can fight it,” said Drake. “Don’t want it hurting innocents.”

“Throw it straight up, then,” said Kima.

Drake chuckled. “I’ve always liked your style.” Slowly he raised the boar above the level of the rooftops, Ghenn hastily vanishing their lance, and carefully took aim, cocking his hand back over his shoulder. “All right, Slayers, let’s… GO!” He threw the boar into the air.

They heard it squealing as they turned and ran towards the burning inn. It hit the ground as they reached the knot of city guards who were preventing the scourged man from retreating any further up the street; an impact that shook the ground and sent debris sliding off of nearby roofs. Judging by the crunch that accompanied it she wasn’t entirely sure it had landed in the street, but there wasn’t time to turn and look.

The doublestag’s heads and shoulders were clearly visible from this distance, gray fur blackened in patches, extra eyes popped and oozing, antlers jagged and broken. The scourged man sat astride its back, brandishing the same needlelike wand he’d had back in the tower. Arrows stuck out of the neck and flanks of the doublestag like the quills on the boar. It pranced in place, broken leg flapping. As they watched, the rider expertly deflected another volley of arrows.

The rider looked, if possible, even more unhinged than he had earlier. His sunken, fleshless skin looked waxy and unhealthy and the tattoos on his back were charred and cracked. He laughed as he directed another fireball into the crowd, sending them fleeing down the street. The fire brigade was making a valiant effort to extinguish the burning buildings, though it looked like the rider was setting them alight again as fast as they could put them out.

“Form up!” called a voice. “Hold! Another volley on three!”

A line of guards with shields stepped forward to protect the archers.

“Three, two, one… loose!”

The shield-bearers ducked down and the archers fired. A swarm of arrows and crossbow bolts buzzed towards the scourged rider, who deflected them with a laugh.

“Mere arrows cannot stop me!” he crowed. “I am unstoppable! You dare—”

But one arrow had been fired slightly after the others, its owner late on the draw. By the time it reached the scourged rider, his shield spell had already faded, and the arrow caught him in the ribs. He looked down in surprise at the arrow, surprise which quickly turned to rage, but before he could do anything the tattoos on his back blazed to life. His face twisted in pain and he cried out, and then the white light flared brighter than the flames behind him and he and the doublestag winked out of existence.

“No!” cried Allura, but she was drowned out by the cheers of the guards around them.

“He’s gone!”

“We did it, lads!”

“Who shot that arrow? Their drink’s on me tonight!”

Someone slapped her on the back in a congratulatory way and she grabbed their hand and turned around to face them.

“He’s not dead!” she shouted over the din as the guard tried to shake her hand. “He teleported! Didn’t you see the sigil on his back?! He’s gone back to the Lyceum!”

“What?” The guard took her helmet off and leaned in to hear better.

“He’s not dead!” she shouted. “He’s in the Lyceum!”

She pulled away from the guard and fought her way over to Drake, bent down to shout in his ear. “We have to tell them! They can help us!”

Drake nodded. He addressed the celebrating guards in front of him. “Excuse me! Can I have your attention? Excuse me!”

A few guards noticed him, but the rest either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He tried again. “Excuse me!”

“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!” bellowed Kima.

Everybody shut up. Kima hit Sirus on the arm with the hand that wasn’t holding her mace. “Lift me up.”

Sirus went down on one knee and offered his good hand to Kima. She took it, and with his aid climbed onto his shoulders. He stood up and Kima rose above the crowd.

“We ain’t done yet!” she said. “The bastard’s still alive, he’s gone back to the Lyceum. Which one of you idiots shot him? He’s got a thing on his back that makes him teleport, you break his concentration, he teleports away. Hurt his horse, stop his spells, but don’t attack him directly or he gets away. We’re aiming to capture, not kill here if possible. Got it?” General nodding and murmurs of assent from the crowd.

“You want to get this guy? You do it our way or you’ll die. Or at least, waste a bunch of time chasing him down. We’re going to the Lyceum to fight him, you can come with us or stay here and look like idiots. Your choice. Anyways, we’re leaving, let’s get his ass.”

She tapped Sirus’ hand and he bent down so she could climb off. The guards seemed confused rather than enthusiastic, but Kima didn’t seem to care as she shook the boar bits off her mace, wiped the blood out of her eye, and started back towards the Lyceum at a tired jog. Allura felt ready for a nap herself, but she forced herself to keep pace with Kima and the others.

“You heard her,” said the guard who had organized the archers. “Let’s go!”

Bubbles met them where they had left him, licking feathers from his lips. There was no other sign of the owlcat or, for that matter, the boar. Allura cringed when she saw a hole in the roof of a neighboring building that hadn’t been there before.

Drake cursed when he saw the lesser monsters were gone. “Gods damn him. They must be enchanted to travel with him. We had them secured! Should’ve finished them off when we had the chance.” He kicked at some of the ice that still crusted the street. “We’ll have to take them out first if we want any chance of taking him down.”

“Agreed.” Sirus was rubbing his hand again, flexing his injured fingers. “The stag alone is big and strong but we could take it, given the right circumstances. But the cat and the boar are faster and more maneuverable. Together with the stag, we’re outmatched.”

They kept going. Allura’s wand arm felt almost back to normal, though the quills stuck in her forearm still blazed with pain and there was an ominous residual tingling left in her fingertips. She was exhausted, her head was still pounding, but she felt confident that she still had enough juice left to cast a spell. If she had to.

Still… common sense begrudgingly won out. She went up to Kima.

“I’m not tapped,” she began.

Kima raised an eyebrow. “Pretty convincing argument, that,” she said.

“I’m not. Tapped,” she insisted. “But…”

“There it is,” said Kima. “The ‘but.’ What do you need?”

“If I were to become tapped in the near future,” she said, “I would be very… vulnerable, in a fight. If, say, the owlcat were to corner me, I’d prefer to be able to defend myself.”

“Very sensible.” Kima’s eyes twinkled. “Gimme a second. Hey, hey you!” She caught the attention of a guard with two swords belted to their waist, ran up to them and caught their arm. After a brief exchange, the guard slid one sword in its scabbard off their belt and handed it down to Kima. She clasped their arm in a brief thank-you and returned to Allura.

“You ever used a sword before?”

Allura shook her head.

Kima shrugged, nonplussed. “Thought I’d ask.” She unbuckled her own belt, wincing as the movement aggravated the quills stuck in her arm, then slid the sword to her left hip and rebuckled it. She drew her mace from its loop and handed it handle-first to Allura. “Here.”

She took it. It was much heavier than it looked. “How do I—?”

