Yenna threw the key.

A defining moment of petty behaviour, but the witch Yenna could think of nothing else. The moment the Ledger stepped back, the moment she realised what had been pressed into her hand, she threw the key straight at its head. The key connected with a tink of metal on metal, inexplicably audible over the cacophonous sound of the ghouls. It bounced and arced slowly through the air, landing neatly in the Ledger’s waiting palm.

In an instant, the Ledger was pushing the key back into Yenna’s hand. There was a crack of displaced air as the armoured figure moved at speeds beyond anything Yenna could conceivably track—it was over there one moment, and an entire pace forward the next. A wash of humid air blasted over the witch, and she countered with a furious burst of fire and lightning.

“Damn you! I won’t be a party to your evil!”

“You will use the key. It is Fate.”

Yenna shouted, a wordless, rebellious yell as she washed the Ledger with a hail of ice shards and a torrent of high-pressure water. The force of her blasts had carved deep furrows in the stone around the figure of implacable black metal, with a clear cone of untouched ground immediately behind it. The armour was impenetrable, as indestructible as the cover of the black books themselves, with the diamond-white joints similarly impervious to harm.

Searching deeper into her magic, the witch pulled forth the betwixt-colours, concepts she had only recently begun to wrap her head around. Tumultuous ice-water sealed around the Ledger as she threw the key again—this time, away, into the crowd of ghouls. By a twist of luck, one of the writhing horde lifted their head and knocked it back, redirecting it once again to a place where the Ledger could catch it. A shell of ice in its shape stood half-shattered where it had been, utterly unimpeded.

Upon her whim Yenna called the molten power of passion, the heat of anger and the strength of certainty, passing a wave of orange light through the ground to liquefy the floor beneath the Ledger. But where any armoured knight would have sunk deep into the ground, the construct before her stepped across the liquid stone surface with all the weight of a fallen feather.

The witch called around her a cloak of billowing grandeur, all the crackling power of pride and majesty of the flow. A purple haze of sparks arced off of the Ledger, bolts strong enough to shatter stone fizzling as mere sparks against the construct’s slow advance. A piece of Yenna’s conscious mind connected the reason for its advance—her own legs had betrayed her, and were quietly stepping back, away from the horrid creature, ever closer to the edge.

Movement caught the witch’s attention out of the corner of her eye. A streak of red, sailing towards the Ledger—Narasanha, come to aid her in battle! But some instinct told her that there was a problem. The bodyguard was not diving, no graceful swooping of a bird-of-prey—she was an uncontrolled mass, flung directly towards an immovable object.

Yenna’s heart caught in her chest, and she moved to slow the guard’s flight. A wry thought occurred to her—what is it in Fate’s plan that decreed we should be catching each other so often?

A whirling wind and washing wave redirected the energy of Narasanha’s flight, curving her with the flow to deposit her safely by Yenna’s side. There had been no art to the spell, but it wasn’t necessary—a simple wave of the witch’s hand, and her power had followed her will. Narasanha leapt to her feet, though Yenna noted she did so with difficulty. The guard grit her teeth, stood despite her numerous bruises and cuts, and looked up at Yenna.

The pair locked eyes. Narasanha looked even worse than before, her face a mess. Her hair was matted with blood, her bare body covered in injuries. Yenna wasn’t sure how she knew, but the bodyguard was in a critical condition. One of her legs had a fractured bone, yet she stood on it through sheer will. Most of her ribs lay shattered, and several organs were split and damaged. The only thing keeping the bodyguard standing was adrenaline, anger… and love.

Love? Yenna didn’t know what to make of that. Her senses, the same nearly-mind-reading sense of intuition that had appeared back in Hilbar, picked apart that feeling to make sense of it, only to be distracted by a new, chilling sensation. Narasanha was also afraid. Narasanha was afraid of Yenna.

