Charlie blacked out for several moments. When he woke up, he pried his head forward and peered through the hole in the dungeon wall ahead. The impact had sent him spiraling right into the dungeon wall.

There was a pounding sensation in the back of his head. He was dizzy and disoriented. For a moment, he forgot where he was all together.

The dungeon had collapsed.

His memories came flooding back to him.

Mousifer. Bleedy.

They’d been in the dungeon.

For once, Charlie wished he could cry, but instead, he just felt empty. Like the world was ending and everything was pointless. He’d taken a risk. He’d acted impulsively.

Again.

Every time he tried to go into a fight with a plan, he ended up charging headfirst as soon as he got some bright idea.

It made the realization that he had messed up hurt that much more. He knew he was putting his friends’ lives in danger, but he thought he could save them.

Charlie hadn’t expected his powers to fail.

He’d never had a problem transferring someone to or from his dungeon before. So why now? What was different?

And then there was dungeon manipulation.

The attack had been turned back against him. How was that possible? Was it something Charlie did? Or was the dungeon responsible?

If Charlie couldn’t even rely on his own powers, how could he possibly fight?

He frowned. Did any of this even matter if his friends were dead?

Parent had warned him about avoiding dungeon collapse with them inside. But Charlie was playing hero again. He was always trying to help strangers, even if it meant putting his own friends at risk.

Wasn’t that wrong? Merlin and Vetica would have never come to Sange if it wasn’t for him.

Mousifer would still be eating food in Richard and Mary’s home at night and evading their traps.

Bleedy would be hunting in the forest surrounding Troa. He’d even have all his teeth!

Charlie was the one getting his friends in danger. Charlie was the one who had insisted they come to Sange to help Sophia. He was always getting them involved in something new, and now, his friends would pay the price.

Not just Mousifer and Bleedy.

Merlin too. He was trapped somewhere in this city. If Vetica came looking for them, they might capture her, too.

Charlie wished the knights had never even summoned him to this world.

He’d caused nothing but problems for everyone he cared about. They’d be better off if they’d never met him.

He just wanted to close his eyes and drift off to sleep and never wake up. To forget everything that had happened.

What could he even do without his powers?

“Lyra! It’s time,” the mayor called out.

Charlie shot up. He squinted, trying to see through the cracks in the dungeon’s wall. It was useless. There wasn’t enough visibility in here. He pulled himself free of the wall and landed on his hands and knees. He crawled, shuffling through the tunnel his body had made upon impact.

His body cried out with every move he made, but he kept inching forward. He was determined to do that much. To tell Lyra to run away and escape. He wasn’t sure if that was still possible, but he’d encourage her to try.

Lyra and Kyo could still make it out of this.

When he exited the hole, he paused, noticing something green in his peripheral vision. He turned to see the friendly Scaler slumped against the wall. Its eyes were closed and the wound on the end of its tail had opened up again, green blood puddled up around it. It didn’t look good.

“Are you okay?” Charlie asked, reaching out with his mind. The Scaler’s breathing was shallow. Charlie shook his head. “Hey, wake up!” Charlie sniffled. “Please be okay. I’m sorry I haven’t given you a name yet. I will if you just wake up. It’ll be a good one, promise!” Charlie rubbed the Scaler’s side. When that didn’t work, he leaned his weight against it and tried to shake it awake.

The Scaler didn’t respond.

The growing sense of dread kept building inside him.

Usually, Charlie hated crying. Right now, it was all he wanted to do. But he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t even allow him.

His head fell, and he turned to look back for Lyra.

She was standing close to the center of the room now, still holding Kyo. Bonehead was next to her. He seemed confused about what was going on.

The mayor stood a few feet away from her. “This is all your fault, Lyra. You know that, right?” he asked her.

Lyra was crying. She wiped her face with her sleeve. “I know…” she said. Her words were full of heartbreak.

The mayor sighed. “It’s good business never to go back on a deal. We had an agreement, didn’t we? But you broke it. You tried to escape. You came here to... actually, I’m not sure why you’re here. What was your plan? What did you hope to accomplish?”