“Hit them with the pointy end,” said Kima. “The harder the better. Don’t try anything fancy. Use both hands, if you want to.”

“Okay.” Allura felt sick at the thought of hitting anything with it. Bristly brown hairs and chunks of shredded flesh still clung to the spikes. She tried not to look at it as she threaded it through her belt.

“I didn’t know you could use a sword.”

Kima shrugged. “Maces are simpler. With a sword, you cut them a little and they die of sepsis in a week, but they still survive to lop your head off. With a mace, you hit them and they die. Much more straightforward.”

“Hm.”

They reached the square. The food was still scattered across the ground, sadly shredded by many feet. Mercifully no one was in sight. The wall of the Cloudtop District loomed overhead. Strangely, though, there were no sounds of violence coming from the nearby Alabaster Lyceum. No, as she studied the square, there seemed to be a fresh trail of destruction leading in a different direction. Along the wall of the Cloudtop District, almost in the direction of—

“Our base!” yelled Kima, as fresh screams and the boom of an explosion echoed up the street. “No! That fucking bastard! What fucking gives?!”

They took off at a tired run in pursuit of the scourged rider. Bubbles trotted alongside, head low and alert. The guards spread out, clearing the way of panicking people, for which Allura was grateful. They crossed the boulevard, avoiding a stray horse which flattened its ears at them until Bubbles bared his teeth and growled and it turned tail and galloped away. The guards at the gate to the Coudtop District saluted them and pointed in the direction the monsters had gone.

They had just passed the park and were about to turn down the street that led to their base—an ominous smoke cloud marking its location—when the two lesser monsters stepped out from behind a building as if they had been lying in wait.

The boar was missing the spines on the right side of its body; the legs on that side looked oddly mushy as well, something that looked like bone was sticking out of the front one at an odd angle and both legs squished when it pawed the ground. It snorted and lashed its tail. The owlcat was in worse shape; its head dangled at an angle to its neck, gray ichor matting the fur of its chest. Still it clicked its beak and prowled across their path. Definitely undead.

“Dohla,” said Drake, without taking his eyes off the monsters, “draw off the cat. We’ll get that one next. The rest of you,” and he looked at Sirus, Kima, Allura, and Ghenn in turn, “we’ll take the boar. Once they’re down, we can go for the rider.”

They all nodded grim acceptance.

“On my mark,” said Drake. He drew his wand. “Get set.”

Dohla nocked an arrow, drawing the bowstring back to her ear.

“Now!”

Dohla loosed the arrow and in the same instant Bubbles leaped forward; the arrow buried itself in the owlcat’s back, pinning its hand in place. It screeched and sprang at Bubbles, who jumped over it and turned to face it as if to say, Wanna play chase?

Drake’s wand flashed; thunder boomed and a lightning bolt struck the boar directly in the chest. It started up its endless, awful, grunting, squealing roar and charged.

“Brace yourselves!”

Kima moved to the front, drawing her borrowed sword. Ghenn moved forward too, one hand on their holy symbol, golden lance glowing bright in their other hand. Sirus moved to one side, daggers in hand, cloak wrapped around one arm to act as a shield, and Allura fell back, reluctant to get caught in the fray. Around them the guards spread out, readying weapons and shields. Kima’s mace was heavy in Allura’s hand.

The boar struck. Kima stepped neatly out of its path and lopped off its hand with a swing of her sword; Ghenn planted the end of their lance and waited for the boar to come to them. The boar impaled itself on the point, the lance sinking deep into its eye, slowing it, but still it did not stop. Ghenn braced their feet as the boar forced itself closer step by agonizing step, inching down the golden lance, the stump of the arm dripping foul gray fluid as it gnashed its tusks. Its roar was deafening.

Dohla and Bubbles were jumping from rooftop to rooftop, leading the owlcat on a merry game of catch-the-direwolf. Every time it looked like it would catch them, Bubbles would leap ahead to the next building or Dohla would shoot it with an arrow to slow it down.

Sirus and Kima and the guards rushed the boar, trying to attack it on the side no longer protected by quills; it kicked and danced away from them, tethered by the lance, and furiously lashed its tail. People cried out in pain as it hit them, others ducked behind shields or arms or, like Allura, simply backed out of range.

“Distract it!” shouted Kima to Sirus. “I’ll get the tail!”

Sirus darted in, ducking the flailing tail, and in a display of balance and daring unexpected from such a quiet man, set a boot on the boar’s upturned snout and ran lightly up onto its back. Allura clapped a hand to her mouth; the quills there were over a foot long and looked very thick. He must have very little space to safely put his feet. He balanced there, arms outstretched like a scarecrow, then stabbed the boar in the top of the neck.

The boar bucked and squealed and tried to pull free of the lance, but three more guards rushed in and helped Ghenn hold it down. Sirus stabbed it again.

Behind the boar, out of its line of sight, Kima watched the boar’s tail like a schoolgirl watching a jump rope. Suddenly she burst into action, jumping the tail as it swung one way, ducking it as it whipped back, and then she was at its haunches, sword in hand, and her other hand was outstretched to catch the—

“No! screamed Allura.

Kima’s yell of pain hurt worse than teleportation. Even as Allura ran forward, Kima’s sword was flashing down in an arc, and then the tail fell to the ground, twitching and wriggling like a snake. The boar howled and kicked, slime gushing from the stump. Kima dove out of the way of the flying hooves, and then Allura caught her arm and dragged her to safety.

“Are you all right?!”

Kima’s face was sweaty and flushed. She nodded.

“Let me see your hand.”

“There’s no time!”

“Let me see it!”

Two dark shadows passed by close overhead. Bubbles and the owlcat, jumping across the street.

Kima relented. She opened her hand. Dozens of quills, most no more than an inch long, were buried in her palm. Blood was already beginning to well from the wounds, staining her sleeve. She felt queasy.

“Which one hurts the most?”

Kima indicated a quill at the base of her middle finger. “That one. It’s right on the knuckle. Allie, this is stupid, there’s no time!”

Allura ignored her. Steeling herself, she held Kima’s wrist firmly in one hand. “Hold still.”

Bubbles jumped overhead again. Allura flinched. Dohla waved at them from atop the roof.

“Looks like she’s having fu—aAAGK!” Allura had yanked the quill out while Kima was distracted. Kima pulled her hand away and shook it. “Ow!... That is better, though. Thanks.”

“Actually,” said Allura, as Dohla waved at them and shouted something, “I think she’s trying to tell us something.” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “What?”

“Red…!” Dohla waved at them. It was hard to hear anything over the noise from the boar. “Do… same as before! Tell Drake!”