Barely open through bruises, Narasanha’s one working eye nonetheless opened wide as she looked at the witch, and for a moment Yenna saw a sense of herself through the woman’s emotional state. Yenna’s robes and caparison were burned away nearly to nothing, her skin covered in stone-like hide that rippled with fire and lightning. Her eyes shone with otherworldly light and poured with tears, and what was left of her hair billowed freely in a wind of the witch’s own creation. She was an avatar of magic, an awe-inspiring idol of power—and just like Narasanha, Yenna could tell that she didn’t have long before the consequences of her actions caught up with her.

Yenna blinked, and reached down to Narasanha.

“You’re dying…” With a sob, Yenna put a hand on Narasanha’s cheek. “You’re going to die. We’re both…”

The bodyguard grunted and tore her gaze away—pulled her face away from Yenna’s grasp. She turned to face Nadhan.

“I’ll die on my feet.”

It was too much. Yenna didn’t want anyone to die. She didn’t want to die. All the witch wanted was the power to stop this tragedy from playing out, but all the power she had was of no use.

“I won’t let you die.”

Yenna stepped forward—forcibly turned her attention away from the Ledger—and swept out a hand at Nadhan. Once again the warrior prepared herself to dodge, wary of Yenna’s last trick, but the witch was leaving nothing to chance. Telekinetic force in the form of wind gripped Nadhan’s entire being, froze her in place. The warrior struggled, but Yenna wouldn’t relent—she turned the methods of sealing away that had failed on the Ledger to incapacitating Nadhan. The earth below her turned to flowing liquid, and Yenna forced the warrior down to her neck into a temporary prison of stone.

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“D-Don’t.” Narasanha reached over, put a hand on Yenna’s shoulder. The skin of her hand made a horrid hissing noise, burned by the witch’s flaming aura, but she didn’t pull back. “Don’t kill her. That’s for me.”

“I won’t. You won’t. No more.”

Yenna let go. She could feel something within her falling apart, some vital function crumbling away as the seconds went on. Yenna stumbled in place as she turned to face the Ledger once more, leaning against Narasanha.

The guard grunted in pain, flames and lightning licking at the woman’s injured flesh. Still, she stood solid, prepared to meet her end. Yenna didn’t understand it, tried to pull herself away—why would this woman who she barely knew want so strongly to hold her, even when it hurt so badly?

Yenna wanted so desperately to make it stop hurting—to make Narasanha better, to fix her. Yet, she didn’t have any healing magic. She could not repair internal organs or knit back bones with magecraft, nor could she do so with witchcraft—the latter was too violent, too dangerous and artless to wield, while the former required techniques and arcane machinery that she didn’t understand. So, once again, she prayed.

I can’t let her die!

Willing herself to stand, as the Ledger watched their struggle with impassive stillness, Yenna reached out her heart and soul and found a connection. Something was reaching out to her—something familiar, something that seemed for a moment to linger over the scene as a helpless observer before remembering its ability to act. That nameless something vanished, and with its disappearance it brought salvation.

The gentle ringing of a shop-bell pulled Yenna away from her dire thoughts, and she looked up to see a door. Standing freely, a blue door swung open, and through it stepped a familiar face.

“What have you done to yourself, mage?”

The old silupker witch Lumale walked through the threshold with all the urgency of a midday stroll. Her earthenware hooves clicked against the stone floor, though they were swiftly followed by a pair of small, scurrying feet.

“Master Yenna! I heard you!”

Dropping down from Lumale’s back was Tirk. Sweet, angel-faced Tirk, his wide black eyes pouring with tears, cheeks red from crying. He did not shy away from anything in this twisted space, the site of a grand ritual that gave even Lumale pause. The Ledger did not react to either of them—it waited patiently, an inert thing with its work already done.

“T-Tirk…” Yenna sighed, a deep sigh of relief. “Oh, Tirk. I… I called out for help, but I wasn’t expecting–”

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Tirk tried his best to smile. “Narasanha needs help, and that’s why I’m here! And I brought your master, master! To help you!”

Yenna looked up at the old witch. Lumale looked back. “I do not know how he found my door, but I must admit I was… curious. I’m not sure I’ll be able to piece you back together.”

Narasanha stood, scowling in pain as she held Yenna up with one shaking hand, staring down at Nadhan. She only turned and looked over as Tirk put one tiny hand against her leg.

