Illian wasn’t one to wait around for danger to arrive, though. Which was fortunate. Because Alix might have gone insane if he had been forced to stay in that out of the way corner while knowing that more Crowspawn mercenaries approached. And there were people approaching, Illian just wouldn’t tell him exactly where from or how many.

“I don’t know,” Illian said for the third time, leading Alix down increasingly obscure pathways through the markets, “I never had the most acute mana senses in the first place. But there’s at least one other mage in the markets with us. Because they’re blocking my vision.”

Mana vision, Alix said internally. There was a game of cat-and-mouse being played here. And he had the sinking feeling that they were the mice. But Illian is using pure magic to combat some other mage! There were no balls of ice or fire being flung, but a more subtle form of war was being waged. Illian took a left, using his mundane sense of direction to get out of the Bower markets.

Then a threshold was crossed and Alix’s headache decided to make itself known. A subtle rumbling this time, not even close to pain. A change had come over Illian, too; his eyes were set straight ahead, but he was looking far away.

“Six of them,” he said in a neutral tone. He flicked his sword beside him, where it appeared to bend and fluctuate. “Arranged around us. Alix, get beneath one of the stalls.”

Six. Alix’s heart plummeted. Illian was gesturing to the space underneath the front facade of a nearby stand selling an assorted collection of jars and bottles. The proprietor began to complain, but Illian brandished his rapier. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said severely, “I would leave. Now.”

Alix thought the trader might continue arguing. But instead she just promptly packed up as much of the stock as she could into a bag before leaving out through a flap in the back. Alix was unceremoniously shoved beneath the wooden counter before Illian knocked the flap down, obscuring his view. He lifted a corner ever so slightly in order to see down the path.

A stranger approached. They wore no coat. Rain simply flowed in thick rivulets down black leather-clad arms and torso, ending in studded gauntlets which contorted into fists at the sight of Illian. The man’s unkempt, black beard caught the spit that came out when he spoke.

“Where’s the boy?” he snarled, stopping just out of Illian’s range. Alix had to crane his head awkwardly to see. “He’s here. I know it. What have you done?” The groan that rose in his throat lashed out as Illian remained silent, simply staring. The stranger reached for a sheathed sword at his waist, but restrained himself at the last minute.

“He’s not here,” Illian lied.

Why are they doing so much for me? This man obviously means trouble, so why would Illian risk himself to lie?

“You were with him,” the black-clad fighter hissed, drawing a thin shortsword and pointing it at Illian. Alix could hear the sounds of market-goers rushing to get out of their proximity.

“Where are the others?” Illian asked instead, quietly enough that Alix had to strain to hear it.

“Answer the question! Where’s the boy—”

“No.” Illian was completely unflinching. “You answer mine: Where are the five others who are tracking his blood?”

He grinned wildly. “The other four are approaching us right now. But if you won’t tell me then we’ll—”

Alix didn’t even notice the movement. In one moment, Illian’s sword was by his side, pointing downwards. In the next, it was at an angle across his body, having passed cleanly through the interloper. Alix couldn’t see bloodstains in the black leather, but when the body crumpled and blood started pouring onto the cobblestones it became quite visible.

Killed, just like that. It was so… anticlimactic. Alix felt little remorse for the man who’d been sent to end his life, but he’d still expected a fight out of the man. Then Alix considered Illian, standing over the body with another distant look on his face. It’s similar to a few moments while Fallon was speaking to me in her sound-bubble, he realised.

Suddenly, Illian was mouthing at him. ‘Go,’ was all he said. Alix paled, doing his best to crawl to the other side of the stall, as far away as possible from the market throughway on the other side. Illian saw something I didn’t. Alix knew it. Or felt something, maybe. There was something he’d heard about mana-sensing earlier, but Alix couldn’t remember it with his heart beating in his throat.

He was inside the stall now, moving aside the chair that the merchant would have sat on before arduously pushing himself up into a crouch with one hand. I can’t get too high though, then my head would be visible from the path. He hobbled through the pop-up store, making his way to the back. Is Illian following? A faint twinge of pain crossed his mind. He glanced back just in time to see an explosion fill his vision.