“Oh!” She nodded as big as she could to Dohla and gave her a thumbs up. Dohla gave her one back and leaped away on Bubbles.

She ran over to Drake, Kima at her side. Drake was flinging thunderbolts at the boar, whose exposed side was starting to look like charred meat. “Drake!”

Drake looked up. He was looking haggard. “What is it?”

“Have you got another Bigby’s Hand in you?”

Drake paused for long enough to make her anxious. “Yes.”

“Dohla wants to know if you can do the thing you did before.”

“What, throw it up in the air?” Drake frowned. A spine was jammed in the muscle of his cheek and the blood running from it stained his beard dark red. “Maybe. We’ll see. Kima, can you clear them out of the way?”

“Everybody away from the pig!” yelled Kima. As before, everyone heard and obeyed. The last to remain next to the monster was Ghenn, but then they too took their hands off the lance and backed away.

Dohla was waving again. She pointed at Drake, then held up one finger, then a second, then a third.

The boar shook its head at its sudden freedom. The lance wagged from side to side. It pawed the ground, slippery with its grey ichor.

“On three!” said Allura. “One!”

Drake swept his wand in a familiar gesture and read out the spell. She could see the effort it cost him in his face. The boar charged.

“Two!”

A second Hand made of crimson light appeared in the air and grabbed the boar around the middle. It squealed and thrashed, but the Hand lifted it off its feet. A shadow fell over them as Bubbles sailed overhead.

“Three!”

Boar flew upward as cat leaped across; there was an explosion of fur and feathers and ichor as they collided in midair. They continued upwards for one, two, three seconds, and then reversed direction and fell with an almighty splat onto the street, the cat impaled on the boar’s spines. The boar burst apart as it hit the cobbles; the cat shuddered for a moment and then finally died.

Silence, broken only by exhausted panting and the drip of the monsters’ blood. A few cheers broke out.

Bubbles jumped down from the rooftops. His muzzle was lathered with foam and he was panting heavily. Dohla slid off of his back and walked over to them.

“How are we doing?” asked Drake. “Any serious injuries? We’ve still got another monster to go.” His face was gray and his hands shook.

Kima picked at the spines lodged in her hand, wincing. “If I can get these out I’ll be okay,” she said. “Otherwise I’m down to just my right hand.”

“I’m almost out of arrows,” said Dohla.

“I took more hits than I’d like,” said Sirus, “and my hand is functioning less the more I use it. I can fight, but the sooner we get this over with the better.”

“I’m tapped,” said Drake. “Down to just cantrips for me. “Allura, you look about as tapped as I feel.”

Allura gave a noncommittal shrug. “I feel okay, really.”

“Bullshit, you can barely stand. Ghenn?”

“Not tapped yet, but getting there,” they said. “I think I did something to my wrist holding my lance back there, it hurts a bit. Nothing serious.”

“All right. Let’s take a quick breather, then let’s go.”

They set off again five minutes later in the direction of the Slayers’ base. A few of the guards stayed behind to handle the cleanup of the two dead monsters. Her feet felt sore and swollen in her borrowed boots, and her shoulder was aching again. The quills in her forearm were a constant annoyance, but there was no time to pull them out.

They rounded a corner and saw the flames that engulfed their base. In front of it, standing in a circle of guards, was the silhouette of the scourged rider and his mount. Even from a block away, she could tell he had seen them. This was it.

“Last chance to surrender, asshole,” shouted Kima. “We’ve killed your beastlings. You’re outnumbered twenty to one. You’ve made your point, now it’s time to come quietly.”

The scourged rider laughed. “Never!”

“All right then.” Kima met the eyes of each of the Slayers, lingering on Allura’s last.

“We get the deer first,” said Drake. “Then the rider.”

Nods from all around.

“If you want to drop out, now’s your last chance,” said Drake. “I want everyone to be standing by the end of this fight.” No one moved. “Very well. Ghenn, you said earlier you had something that might work against these monsters, do you have enough juice left to use it?”

Ghenn nodded once. They stepped forward, tiny and frail against the mass of the doublestag, and unclasped their holy symbol from around their neck and held it high above their head.

“In the name of Avandra!” they cried. “Foul, undead creature, you will be destroyed!”

Golden light burst from their clenched fist and washed over the doublestag. Its nostrils flared, and if it had still had eyes in its sockets Allura was sure the whites would have been showing. It quivered all over, legs going stiff—the scourged rider frowned—and then it bolted.

“After it!”

Even with two nonfunctional legs, the doublestag was faster than a horse and surprisingly agile, rounding tight corners at top speed without slowing down. The scourged rider didn’t seem to care about the safety of innocents, driving the stag recklessly through the crowded streets, ploughing through tables laden with food, flinging fireballs at random over his shoulder. The Slayers and the guards ran after it, weapons drawn. The weight of Kima’s mace made her arms burn, but she held it high. Around her the guards were overtaking her, since they were fresh and hadn’t teleported six people and a direwolf halfway across the continent.

They herded the rider towards a street blocked by an aqueduct, but instead of stopping the stag lowered its antlers and met the aqueduct head-on; the stones shuddered and cracked and water spewed across the street as the stag bashed its way through. Allura slipped on the cobbles and fell, cracking her elbow as she tried to catch herself. She got up, elbow smarting, and continued the pursuit.

A fireball struck the middle of the group; she felt the heat of it on her back and then she was lifted and thrown forward, palms skidding across the ground. Her shoulder zinged with pain. She rolled, hoping that if any of her clothes were on fire this would put it out; around her, many of the guards were doing the same. She got to her feet, mud streaking her clothes and matting her hair. She saw Kima doing the same.

A massive shape pranced out of the smoke. Above her loomed the doublestag, the scourged rider scowling from its back. She scowled back and brandished the mace.

The rider laughed. “I’d have loved to have dueled you wizard-to-wizard, but, times being what they are—” He shot a jet of white-hot flames at her and she ducked. “It will be much less fun to kill you this way.”

“Leave her alone!” Kima barrelled towards them and hacked at the doublestag’s legs. The monster kicked, but she dodged and landed a cut on one of its wrong-looking joints. A second leg went limp.

“Fine, if you’re going to be this way…” The rider aimed a fireball at the rallying guards, who scattered again.

Ghenn stepped forward, face dark with righteous anger, brandishing their holy symbol. The doublestag skittered back a step and tossed its head.

“Bubbles, hold!” Dohla’s voice cut through the crowd. The direwolf leaped over the knot of guards in front of him and sprang up onto the stag’s haunches, sinking his six-inch fangs deep into its flesh. The stag bellowed; its legs began to buckle.

