"We may have been overconfident," Telen said.

It was strange, I had been thinking of him as this faceless horror movie monster - just an empty evil suit of armor - but there was a weariness in his voice like he had just missed his bus after a hard day at work. The other soldier I'd seen in my dream stood next to him, flanked by two glowing shapes reminiscent of ghostly bacteria. They were moving, seemingly examining the objects around them by extending little pseudopods to poke at rocks or tap on the walls. It was kinda cute, but considering the circumstances I was sure they would be trying to kill me shortly. More immediately I was concerned by the sight of Katrin and Cyne, unmoving, slumped against a wall. It had taken me a while to be sure they were breathing.

"Sir?" the soldier said, "Do you think they've escaped?"

"From what you've pulled out of these two, no. They're still here. But we have allowed ourselves to be spread too thin - they were supposed to be in one place, sleeping, easy for us to surround and subdue. Even with most of them being weak or untrained, I don't like getting separated like this. The mightiest warrior can be killed by a lucky farmer if he lacks proper support. That witch has been useful, but she is... overeager."

The soldier stood up straighter suddenly, eyes staring into the distance. "Found something, sir. South side, a little West of here. The spirit will mark the spot from above if you want to check it out. Could just be residents, it's hard for them to exclude the people that live here - but I think it's worth checking out."

Telen nodded. "Very well. Good work Karstadt, let's see if I can bring you more of them to question." And Telen vanished.

I was about thirty feet away, crouching against some sort of raised garden bed along the side of a house. The only thing I really had going for me was my stealth, and while I wasn't so crazy that I was going to charge motherfucking Telen in that full plate armor I was just crazy enough to want to be close; after all, if Connie or Sige or even Mila tried something I needed to be able to help.

I'd promised Katrin that I would avoid blindly rushing into danger after that admittedly ridiculous stunt where I snuck into a building by myself and then lit it on fire while still inside, but in this case I genuinely didn't think running away was an option - and seeing Katrin laying there made me more certain than ever. I was ashamed to admit that if it had just been Cyne I would probably not feel the same way. What can I say, I'm not a great person.

The two glowing blobs milled around, and one of them jerked suddenly as it drifted past a low wall - it retracted its pseudopod from a hole and held a mouse there, straining and squirming. There was a tiny crunching sound, and the mouse was still. A moment later the spirit dropped it and poked at it a few times before continuing. That wasn't super reassuring. Would it have a harder time with something as big as me? Was there a reason they weren't just using these things to kill everyone in the town and sort through the bodies later? With Telen gone for the moment I considered attacking the solder - if he would just turn around, I could charge him and have a decent chance of catching him by surprise and hopefully once he died the spirits would disperse. But he - infuriatingly - kept his back to the building and continued to glance all around him like an actual competent member of the military in the middle of a mission. It was totally inconsiderate of him.

Soon any chance at attack was lost, as Telen came down one of the side streets with Errod over his shoulder and hauling Mila behind him - she was wrapped in some sort of metal band and blood was pouring down her face. Poor Mila staggered as she walked, almost falling - Telen casually hauled her up and practically threw her, then followed up by chucking Errod. They both landed on the ground next to Katrin and Cyne, who didn't stir. Telen took a moment to carefully break off the rock that had embedded itself halfway through the slit in his helmet, sighing again.

"While I would rather have our primary objective secured, this operation is full of small surprises. First we find Cyra's prize - even if we still don't know what happened to her - and now we have the Demon of Tarmestal."

In didn't know who Cyra was, what her prize was, or what Tarmestal was - although that one sounded very familiar. Something Errod had said, I thought, but Errod wasn't the demon of anything. Mila was the obvious alternative based on the context and she had been surprising me this trip, but even so I wasn't sure I was ready to believe she qualified for that kind of title. Either way, it was a question for later.

Telen nudged Errod with his foot. "The boy was trying to protect some younger children. There were too many to bother restraining them and I didn't want to try and herd them back here."

"Did you kill them?" The soldier only sounded curious, not horrified at the idea.

"Not yet, though I told them I would if they moved. If we find the ones we're looking for we can kill everyone else, otherwise we should question them first. Have you seen Henden or Tist?"