Lyra was silent. She turned her head away.

The mayor studied her, then turned to look back at the core guardian. “Oh.” The mayor bust out laughing. “You came here to destroy the dungeon, didn’t you? Seriously? You thought you and some freakish baby could take on a core guardian this powerful? That’s delusional. Even for a child, that is so pathetic. You didn’t even help the boy, you just stood there while he fought.”

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Lyra covered her mouth and sobbed. Her eyes were red. How long had Charlie been out? How long had she been crying?

“Lyra? Are you okay?” he asked her.

Her mouth fell open, and she turned to look at him. “Charlie…” she seemed surprised he could still move. “I’m sorry,” she said. Lyra turned back to the mayor. “Please, I’ll honor the deal. Just let them go. I’m begging you,” she said, fighting back tears to get her words out.

The mayor crossed his arms, raising a brow at her. “After all that, you want me to honor our deal? Your friend over there tried to ram a spike through my head, or did you miss that? He’s only here because you brought him. You want me to honor a deal after that? After you tried to go behind my back and kill the core guardian? Even if it was impossible, how can you really expect me to forgive that kind of behavior?”

Lyra deflated. “But I…”

The mayor held a hand up to silence her. “What do you think?” he asked, eyeing the core guardian.

Silence.

The mayor nodded his head, as if the creature had made a good point. “I see. Well then, Lyra, it seems you’re very lucky today. We’ll honor the arrangement.”

She looked relieved. “And Kyo and Charlie can go free?” she asked.

The mayor looked at Kyo. “That one can go. As for the other one…” He turned to look at Charlie. “He can negotiate for himself. That’s between us and him.”

“Please, just let him go. He only came here because I asked him to,” Lyra pleaded.

The mayor rolled his eyes. “I’ll heavily consider it. We need to proceed now. Hand the child to the snatcher. We’ll take it to an orphanage or something,” he said, pointing toward the sole snatcher still standing. The one who had entered to bring the bag with the boy in it earlier.

Lyra turned and looked at Bonehead. She sat Kyo on the ground in front of Bonehead instead. The Scaler looked up at her and offered an “arh!” It scooted his head under Kyo, so the boy’s stomach was resting on its head. Its head wobbled from side to side as it tried to balance the boy. Bonehead hurried away toward the tunnel’s exit, then turned to wait on Lyra to follow.

“Arh!” it called out again.

But Lyra remained.

The two Scalers Charlie had freed from his dungeon earlier seemed confused. They were standing under one of the waterspouts, looking around. They finally noticed Charlie and hurried over. He patted them on their snouts and then pointed at the friendly Scaler. They both hissed and ran over to shield it with their bodies.

Charlie faced Lyra again. “Lyra, what deal? What is he talking about?”

She looked away, saying nothing.

The mayor caught the interaction, though he couldn’t hear it. He smirked. “Oh, he doesn’t know, does he? About our arrangement?” he asked.

Lyra didn’t answer.

The mayor laughed. He turned to face Charlie. “You never thought it was suspicious? That we bring all these children to Sange, but had only ever taken two from Lyra’s daycare? Even then, one of them was only brought here because the children were misbehaving. The other daycares lose children almost weekly. It’s why we have so many daycares after all. It’s good to rotate where we take the livestock. If we only cleared out certain daycares, the children would be too stressed. That lowers their quality, their usefulness. But Lyra here…”

He nodded at her with his head.

“She’s unique. Her hex isn’t anything special, but it developed at an early age. You don’t see many children this young with her level of competence and mastery over their powers. She’s better than some adult casters I’ve seen. When she gets older, she’s going to be a monster. That makes her way more valuable.”

Charlie shook his head. He was too confused to know how to react to all of this. Valuable for what? He wondered.

The mayor could read the confusion on his face. “You still don’t get it? Why do you think we captured that Hex Knight? Because Limblings are more powerful when the host is more powerful. Oh, you know them as snatchers, don’t you?” He laughed.