“A blessed voice cries out from beyond; I am its servant, and its conduit.” Tirk’s horn began to glow, a gentle halo of rainbow light as he spoke in words not his own. “Take of my light, of my kindness—know that the Sun shines upon you.”

A shimmering sphere of glowing light, as bright as the sun, enveloped Narasanha. Yenna was forced to look away, though no one else did—when she looked back, the bodyguard’s injuries were gone. Yenna also realised she wasn’t leaning on Narasanha any more—hard earthen hands clasped Yenna by the shoulders, as her mentor in witchcraft performed a spell.

“You’ve pulled loose the bindings on your soul, mage. Hah! If you weren’t so ready for it, you would have annihilated your very being.” Lumale seemed amused, though Yenna was absolutely not—she could feel the power billowing around her fading, all that bluster for nothing, a stupid moment that hadn’t achieved anything. Was she really going to fade away, to die tragically here? Perhaps that would defy the Ledger’s idea of fate—she couldn’t open the book if she was dead.

“You will open the book,” the Ledger intoned. “It is Fate.”

Narasanha rushed forward and grabbed at the black metal construct. She was revitalised, her strength entirely restored by Tirk’s sunlit prayer, but the bodyguard was no stronger than Yenna’s magic—the Ledger did not so much as budge.

“Damn it! Help her, witch! She’s falling!”

“Miss Lumale, please!”

Yenna’s sense of reality was starting to drift—it felt as though her very being was dispersing out along the rippling breath of the chamber.

“Silence, you two, I’m working.”

There was something moving around at her core—ugh, something! Always something, never specific. The only constant in my brief existence, that I’ve no clue what’s happening to me. That dreaded something poked and prodded at the furnace of her soul, an invading extension of someone else’s will. Yenna felt it and lashed out instinctively, barely able to prevent herself from flailing against it even as that will scooped together her fading being. Yenna’s thoughts grew more coherent, and she realised it was Lumale’s spell holding her together—with conscious effort and the weight of years of discipline, she allowed the witch to work her magic. All the same, she could tell it was temporary.

Lumale had no eyes to stare into, no facial expression to give away her concerns. But Yenna could sense it, in a way that made it clear that the witch wanted only her to know—what Lumale was doing right now was as good as sticking a finger in a leaky hole. She couldn’t stay here forever, or patch up every gap.

“I’m sorry, Yenna.” Lumale’s voice was unexpectedly soft, and the others perked up at the sound of the thorny silupker speaking their friend’s name.

“It’s–” Yenna wanted to say, it’s okay, but it wasn’t. It really is not okay. I don’t want to die! Isn’t there something else? Another ally I can call to my rescue, another facet of witchcraft or magecraft or divinomancy that I can unlock, all to save me and mine? What can I do?

“You will open the book,” intoned the Ledger. “It is Fate.”

“Would you stop saying that?!” Yenna’s voice was laced with venom, though she could barely move without feeling a wave of nausea. Regret pierced her heart, and she looked at her allies. Narasanha was afraid—a new kind of afraid, not awed by her presence, but afraid of loss. Tirk was afraid too, despair holding him to inevitability.

“Yenna.” Lumale brought Yenna’s attention back. “You have to open it.”

“What…?”

“You must complete this ritual.” The witch’s voice took on a strangle, warbling quality—distortion in her auditory illusion. “Bring its power into you.”

“N-No, I can’t! If I do, the Ledger will win—will transform the world into… something wrong!”

“Yenna,” Tirk spoke up, voice tinged with sadness, “You have to. If you don’t, you’ll die. If you don’t, it will all happen again.”

“Yenna,” Narasanha rumbled, a tear rolling down her cheek. “You have to open the book. Make it right. Make the world how it’s meant to be.”

A cold feeling ran through Yenna’s body. This was not Narasanha. This was not Tirk, or Lumale. Something else spoke through them. It spoke in words steeped in profound sorrow, and wrapped in urgency. It was a cry for help.

Yenna looked down at her hands. In one hand, the black key. In the other, the black book. She inserted the key and turned.