"No, sir."

"Then we must assume the worst." he leaned to speak into his shoulder, as I'd seen the other soldier do. "Rigela, do you see anyone leaving the city? Very good. No, stay up there."

I increased my count from two remaining enemies to at least three. That wasn't counting the spirit things, which I didn't have a guess for - clearly he had a few out in the city on patrol, so going with this world's numerological obsession I decided there were probably six. And me with no magic and only a few knives. I had to hope Sige would return, and that Connie would have some plan she was working on - where the hell was she? - because I knew I was out of my depth.

The soldier, Karstadt apparently, placed his hand on Errod. "Tist is dead," he said, "killed by the U'rmun. But this one left before the Behemoth arrived so I can't say what happened to him. These people are disorganized, scattered. They split up and lost track of each other immediately, they have no plan."

"See if he knows what happened to Cyra, and see what his thoughts are on the two we're looking for."

The man closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. "Given Cyra's power it may just be that he doesn't remember clearly, but I'm not finding anything. For the targets... as with the girl, he thinks they are somehow the same person. Ridiculous. He doesn't know how temporal magic works."

"Perhaps," Telen said, "But there is something going on - we are losing the war, Karstadt, and it is because our enemies have information it should be impossible for them to have obtained. Tell no one of this. And... if you find the ones we seek, try to take them alive. I need to send a report back to the king, let him know what we have found. It may bring him some comfort, as it is I suspect he is considering releasing Tindelus."

Karstadt's whole face went pale for a moment. The name sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't place it. Maybe something from the Jake Ross books? Not Jake Ross and the Forgotten Throne, for sure, and I didn't think it was in Jake Ross and the Sword of Destiny. The third book, Jake Ross and the Shattered Crown... I remembered very little of. I'd lost my nice boxed set somewhere and unlike the other books I'd only gotten to read it the once. Whatever Tindelus was, it was enough to scare someone that was casually hanging out with Telen and the Behemoth.

I quietly crept away while Telen stood with his head bowed - presumably sending his report somehow. It seemed like the best chance for me to get away, and I still wanted to find Connie and update her on what I had learned. The implied presence of someone watching from above meant I wanted to stay under the eaves of buildings as much as possible, but there was just too much space between houses for that to mean much.

I headed back towards where we had left Mila, figuring the kids might be there if Telen had found Errod and her together. I hurried down the musty stairs into the ruins and started checking the rooms, but I hadn't gone far before Connie smacked me on the back of the head. I felt humiliated - I hadn't heard her coming.

"Fuck! Oh, fuck you! Shit! Don't fucking do that! I could have stabbed you!"

Connie arched an eyebrow. "Unlikely. I thought I told you to get the hell out of here?"

"And I thought you were going to fight those dickwads and buy me some time. What have you been doing? I tried to follow you but got sidetracked, and now you're back here where we started?"

She shrugged, and started walking further down the hall as she peeked into various rooms. "Yeah, I was following the Behemoth for a minute but then someone took a pot shot at me and I had to scramble. Then I had to go somewhere that they wouldn't be searching for me."

"Well, Sige took out some guy with gravity powers and yanked the Behemoth into another plane I think, but he didn't come back from that last one. I don't know if he's dead or just out of mana and trapped. Telen has Katrin, Errod, Cyne, and Mila. The kids should be around here somewhere. There's a guy with some spirit things, at least three but I'm assuming more. There's also someone that's watching from above somehow, maybe on one of those fucking bat-bears or maybe just flying somehow, I don't know. And the spirit guy can read minds some too, so he knows all about us. Telen is pretty interested, he's sending a report to the king."

"That's almost all bad news," Connie said, "but good job learning all that I guess. I don't think any of that accounts for whoever was after me, so that's four people and then however many spirits. Against the two of us."

"Oh, and if they catch us they'll probably kill everyone else. If they don't, they'll... I guess interrogate everyone else and then kill them once they know everything."

"Great. Cool. Fucking wonderful. Is that all?"

"Also I think I have a broken rib, right here. Hurts when I breathe or move," I said, and then on further reflection added, "or also if I do neither of those things."