“Get it!”

Everyone rushed forward. Swords, axes, polearms, clubs, bare hands—anything that could be used to hit it—descended; the doublestag bellowed and kicked and tried to run but slowly they dragged it to its knees and then to the ground, where they hacked at it again and again until it finally succumbed.

Sirus went to its heads and plunged his hand into its eye socket; with a horrible squelch he withdrew the dagger he’d thrown at it back at the tower. He wiped it on his cloak.

The rider was thrown from its back when it fell; he hit a wall and fell to the ground. Guards and Slayers surrounded him as he slowly got to his feet.

“Surrender.” Sirus pointed the dagger at the man’s throat, his hand dripping gray gore.

The man slowly raised his hands, his wand held loosely between two fingers… and then whipped his hand down and jammed the wand into the meat of his shoulder. Sirus leaped back as white light flashed from the tattoo, the man’s face twisted in pain, and with a crack like a whip he vanished, leaving behind the smell of burning flesh.

Kima let out a primal yell of frustration and fury. “That slimy, slippery little sonofabitch! We had him!” She dropped her sword and punched the wall. “We fucking had him!”

Allura felt like punching the wall too, but she was so tired she could hardly think straight. She dropped the mace and sank to the ground.

“Gods damn it,” said Drake. “We were so close. We have got to stop him from teleporting.”

“How?!” Kima rounded on Drake. “Chop off his head before he gets away? Cut off his tattoos like we did with his victims?! I don’t exactly see him sitting still for that.”

“Easy, Kima.” Drake took her by the shoulder. She brushed his hand away. “We’ll think of something. The guards will help—”

“Like they’ve been helping already?!” Kima said. “Shooting the fucker and making him bamf away again?”

“Like helping us chase down an enemy that’s faster than us when we’re already tired!” Drake raised his voice. “We never would’ve killed that thing without their help and you know it! I’ll thank you, Kima, to show a little gratitude.”

They faced each other for a moment, breathing hard. The guards eyed them warily. Then Kima’s shoulders slumped and she lowered her gaze.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just pissed the fuck off.” She picked up her sword, wiped the blade on her pants, and stuck it back into its sheath. She beckoned with a jerk of her head to Allura. “Come on.”

Allura got to her feet, legs cramping painfully. “Back to the Lyceum, I suppose.”

“Yep.”

They trudged back to the Lyceum in silence. Allura knew they aught to be running, that every second they wasted was a second the scourged rider could be getting away, but she also knew that none of them could muster a faster pace.

She touched Drake’s arm. “I think I know a spell that can stop him.”

He didn’t look up. “What spell?”

“Do you know Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum?”

“No.”

She flipped open her spellbook, ignoring the twinge in her shoulder. “I think it’s intended to create a safe space for the caster, but since the wording says it creates a place that no one can teleport into or out of, if we manage to cast it under the scourged man—”

Drake looked over her shoulder. “Hm. This looks complicated.”

“I know, but—”

“Can you cast it?”

She hesitated. “Maybe.” If I have a nap first.

“It’s not worth the risk, Allura.” Drake looked her in the eye. His face was lined with exhaustion. “We’ll find another way.”

“But—”

“I said no.” Drake closed her spellbook, then moved away.

There were no signs of fresh destruction as they approached the Lyceum, ad Allura wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved or anxious. Relieved because maybe the wizards at the Lyceum had captured him and he wasn’t doing more damage; anxious because what if instead of causing havoc he was sneaking away? They’d never find him.

They stepped over the broken-down gate. The courtyard was ominously empty. The two alarm bells were still clanging incessantly; Allura’s headache made itself known again.

“Where is everyone?” said Drake. “Something’s wrong. Weapons ready.”

They crossed the courtyard and entered the great hall. It was in even worse shape than before: a path of smashed paving stones and charred marble led the way through the broken entrance to the Traverse Junction. A single scared-looking student was timidly sweeping up the rubble with a broom. At the sight of the Slayers and their complement of city guards, all of whom were tired and sweaty, covered with mud, blood, and the gray ichor of the monsters, and festooned with weapons, they dropped their broom.

“Have you seen a tattooed man?” said Drake. “Human, pale, not wearing a shirt. He’s probably come through here several times, now?”

The student nodded and pointed with a shaking finger. “They’ve got him in the Traverse Junction, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Apprehension coiling in her gut, Allura gripped the handle of Kima’s mace and followed the others through the hole in the wall.

A circle of wizards was standing on the main circle, wands aimed at a figure kneeling in the center. He looked up as the Slayers joined the circle and locked eyes with Allura.

His hands were tied behind him but it hardly looked necessary; he looked as if he could hardly move, his body shaking with every labored breath. His pants were tattered, hanging off his emaciated body. His skin was red and blistered, the tattoos sunk deep into his flesh, and when he spoke his chapped lips cracked and bled.

“Miss Vysoren,” he rasped. She glared at him. “Have you come to kill me?”

A guard with an extra plume on her helmet stepped forward. Allura guessed she was their captain. “You’re under arrest, whoever the hell you are,” she said. “In the name of—”

But the man was still talking. “It would be easy to defeat me in my current state,” he said. “Look at me. I’m helpless. My beastlings are dead. I’ve used—” he paused as a hacking cough shook his body, spitting blood onto the floor “—one too many spells.” He wiped his mouth on his shoulder, leaving a red streak.

“A chamber is being prepared for him even as we speak,” said one of the wizards, a professor she recognized from earlier, to the captain. “It must be magically secure, you see, or he’ll just come back here. He seems to have put some spell on himself that has gone badly wrong—”

“But what’s this?” said the man, his tone mocking. “A mace? Can it be, the great and powerful Allura Vysoren has run out of spells as well?”

“Shut up,” she hissed.

“Tut, tut,” said the man. He was grinning now. “How careless of you. But to choose a weapon as crude as a mace… Throw that away, Miss Vysoren, and fight me like a wizard. A real wizard.”

“I said, shut up.” Her knuckles were white on the handle of Kima’s mace and she could feel herself shaking, though whether from anger, exhaustion, or fear she wasn’t sure. Her eyes prickled. “You’ve lost. We aren’t going to fight you.”

“He cannot be allowed to stay in the Junction any longer than absolutely necessary,” said Xanthas to the captain. “This is a high traffic area, and all three circles must be operational at all times.”

“He cannot be safely moved until we have some method of negating the teleportation effect,” retorted one of the wizards.