It was concentrated on Illian, which was possibly Alix’s only saving grace. Because the shockwave of whatever had detonated at the swordsman’s feet rocked the air. The entire front facade of the stall where Alix hid completely caved in, turning into wooden shrapnel which the fabric drapery caught before hitting him. Wrapped in the destroyed material of the booth, Alix clawed out around him. Need to move. Eventually, he felt the cool rain mixing with sticky air on his skin and pulled his way free.

Illian stood as if he hadn’t been moved, waiting defiantly in the market concourse with blade drawn. But the stalls around him had been completely turned to rubble, the rain putting out lingering traces of flame. Illian seemingly ignored it. He was alert now, prepared—unlike with the first mercenary from before. He turned and saw Alix.

“Go!” he called, “Stay low, I’ll follow.”

Alix nodded. He didn’t need to be told twice. There was a narrow gap running behind the backs of all the stalls, where the merchants could access the flaps to their tent-like shops. Alix took off down it at a sprint, watching his feet so as to not slip on rain, rope or stray piece of tarp. What does ‘stay low’ mean? Alix was obscured on both sides by the stalls, without having to crouch. Do I need to be lower? I don’t—

A projectile pierced through the fabric to the side of him. Not a bullet—and there was no explosion—but something equally small, metallic and deadly. It passed right overhead and disappeared through another booth next to him.

Get down, got it. Alix kept his head down and shoulders hunched, not stopping moving. The magic projectiles ripped through his paper-thin corridor a few more times. Each volley never quite coming close to hitting him. Then just ahead, a sabre hacked through the cloth of the stall. Alix backed up, halting as the woman bearing a blade saw him and began to approach.

“Don’t stop.” Alix saw Illian bound up onto the roof of a stall and take a few steps upon its flimsy fabric surface before leaping down between him and the attacker. A real gun fired this time, its explosion making Alix drop close to the ground. He couldn’t see the bullet. But Illian was completely unfazed.

When the woman armed with a sabre moved to strike Illian, Allix assumed he brought his own rapier up to parry. But instead, Illian’s blade looked like it moved through the opposing sword, biting into the woman’s neck and spilling blood on the cobbles. Her own blade didn’t even come close to touching Illian, who immediately dodged out of the paths of more mage-propelled projectiles. He wasn’t even using magic of his own. Nothing flashy, anyway, Alix thought, rooted in place.

Alix saw the fireball this time when his headache panged. It streaked through the air—unperturbed by the rain—toward Illian. He tried to move it, holding up a bladed hand as if to take control, but aborted the move and dodged to the side. A flash of light and flame set alight another portion of the market, burning merrily despite the damp. Alix began to hear the screams of a crowd in earnest.

Fighting through the heat and momentary blindness, Alix kept his eyes open. Don’t you dare pass out, he chided himself, blinking away the ash.

Illian gestured for Alix to move over the scorched ground. He complied, avoiding the parts still burning and instead running over rain-extinguished ash. I’m still wearing the house-shoes that Theo gave me, he noted. They tracked soot out into a main market-street again, where people were fleeing the scene of the altercation. Illian followed shortly after, keeping light on his feet nearby Alix.

Alix was there in the middle of the street, standing dumbstruck while Illian moved like a blur around him. He was the target, after all. Not the swordsman. Assorted projectiles of all types fired towards him, Alix barely able to catalogue where they came from before Illian sidestepped between him and another rippling ball of ice. Except this time he clenched it before his fist, where it hovered in place before the magic working unravelled, dissipating the attack. Moving faster than should be humanly possible, Illian also stopped bullets with his magic alone. He’s… Alix trailed off, unable to put it into words. It was all he could do to stay still and avoid being hit.

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Illian was absolutely formidable.

The assault never lessened, only pinning the two down harder and preventing any possibility of escape. More flaming sweeps were deflected by Illian but still caught another swathe of the Bower Market aflame. The light danced through the rain and the night, tantalising with its proximity.

The pain in Alix’s head was growing, too. It built up in a crescendo as the magic around him became more and more targeted. Why? What’s happening? He almost couldn’t think at all with such a deafening scream of agony in his head. His vision grew slightly blurred. He couldn’t tell where the attacks were coming from. All the while there were more explosions of firearms sounding.