"Well, good job killing that one spirit thingy at least. You looked super badass."

What. "No, I saw some spirit things but I haven't killed shit. Just... snuck around and got briefly captured."

"Oh. Well, I didn't get a great look. And yeah, I guess now that I'm thinking about it she had throwing knives which is very much our style but we haven't gotten any for you yet. So. Okay, that's good news I guess. Some chick that's about our build is killing some of them. Probably a random local, and probably she'll get killed pretty quickly or go back to hiding in her house, but I'll take it. Come on, let's see what we're working with so I can decide if I'm going with my bad plan, or my worse plan."

The ruins were mostly straightforward, with one big central hall and rooms on either side, but there were a few side paths and some of the rooms connected in odd ways. Some lights had been set into nooks in the walls, tiny flickering things that were no better than candles. Mila's bag was laying in a side room, and we stood around it silently for a minute.

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"So," I said, "Do you think we can do it? Can we get everyone out of this?"

Connie sighed and leaned against the wall. "Probably not. Sorry. I really do have a plan though, and if it works we might be able to take Telen out. With him gone, and with the Behemoth gone? Well, that's much better odds - and deprived of leadership the others might even turn tail. They worship that dude, knowing we could kill him might destroy morale. Or... or it could make them decide to do everything they can trying to avenge him. But fuck it, better than nothing."

"Okay. Wow. What's the plan?"

She hesitated a moment. "You'll see. But I need to get close, and I need you to stay back in case I need a distraction. Let's find a good place - somewhere with multiple exits.

We went back to one of the side rooms that had connections to other parts of the ruins and glanced it over. I pestered Connie for details of the plan, but she refused to reveal her secret weapon which made me more than a little nervous - frankly, I didn't always trust my own clever ideas. Just as we were stepping out into the main hall again, Connie reached back and put a hand on my chest to stop me.

"Well hello, General Telen," she said in an overly chipper tone, "And... oh, fuck. You? Shit, I forgot I hadn't killed you yet."

I stepped back some, and Connie walked forward. I could see her there in the flickering light, looking towards the entrance.

"Calliope Smith, I presume?" Telen said, his voice echoing in the darkness, "Or is it Constance?"

"It's either, thanks. So, you've got me. But I'll make you a deal. Halenvar is losing the war at this point, it's inevitable, but you could still have a future somewhere."

"A future," he said thoughtfully, "Yes, interesting choice of words. But I'm afraid this is where I kill you, miss Smith."

"Oh come now. Surely I'm more valuable alive?"

"Yes, yes. All that information that you should have no way of knowing. All the details you've fed to Hammersmith for the Alliance. But it seems some of your intel is outdated, miss Smith. You see, I've just spoken to Gilbrect Halenvar and he said -" Telen appeared in view suddenly, sword already stabbing towards Connie's stomach; it plunged in and came bursting out her back, sending blood across the room, "- that he doesn't need you alive after all. He just wants your head in one piece."

I stumbled, disoriented, as Connie and I stepped towards the entrance of the room.

"Fuck, that hurt. Shit. Okay cool, cool, plan B time. I uh. I have no time to do the plan A version, and also I don't think it would work anyway if he's that eager to stab me."

Good, that plan sucked. "Well let's run! Come on!"

"Nope. No. Sorry, Callie. We haven't found any other exit, remember? No, it's go time. Head that way, get as close to the entrance as the side passage allows. I'll deal with Telen and then when they charge towards me to see what happened you can slip out behind them."

"Who was with him? The spirit guy?"

"No, someone I killed in the other timeline. It's fine. A Klunlesh I think, that's not important right now. Callie. I... I know this is some real narcissist shit but I love you. Okay? And I... I'm okay. With this. Things are going to be better with Telen gone, alright? You'll get magic, and the war will be over, and... you're golden."

I flipped her off with both hands. "Oh shut up. You're not going to die, stop with the farewell speech thing. I'm not letting you do something stupid."

"Oh, dummy. I'm not asking permission." And she punched me, right in my cracked rib. I gasped, and she shoved me towards one of the doorways - I caught myself on it but hit the rib again and the pain was so intense I forgot to breathe for a moment. Through a fog of agony I heard Connie say, "Well hello, General Telen. And your little friend."