“We may be able to help with that,” said Ghenn. “His victims—”

“I seem to recall that mace being wielded by someone else last time we fought,” said the scourged man. “What a close-knit team you all seem to be. Generously lending you their tools of war simply because you’re too weak a spellcaster to keep up…” His eyes traveled to each Slayer in turn, evaluating, calculating. She kept her expression blank and icy. “What are they to you, I wonder? Coworkers? Acquaintances? Friends?” His gaze lingered on Kima. “Lovers?”

“No!”

“Hmm.” He appeared to think for a moment, sagging into himself. “I wonder what you would do if I—”

He whipped his hand out from behind his back, needlelike wand clenched in his fist, pointing at Kima’s heart, the first words of a spell forming in his mouth. Allura didn’t think, she didn’t even draw her wand, she just sketched a Counterspell and poured all the energy she could into it.

The magic jarred as it raced through her body, reigniting already-scorched nerves. She cried out, but she kept holding her arms up even though she couldn’t feel them. Her vision narrowed. The only thing that mattered was stopping whatever horrible curse he was about to put on Kima.

A flash of white light. The spell fizzled.

Oh good, thought Allura, and passed out.

She awoke to soft pillows and warm light. Her head ached. Her mouth was full of a foul, earthy flavor, and when she tried to move, her muscles were as stiff as an old woman’s. She flexed her fingers and to her relief she could feel them, though they buzzed and tingled like she had bees instead of blood. Something was restricting the movement of her left arm. She opened her eyes.

She was in a narrow bed in a room with yellow sandstone walls and late-afternoon sunlight streaming in the window. Her arm was in a sling. Gingerly she prodded her bottom lip with her tongue but the cut was gone; her bruised elbow, skinned palms, and the forearm that had caught the quills all felt whole as well. Her hair was still muddy; she could feel it itching on her scalp as it dried.

Kima was slumped in a chair beside her, still in her dented breastplate and pants smeared with monster gunk. Her left hand was bandaged. She sighed a little with each breath, asleep.

She had to try speaking twice before noise came out. “Kima?”

Kima stirred, raising her head and blinking like an owl. She caught her eyes. “Oh thank the gods.”

She stood up so fast she knocked the chair over and threw her arms around Allura. Allura hugged her back as tightly as she could with only one arm.

“Where are we?” Allura’s throat felt like she had swallowed sand. “How long was I out?”

“Temple of Sarenrae,” said Kima, and instantly she recognized the yellow sandstone. “Only about an hour.”

“The rider!” Allura sat bolt upright, and had to sink back onto the pillows as the room spun. She squeezed her eyes shut until the pain in her skull subsided.

“Still kicking, unfortunately,” said Kima. “After you stopped his spell, they got his wand away from him and wrestled him to the floor. Since he was already on the circle he couldn’t teleport anywhere, so they tied him back up and then when they were done putting anti-bamf charms or whatever on the holding cell, moved him there.”

“So he’s still alive?” Allura felt ill at the thought of having to fight him again. “What if he escapes?”

“He won’t. Some bigwig from the Lyceum’s gonna be watching him at all times, someone way stronger than him. They’re taking his tattoos off, too, once he recovers a bit. And they’re trying to figure out who he is.”

“Good.”

A pleasant silence stretched between them. Allura took one of Kima’s hands in her own, turning it over and exploring its calloused terrain. The sunlight hurt her head to look at but it felt deliciously warm and it soothed her aching muscles.

“Allie…”

“Hm?” Allura opened her eyes and realized Kima was frowning. “What’s up?”

“Why’d you have to go and do something so stupid, huh?”

Allura was taken aback by the sudden emotion in her voice. “I don’t know what you—”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Kima pulled her hand out of Allura’s grip. “There were a dozen other wizards in the room who could’ve stopped that spell. Why’d you have to go and do it?”

“I had to!” protested Allura. “There is a very limited window in which a Counterspell—”

“Don’t give me that shit!” Kima stood up angrily. She jabbed accusingly at Allura’s chest. “You were tapped after you teleported us, everyone could see it! You could hardly stand! It would’ve been fine if you’d just sat the rest of the fight out, but no, you’re too proud to admit when you’ve had enough! Why can’t you be sensible?!”

“I’m not weak.” Allura drew herself up as far as she could in the bed and raised her chin. “I’m not about to lie down and take a nap while the rest of you go out to fight a monster.”

“None of us think you’re weak!” Kima was going red in the face. “You moved all six of us across the country in a second by drawing some shit on the floor and saying some words! That’s fucking nuts! If you’d needed a nap after that, none of us would’ve judged you!”

“That’s not the point!” Allura crossed her arms. “He was trying to kill you! What was I supposed to do, let him do it?”

“You almost died, Allura!” Kima’s voice broke. “The healers said you might have permanent nerve damage. Or you might never wake up at all.” Her face tightened, mouth tugging down into a frown. Her lip trembled. She looked down. “You’re my—you’re my best friend, Allie. You think I want to lose you?”

Allura dropped her gaze, chagrined.

“No,” she said quietly. “Of course not.”

KIma sat back down on the bed.

Allura took a deep breath. “You’re… right,” she said with difficulty. “I acted rashly, and without concern for my own safety. As a wizard I should know above all that magic is dangerous, and I forgot that today. It won’t happen again.” She met Kima’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Kima hugged her again even more fiercely. Allura pretended not to notice when she wiped her nose, or see the wet spots on her shoulder when she pulled away. “You’re my best friend too, you know?”

“I know now.” Kima kicked her boots off and climbed fully up onto the bed, armor and all. She sat on Allura’s legs and leaned against the wall. “You can be an ass sometimes, you know? But I like you.”

They stayed in the Temple of Sarenrae for several days, since their base had burnt down. The healers prescribed bed rest for her and Drake, and forbade her from doing magic for at least a week. She thought they were being a bit extreme; forbidding even cantrips was ridiculous. She knew her limits. Casting a magelight so she could see the toilet at night wouldn’t hurt her.

Sirus and Nessa were also at the Temple since they both needed major healing. She didn’t see them as often as Dohla or Ghenn or Kima, who popped into her room several times a day—mostly out of boredom, she suspected—but Sirus visited often enough. He didn’t end up losing any fingers, though two remained unpleasantly knobbly. She visited Nessa as soon as she could stand for more than a few minutes without passing out.

The pins and needles in her arms and legs subsided after a few hours, leaving only a residual tingling and a numb patch on the pad of her right thumb that stubbornly refused to go away. The healers said it might improve with time, but more than likely—they said with a chastising glance—it would be here to stay. She refused to let herself feel ashamed; she had already made her amends with Kima and that was all that mattered. The healers had done nothing to deserve her groveling for forgiveness. Still, it was a sobering reminder of the seriousness of her near miss. Kima was right, she would have to be more careful.