“It’s a silly name, really, but it was one of Varroc’s better ideas. If the nobility knew what the snatchers really were, they’d have burned Sange to the ground by now.”

“Stop, just…let him go. I’ll do it,” Lyra said.

The mayor turned away from Charlie and glared at her. He took two steps and backhanded her across the face. Lyra fell to the ground.

Charlie gasped. He lifted a hand to attack, but remembered his powers were gone.

He was powerless.

Charlie had just seen this man attack his friend and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. There wasn’t anything he could do to punish him.

It made him feel empty inside.

Lyra rubbed her face and turned away from the mayor. She didn’t get up or say anything.

“Long story short, snatchers are so much more powerful when they agree to the process willingly. Of course, children never want to agree to something like this. But some children are worth more than others. We’ve found that we can persuade them to agree to become a snatcher. In exchange for their agreement, we don’t take the children from their daycares. They can save their friends by offering themselves up as collateral. We wait until their older. It’s better for the ones who turn willingly. They have to understand what they’re doing, or it doesn’t count. Want to know the best part? Tomas had already made the deal.”

Charlie tilted his head. Tomas had agreed to become a snatcher to protect the other children. But that meant that…

When Lyra and the others captured the guards to bargain with Varroc, Tomas had already made a deal to keep them safe. They’d wanted to escape the dangerous dungeon, so Tomas wouldn’t have to explore it anymore.

But Tomas had already agreed to become a snatcher when he got older to protect them.

The children had all been acting to keep each other safe, and they hadn’t even known it.

“So, when Tomas ran into Varroc taking Lyra into the dungeon, he followed through with the deal and took her place. Lyra learned about the arrangement and made the same deal. Two children with high potential, and both of them would join willingly. It’s so exciting, isn’t it? Tomas has been kind of a dud. He’s strong but has too much free will. We’ll make sure Lyra here doesn’t have that problem. We’ll rip that personality right out. Let’s go Lyra. I’ve decided we’ll let this boy live. It’s more amusing that he has to live knowing he failed to save his friend, isn’t it?” The mayor laughed.

Lyra slowly rose to her feet and then followed the mayor.

She was walking toward the core guardian.

“Lyra! Wait! Don’t go! You can still escape! Please don’t go with him. Don’t let him make you one of those things!” Charlie said to her.

She turned to look over her shoulder at him. For a moment, he thought she’d listen to him. But then she turned back.

The mayor led her to the core guardian. The creature rippled and extended a small piece of itself toward her.

“Place your hand inside girl, the core guardian will handle the rest. The process will be slightly slower than usual. Remember, if you fight back, or resist, the deal is off. You’ll still become a snatcher, but the baby boys will be fair game. I’ll turn both of them into snatchers right after you. Keep that in mind in case you have second thoughts.”

Lyra nodded. She started to turn back to look at Charlie again, but the mayor put a hand behind her head. “Don’t look back. Only forward.”

Lyra’s head fell down.

And then she reached out and placed her hand in the core guardian.

The mass of slimy liquid slowly encompassed her face. From there, it descended, inching down her body towards her feet.

Charlie crawled towards her, but she was far, and he was powerless. What could he even do to stop it? Why was it enveloping her this way instead of pulling her inside it? Was it because the process was different when the subject was going along with it?

The core guardian had only made it down to her neck when a boy’s shout filled the room.

“Lyra!” Luc called out.

Charlie’s head shot up to look at the newcomers. Luc and Sophia burst into the room from a tunnel he hadn’t seen used yet. The mayor seemed surprised as well. “What the hell? Why did you allow them in there?”

Whatever the core guardian said, he wasn’t happy with it. The mayor scowled.

Luc noticed Kyo and pointed at Sophia. She hurried up to the Scaler and grabbed Kyo off Bonehead. The Scaler nuzzled against her leg.

Luc turned and saw Charlie and then looked toward Lyra being swallowed.

There wasn’t a single moment of hesitation. Luc broke into a sprint directly toward the core guardian.