I straightened up and took a few careful breaths. Stepping out into the room to try and stop Connie didn't seem productive, as it would probably just get both of us killed. So the logical move seemed to be going towards the entrance of the ruins via the side tunnels like she had told me to, but then attacking from behind before Connie set whatever idiotic plan she had into motion.

I hurried along, knowing that I only had seconds before Telen would stab her again - it was possible she could drag the banter out more the second time around, but probably not by a lot. I came to a doorway that looked back into the room but I couldn't see Telen - not without him seeing me as well. Instead I flattened up against the wall next to the doorway and looked over at Connie, to see if I could tell what she was doing and maybe interrupt it.

She was smiling, and had just said something about Hammersmith I didn't quite catch. Her weapon was on the floor by her feet, so that wasn't part of the plan. One of her hands was partially behind her back, but I had trouble imagining what she could have back there that would threaten Telen. There was something, though, dangling from her wrist... It was one of the chains from her time mana device. She was doing something with it, and I froze in horror as I realized what her plan was. Telen appeared next to her, slamming his blade through her again. She smiled, all teeth, and a searing green light filled my vision.

When it cleared, I was in a boring-looking room with a sofa, a bookshelf - it was clearly on Earth.

"Did it work?" Connie asked. She was sitting on the couch, pointing a remote control at the television on the wall - which didn't show any sign of turning on. She was blurry around the edges, or... no, there was some strange effect where any part of her that moved was translucent and left a copy of itself behind for a moment. She lowered the arm with the remote but it was still there, and then followed at a delay before they melded back together.

"I don't... wait, what?"

"I'm assuming it worked. Fuck, I hope you were out of range."

"Yeah," I said as I carefully sat down next to her, "I think I was. Where are we, exactly?"

"Bill's house," she said, "See? No fiction on the bookshelf. What a stick in the mud."

"So this is from the fake memories?"

She tossed the remote down, and sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Feels good here though."

I hesitated, but had to ask. "Are you dead?"

"I don't know. I guess? That's if I even can die - I mean we've got the same soul, right? Who fucking knows how that shit works. Anyway, the important thing is I took that motherfucker out with me. He's got this fancy entropic armor to shield him from lightning and fire and whatever, and he can teleport around, but what do you fucking do if someone ages you a thousand years all at once, huh? Get fucked, Telen."

She got up and walked into the kitchen, all ghostly as half of her lagged behind. Now that they were apart, I could see something was wrong with one of them. It looked... different. Like an entirely different person. The kitchen was somehow also a diner somehow, in that way that dreams mash up various locations - one of those places with tons of chrome and the red vinyl seats. "Let's find the memories of something delicious, huh? I'm craving a chocolate milkshake for some reason."

Was this happening? If so, was there still a way to fix things? "You can't be dead. You have to rewind time."

"Too late!" She hiked her pants down and showed me her hip, and I could see there was no Dumine there. "And anyway, the whole point was to kill that guy. Why would I reverse it? Shit, I'm not even sure you're real. You're probably just my brain making up stuff as I die. I'd test you, tell you to say something only you would know, but with us being the same person that's a little tricky. Plus even if you did I'd have to confirm it somehow... hmm."

"This is serious! You can't... this can't be happening."

"That's what I'm saying. You can't be here, so this must not be real, so you must be a figment of my imagination as I die. That, or there's something fucked up going on because we're kinda the same person which would actually be super cool. Like how you can remember stuff when I rewound time. This could be some related shenanigans, which might mean I can haunt your ass. But probably not."

There was a sound, like a distant note from a bell that just kept growing and deepening as it went on. I could tell that it had been there before, somewhere beyond hearing, but it was rapidly getting harder to ignore. Light began to stream through the curtains, getting brighter and brighter.

"What's happening?"

"How the hell should I know? I've never died before. Also I just dumped a shit ton of unfocused temporal mana into the middle of that room, no telling what kind of shit that might do. I mean, in addition to killing me and Telen."