The migraine that came with the overuse of magic kicked in soon after she woke up, and was one of the worst she’d ever had. It felt like one of Sirus’ daggers was lodged behind her eyes, and every time she moved too quickly or spoke too loudly or looked at too bright a light it jarred and worked itself deeper. She covered the window, but she knew from experience there was little she could do but grit her teeth and wait it out. At least she wasn’t nauseous this time, a fact for which she was pathetically grateful, though she did get dizzy whenever she sat or stood. It lasted for three full days.

Their base, it turned out, had burned to the ground. Much of it had been blown apart by the force of the rider’s fireballs, and the parts that were intact had collapsed as their support structures burned away. Allura mourned the loss of all her clothes—the shirt and pants she’d been wearing were borrowed from Ghenn—her personal possessions, and worst of all, her books. She knew the others were doing the same, though they rarely mentioned it out loud. She suspected the loss was particularly hard on Kima, since the base had been her only real home for a long time, but Kima was careful not to show it and Allura was careful not to ask.

The first night in the Temple after their fight with the Scourged Rider—that was the name they had given the captain of the guard, and that was the name that had stuck—she had to use the toilet but even though standing up made the room swirl around her she couldn’t quite bring herself to use the bedpan, so she felt her way down the hall to the bathroom, laying a hand on the wall to keep herself upright.

As she was making her way back to her room, feeling much more comfortable, she heard a small sound, the hiss of breath between teeth, coming from behind a closed door. She paused, curious.

Silence. The clink of metal followed by the rustling of fabric. Then, Kima’s voice. “Ouch. Fuck.”

She hesitated, then tapped on the door. “Kima?”

A metallic clatter as something was knocked over. “Shit!” A pause, then the sound of shuffling feet. Kima opened the door.

She was wearing a pair of clean, comfortable pants, the same kind Allura was wearing, which the Temple had provided, but she was still wearing her caved-in breastplate. Her pauldrons were in her hand; she guessed that was what had fallen.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

Allura shrugged. “Are you okay? I thought I heard something.”

Kima opened the door wider and beckoned her inside with a jerk of her head. Allura found herself in a room very similar to her own, small with a narrow bed, a table, and a chair under the window. A bowl of water with a rag in it was steaming on the table. Allura sat on the bed. It was just as comfortable as her own.

Kima shut the door and sat heavily in the chair. “I’m just trying to get this stupid armor off,” she said. “The buckle’s got bent, and with this hand…” She indicated her left hand, still wrapped in bandages.

“Do you want some help?”

Kima looked at her curiously, evaluating. “Sure.”

The breastplate had three straps, all of which buckled in the back: one that went around her waist, which she had already undone, and two that crossed from each shoulder to the opposite hip. The buckle of the topmost one was indeed bent out of shape, pinching the leather strap in place.

With a little cajoling from Allura’s fingers the buckle came free, and the unbent one under it was even easier. Kima took hold of the breastplate by the collar and slowly eased it off, clamping her jaw shut and screwing up her face like she was peeling off a stuck bandage. As the armor came away she saw why: a dark brown bloodstain in the center of her chest, right where the biggest dent had been. Her eyes widened.

“The deer did that?!”

“Some of it, yeah.” Kima started unlacing the ties on her shirt cuffs. “It’s been chafing since then, though; I think that’s where the blood came from.”

Before Allura could digest all that, she reached back and pulled off her shirt. Allura’s brain stuttered to a halt.

“Gods, that’s much better,” said Kima, tossing the shirt aside. A blotchy purple bruise bloomed across the center of her chest, in between her—her very shapely breasts, Allura saw. She blinked rapidly. She hoped the dark would hide the heat she felt rising in her cheeks. On top of the bruise was a large burst blister, and the skin around it was crusted with dried blood and trapped fibers from her shirt. Kima took the rag from the bowl and wrung it, then dabbed at the wound.

Allura found herself reaching out before she could stop herself. She snatched her hand back.

“It’s okay, you can touch,” said Kima. She was studying Allura again with the same intense, evaluating expression. “I ain’t delicate.”

“No, I—” They were just breasts. Lots of people had them. “Here. Let me.”

She took the rag from Kima, who held it for a second before relenting and releasing it. The water must’ve had something herbal in it; the steam rising from the rag smelled oddly fragrant. Kima was looking at her intently, watching her face. She dropped her gaze and dabbed at the wound with the rag, found she couldn’t see, and got down on her knees so her shadow didn’t fall in the way.

Kima’s chest rose and fell under Allura’s hand; her breath tickled her fingers. Water trickled down her sternum to the fine dark hairs on her belly. She hissed as the cloth met the edge of the blister.

“Sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Kima’s voice seemed tighter than usual; Allura hoped she wasn’t angry with her for making it hurt. “I was going to clean it myself anyways.”

“You fought like this all day?”

“Mhm.” Kima was looking away, her eyes distant; her knuckles were white on the edge of the chair. “Didn’t really notice it till I stopped moving. My hand hurt worse, anyways.”

“This is a bad bruise,” she said. “Do you think it’s broken?”

Kima grimaced. “Better hope not. That’d be a real bitch to heal.”

“Have you broken your sternum before?”

“I broke a couple ribs a few years back.” Kima glanced quickly down at her, then away again. “Got nailed in the ribs by a giant snake. Batted me like an apple. Damn things took months to heal. Make sure you get lots of water in the cuts, the healers said it’s antiseptic. Ooh, that stings.” She screwed up her face again.

Allura squeezed the rag against her chest; rivulets of water ran down her stomach. She moved the rag to catch them before they reached her waistband. Kima flinched and breathed in sharply.

She patted her dry with the edge of her sleeve, lacking any other clean dry cloth aside from the bedsheets. “You’re all clean.” She got to her feet. “Wait.” The cut on Kima’s forehead had long since scabbed over, but there was still a line of dried blood crusted onto her cheek.

Kima’s eyes were very dark, the pupils almost indistinguishable from the irises, two round chips of onyx in the lamplight. Unable to look away she dipped the rag back in the bowl, shaking off the bits of debris, and squeezed it out. The blood came off with the first few swipes of the cloth, but she let her hand linger there far longer than necessary. Kima watched her wordlessly, her face inscrutable.

“I should probably get back to my room,” said Allura. “I’m not supposed to be out of bed, after all.”

“Yeah.” Kima’s hand rose to cover hers, and Allura pressed the cooling rag into her palm.

Their fingers brushed as Kima slowly took it. “G’night, Allie.”

“Goodnight.” She crossed the three steps to the door, opened it, and padded back down the hall. Alone in her bedroom, she lay awake for a long time, puzzling over what had occurred.

Once her headache had improved enough to see by lamplight, she wrote a letter to her father to explain why she had missed Highsummer. She cheerfully added details about joining the Slayers and the success she had found fighting the bear-thing and learning to teleport.

His reply, when it arrived a few days later, was short and disappointed. She must’ve looked upset when she read it because Kima snatched it out of her hand, scanned it quickly, and tore it into shreds.

“What a prick!” she said. “He’s got no idea how far you’ve come! Total lack of respect… Sorry, Allie, I know he’s your dad.”

Allura felt a sudden rush of affection and gratitude for Kima, and maybe it was the lingering pain behind her eyes or the turmoil of the last few days, but her eyes were brimming over and she couldn’t choke out a coherent answer because she was right and her father really was a miserable, insufferable old prick.

And then Kima was holding her and stroking her hair while she sobbed into her shoulder, and it was exactly what she needed.

“Tell you what,” said Kima into her ear, “next Highsummer, I’ll go with you to your dad’s. For moral support.”

Allura sniffed but didn’t let go. “That would be nice,” she said.

On the fourth day she and Kima and Ghenn were sitting on her bed playing cards when Drake came in, followed by Sirus and Dohla, followed by a red-cloaked guard wearing brass armor, followed by a tall human man with black hair and beard who was dressed in elegant red robes and carried himself with an air of power. She dropped her cards. Kima turned around. “Oh shit.”

Emperor Uriel Tal’dorei III seemed to fill the room, despite being a man of average proportions. The crown on his head glinted in the light from the newly uncovered window. His eyes were serious but not unkind. Allura wasn’t sure whether she should get up or stay where she was; with the addition of the others her small room was uncomfortably crowded. She could see more red-cloaked guards out in the hallway, too.

Kima looked uncomfortable; she turned around on the bed to face him and sat next to Allura with her back against the wall. They met each other’s eyes. What was the emperor doing here?

The emperor acknowledged them with a slight inclination of his head. “Am I correct in assuming that I am speaking to the group known as the Silver Slayers?”

Nods from all around.

“Do you have a designated leader?”

Drake raised his hand. "I usually handle our interactions with the public.”

“Very well.” The emperor drew himself up. “I wanted to ensure that you had time to rest and heal before I paid a visit. I have come to congratulate you on your defeat of the Scourged Rider, and to give my personal thanks for your services to my city.” He beckoned to the guards outside with a small motion of his hand; two of them shuffled into the room carrying a heavy chest which they set at the foot of the bed with a thump. Allura heard coins jingling inside. “Your reward: twelve thousand gold.”

A ringing silence. Allura’s jaw dropped.

“In addition to that,” continued the emperor, “since I believe your base was destroyed, I am granting you quarters in the Citrine Garrison.”

“Are you serious?!” Kima’s voice came out a squeak. “Us? In the Cloudtop District?!”

The emperor’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “I am completely serious. The keys are in the chest, I can have one of my guards show you the way or I can inform the guards at the Cloudtop District that you will be in need of directions. My only request is that you continue to defend my city as valiantly as you did against the Scourged Rider.”

“That is very generous of you, your majesty,” said Drake. He bowed low. “Thank you.”

“The thanks is mine,” said the emperor. “When my council informed me of the existence of a powerful rogue wizard, I must confess we were underprepared. If the six of you had not had the lead you did on discovering his location, many more lives would have been lost.”

“Glad we could help.” Drake smiled.

“I have other duties I must attend to,” said the emperor. “I regret I cannot stay longer, it was a pleasure meeting you in person. I’m sure we’ll see more of each other soon. Until next time.” He nodded to them again and exited, followed by his red-cloaked guard.

They sat in stunned silence until they heard the door slam at the end of the hall. They all started talking at once.

“Twelve thousand gold?!” Dohla laughed, loud as always. “We’re rich!”

“And a house in the Cloudtop District!” said Kima.

“He came in person! The emperor knows who we are!” Ghenn looked shell-shocked. “I’m not hallucinating, am I? That really just happened?”

Drake, grinning broadly, grabbed Dohla around the waist and swooped her down for a theatrical kiss, made all the more exaggerated by their difference in height. Dohla shrieked like a schoolgirl and kissed him back. Kima clapped Ghenn so hard on the back they almost fell off the bed, then turned and gave Allura a big hug, laughing. “I just can’t believe it!”

Even Sirus was smiling where he was leaning by the door, arms crossed. “We should move in sooner than later, I think,” he said. “And find somewhere more secure to put this.” He indicated the chest of gold.

Dohla straightened up, cheeks a deep forest green. “I agree,” she said. “Allura, are you good to leave the Temple?”

Allura reluctantly pulled herself away from Kima a little. “I think so,” she said. “My head feels better, and my arms stopped tingling days ago.” She still felt weak, but she suspected that was from laying in bed for half a week rather than from overuse of magic.

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” said Drake. “Let’s move in!”

Walking into the Cloudtop District for the first time felt like trespassing, or at the very least like just visiting. It was strange to be greeted with smiles and pats on the back from the gate guards instead of their usual cold indifference. One of the guards, a half-elf who introduced herself as Amber, showed them the way to the Citrine Garrison.

The Garrison was not, as the name suggested, made of citrine, but it was made of an unusual amber-colored sandstone which must’ve come from outside Emon. It stood out even among the jewel-painted mansions of the Cloudtop District, a massive Gothic structure second in size only to the palace. She was privately relieved to see that it was such a beautiful building—she had been worried that it would be just another dorm.

Their quarters turned out to be a sprawling suite that took over the end of the entire upper floor of the western wing overlooking the skyport. A comfortable living space opened onto a long kitchen connected to six bedrooms, with a luxurious bathroom at the far end. The kitchen was dominated by a massive circular stone hearth in the center of the room, with a cooking area up against the bathroom wall and a round table with matching chairs at the near end.

The bedrooms were already furnished with a wide bed, a tall wardrobe, an empty bookshelf, and a desk. Each bedroom had a window, and the bathroom, which formed the end cap of the wing, had windows on three sides. Even to Allura’s eyes it was almost obscene in its splendor; a square bath large enough to bathe a horse was sunk into the floor in the middle, and on the floor around it were piles of fluffy white towels. An actual flush toilet stood behind a screen. The room was full of light and the windows had been tastefully tinted different colors to give the occupants a sense of privacy. Chips of multicolored light splashed against the polished limestone walls.