The sound was so loud and deep now I could feel it in my bones, and the light coming through the windows was unbearable. I ran over to Connie and hugged her as tight as I could.

"Don't go."

"It's okay."

The whole house was shaking. The windows shattered, light pouring through like a tidal wave. Connie seemed totally unbothered.

"DON'T GO!"

"It's okay. It's all just... okay."

The light began to fade as I took a step back and shielded my face. I heard Telen's armor collapse to the ground and looked, but my eyes were still recovering. I thought I saw someone standing there for just a moment and was sure it was Connie, sure that at the edges of the silhouette I could make out the temporal rig she'd been wearing, but as I blinked and squinted there was just a puff of dust rising at the spot where the two had stood. Not only had I not gone anywhere, it was clear that no time had passed at all since the flash started - certainly not enough to have a conversation with anyone.

Forgetting the plan entirely I ran forward to get a closer look just in case she was somehow okay, but a crackling whip of electricity wrapped around me before flinging me into one of the stone walls. I saw someone walk past me - the wild mage with the wooden mask. She stopped a few feet short of where Connie and Telen had been standing and held a hand up as if feeling the temperature of the air. Then she backed up and turned to look at me, tilting her head.

"Fuck you, lady," I said, toughness badly hindered by my position laying in a heap, "Your boss is dead. If you stick around, you're next."

She laughed, and came closer. Her hands crackled with lightning. I rolled over onto my hands and knees, trying to look like I couldn't move any faster and not make it obvious that I was preparing to stand as quickly as possible. With one hand I grabbed at the dust around me and as her footsteps got close enough I flung it as I tried to lurch to my feet.

At least a little of the dust must have made its way through the eye holes of her stupid mask - she stepped back and shielded her face, and then as I threw myself forward and swung my knife at her she unleashed the lightning. I felt my blade connect, but weakly - and I fell twitching to the floor. I rolled over to face her, realizing as I did that I had lost my knife, and saw that I'd come extremely close to killing her. There was a red line right across her throat but it was shallow; she clamped one hand to it, but her body language didn't seem particularly concerned.

I was exhausted, physically and mentally. There was no way I could sit up, let alone stand again. I closed my eyes, waiting to feel some spell rip through me, but instead heard footsteps pounding on the ground coming closer and then felt a body slam into mine followed by another, and another. I found the strength to open my eyes, and saw all five of our little refugees clustered around me - whittling knives in shaking hands. The wild mage shook her head, and for the first time I heard her speak - her voice was a bit distorted from the pressure she was exerting on the wound, but her words were clear enough.

"You don't need to protect her, children," she rasped, "She can't hurt you anymore."

Elba shook her head. "She didn't hurt us. She saved us from the Sahrger. She's going to help us find our parents."

"No, child. She lied to you. You're not free from the Sahrger, can't you see? She will never help you, never let you go back to your family. Not so long as she is alive. Move aside."

I reached out and grabbed Elba's hand and pushed it down, pointing the knife towards the ground. "Kids. Go. Cyne will take care of you, he has a place. And they'll help you find your parents. It's okay."

Tig spit at the wild mage. "No! You brought us back to our plane, and you said you were going to help us get magic, and... and... no! You can't have her!"

The wild mage looked at the kids, and then at me, and then back at the kids. "I don't understand. Why would you... no. It doesn't matter. You have to die."

She reached out to point at me again, and I could see the energy gathering in her palm. The mage grabbed Tig roughly and tossed him aside, then tried to do the same with Yasna but found that she was gripping my pants with her other hand. Roran tried to tackle the masked woman, and while he didn't do a great job it forced her to step back.

Thankfully, whatever her deal was the wild mage seemed to draw the line at hurting children and refused to attack while they were in her way. She tried to line up a shot past them but I rolled, just barely enough, and the blast cracked the stone where my head had been. Then she stopped and turned towards the entrance, sighed, and wrestled the kids off of her as she ran away deeper into the ruins. Sige came bursting in a second later, one arm dangling limply and matted with blood.

"What the fuck happened down here?" he asked, staring at the spot I had been trying to avoid looking at - the pile of armor, bits of ruined equipment, and dust - the only things that remained of Telen and Constance.