Allura had to sit down. It was too much.

They spent the next few hours moving in—if you could call them moving their few surviving possessions from the Temple of Sarenrae to the Citrine Garrison “moving in.” Allura took a brief detour to Abdar’s Promenade to buy some clothes; she felt awkward still wearing the basic garments the Temple had provided, they felt like pajamas. She eyed the jeweled gowns hungrily, but there wasn’t time for that yet.

She sank onto her new bed and gazed out the window. An airship was just lifting off from the tower of the skyport, its engines glowing brilliantly turquoise as it slowly banked and powered off towards the western horizon. Bound for Issylra, she guessed. Or maybe Marquet. The sun slowly dipped beneath the Ozmit Sea, throwing the ship into sharp silhouette, until it disappeared from view.

A light tap at the door. She jumped. She’d thought all of her teammates had gone out for the evening. She crossed to the door and opened it, expecting Kima.

But it was Sirus.

“Hello,” she said, unsure. He still made her a little nervous. Sure, she trusted him—she had to as a member of the same team—but of all her teammates, she felt like she knew him the least. Open and talkative he was not. “I thought everyone had gone to the bar.”

Sirus shrugged. He was wearing black, per usual, but it was just a loose shirt and pants instead of armor. She didn’t see any daggers, but she didn’t doubt that they were there. Unusually, his hair was down, and it hung in wavy ginger locks around his shoulders. His intense gaze made her feel as if she was being X-rayed. “I came back early. Didn’t feel much like getting drunk.”

It seemed to be true; she didn’t smell any alcohol on his breath. She wavered in the doorway.

When she didn’t say anything, he said, “You’re not at the bar either, I notice.”

“I don’t drink.” The doorknob was sweaty in her hand. “I’ve always been a lightweight.”

“Ah.” He did not lift his gaze. He lounged against the doorway, a show of relaxation, like a cat sprawled on the ground before a hungry dog. He sighed, another show. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you in private, actually, Allura. May I come in?”

She hesitated a fraction of a second. “Of course.”

She opened the door all the way and Sirus followed her inside. He took in her new clothes, hastily thrown in the wardrobe, and the cluttered sheafs of paper scattered across the desk which she was planning to add to her spellbook, but he made no comment. She perched on the edge of the bed and he diplomatically took the chair.

“Do you want some tea? I have some, here—” She indicated the half-full teapot and old mugs on the desk. He inclined his head, and with a snap of her fingers the water was hot again and she poured him a cup. He took a sip and held it between his hands. She poured herself a second cup and did the same.

“How are you settling in?” asked Sirus.

Allura almost choked on her tea. “What, here?”

“In the Slayers.” Sirus was watching her again. She shifted uncomfortably. “You only joined, what, a month ago? How are you finding it?”

She sipped her tea, considering. “It’s… not what I expected. It’s exciting. Scary, sometimes. But good overall.”

“Good.” Sirus lounged in the chair, crossed his legs. “You fit well with the team. You had a bit of a rough start, I'll admit, but you’re a strong and talented caster. We’re lucky to have you.”

She blushed at the praise and tucked her hair behind her ear, rubbing the back of her neck. “Thank you.”

“How are you doing after our last… adventure?” he said. “You got a taste of what this life is like. We kill things. Things get messy. People get hurt.” He flexed his right hand. “If this is something you aren’t comfortable doing, you’re welcome to back out at any time. None of us would blame you.”

“I may be squeamish, but I’m not a coward,” she said, an edge creeping into her voice. “I know what I signed up for. I’m not going back to freelancing.”

Sirus held up his hand, palm out. “Peace. You don’t have to convince me.”

“Why did you come here, anyway?” she said, hackles still up. Sirus was doing his best to be nonthreatening, but she was still acutely aware of her own smallness next to his lanky form. “Surely you didn’t come here just for a chat and a cup of tea?”

Sirus smiled. “Each of us on this team has a function outside of what weapons we wield in battle,” he said. “Gehn takes care of finances. Drake manages our public image. I,” he said, leaning forward, “make sure we function as a team.”

She sipped her tea and said nothing. The cup was a flimsy barrier between them.

“I’ve never liked having a discussion where other people could overhear,” he said. “I’m accustomed to dealing with sensitive information, you see… A hard habit to overcome. In fact, I apologize for intruding on your privacy tonight when we’re all so tired.”

He set his nearly full mug on the desk and leaned forward, interlacing his fingers. “We don’t have very many hard-and-fast rules in the Slayers, Allura. But—”

“Have I done something wrong?” She gripped her mug tightly.

“We don’t exactly discourage relationships between team members,” he said. “Hells, Drake and Dohla are married. But what we do discourage is hiding a relationship. To function best as a whole we need complete and total honesty between—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Allura. Her heart was pounding faster than normal. “I’m not hiding a relationship. I’m not in a relationship. Who would I—”

But she already knew. She thought about the strange, fluttery feeling in her chest when Kima had held her and stroked her hair; of the way she couldn’t seem to stop looking at her soft curves and strong arms and quick smile; of the way she responded so bigly to everything, with strong morals and a merciless mace; of the not-quite-discomfort in the air between them that night in the Temple; of how when she saw her get hurt it was agony to watch.

Fuck.

Sirus was X-raying her again. “I see now,” he said. “You’re not deceiving me, I was mistaken. You’re in love with Kima, aren’t you?”

From far away she felt herself nod. “But I don’t think…. She doesn’t know. Or isn’t interested.”

Sirus sat next to her on the bed and put his arm around her. His touch was surprisingly tender. Her eyes filled up, but she was still in too much shock to cry.

“You should tell her.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “She’s my best friend! I value her friendship over… well, everything.” Over her own dubious feelings. Over what was probably a meaningless infatuation caused by a two-year dry spell. “I don’t want that to change. I’m not even attracted to women!” She took a sip of her tea. “I think.”

“Alternatively,” said Sirus, “if you ever want to bury your feelings, my room is just across the kitchen. I’m available—” he checked an imaginary watch “—oh, would you look at that. Every night for the foreseeable future.”

She blushed as she realized what he was offering. “Thank you,” she said. “Not tonight. I think… I need some time to myself right now.”

“I understand.” Sirus stood gracefully and picked up his tea from the desk. “The others won’t be back until late. Go take a bath, eat some food, relax.” He crossed to the door. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything.” He closed the door behind him, leaving nothing but the smell of tea and the fading warmth of his arm.

Allura kept it together until she heard the click of Sirus’ door and then she flung herself down on her pillow and sobbed.

Kima.

Fuck.