Alix’s indecision screamed at him. Can’t I do anything? Illian would be fine on his own, but he has to protect me. A weak, nonmagic fool who couldn’t even fight to save his life, caught up with a Burns gang. The Crowspawn aren’t letting me go easily.

Illian made some progress, but took two steps back for every step forward. He darted around like a hummingbird, returning projectiles towards their senders. Alix faintly heard the ‘crunch’ of one such returned musket ball impacting somewhere far away. But then the oppressive assault only appeared to increase, with more and more spells being flung that Illian couldn’t just deal with as a matter of course.

An indefinite lull came across the market battle. Alix looked to spot the cause. There, that spell! A large, jet-black missile arced toward them as if shot from a mortar a few blocks away. Tendrils of ink seemed to leak off it, trailing behind as the object moved across the dark sky. For a few moments Alix could only see it by the stars it obscured. Then it was on its descent. Illian noticed it too, crying out and yelling something indistinct to Alix. Then he gathered his sword in a double-handed grip behind the shoulder and leapt.

The jump took him impossibly high, accompanied by a violent tremor in the flames around him, as if hit by a large breath of air. Illian’s jump took him up, above the market rows and burning rubble. He’s going to collide with the incoming projectile, Alix realised with alarm. As if in slow-motion, Alix witnessed the tenebrous form dive into Illian. There was a flash of firelight on the metal of a sword before he was swallowed, taken inside the shape and carried in it as it continued its path above Alix.

Just like that, Illian was gone. Alix was alone, unarmed, bleeding and wet, stranded in the middle of the street. He did the only thing he knew how; what he’d been doing ever since Isha threw him from the window what felt like days ago. He ran.

But the remaining mercenaries—how many were left?—thundered after him. He was weak, they had been keeping to the shadows. He was tired, but for them, the fight had only just begun minutes ago. Keeping out of Illian’s blade for long enough had won them their prize, as the swordsman was now gone, taken by a mage, presumably. Alix didn’t make it far at all down the market street before a flying foot came from his blind spot. The impact smashed into his side, knocking him breathless and throwing Alix, flailing, into the flaming detritus which now lined the street. It burned fiercely in the rising moonlight.

The violent affray had only happened in a small portion of the grand Bower Market, relatively speaking. Despite the patches of burnt-out stalls, around Alix still stretched the vast hub for illicit trade. It was why no Redjackets patrolled between the booths, and why no law enforcement would save him now as he lay on his side, burning, as the two remaining mercenaries strutted up the street toward him.

I’m… fine, came a belated thought, feeling the tendrils of flame lick the side of his torso to little effect, It’s the mage-armour. He’d landed on the ashes on the right side of his body, good arm pressed to the ashen earth beneath him. His right hand still held the ivory-smooth wand of the Beacon by his leg.

The mercenaries arrived, standing over Alix with faces illuminated by firelight behind him. “Gotcha,” a taunting female voice said, emanating out from the cowl of the tattered shawl wrapped around her torso. She bore no weapons. A mage, Alix realised. He didn’t respond verbally. They haven’t seen the Beacon. He had to keep it that way at all costs. “A bit stuck now, aren’t you, little bird? Trapped!” She laughed.

The other—a pale-skinned man with an eyepatch—pressed the barrel of a gun to his temple. Alix heard a ‘click’ as the flint hammer was cocked. I’ll die. It will be over, I’ll—

“No!” hissed the mage playfully, “This one is done for. Let the pretty flames do their work.”

“Jus’ put a bullet through his ‘ead and get it over with!” Eyepatch said. “The Crow said not to do anything stupid with this one ‘ere.”

“Mmm, no,” the mage replied, “A bullet would be so messy, don’t you think? How about, let’s see, increasing the heat.”

From the dwindling tongues of flame that languidly struck at Alix suddenly came biting intensity, reaching up around his neck and stinging his ears. He cried out against his will, which only made the mage leaning over him grin. He felt the flames rear up yet again. The putrid scent of burning oilcloth—as well as human hair—filled his nostrils as cinders took to the air. The mage gripped her hand ever-tighter and Alix’s headache persevered.

Magic, he thought through the foggy curtain of pain. It had distracted him. But a momentary check showed that his Beacon was still within his grasp. If I can just…

He reached within himself to the swelling feeling at the base of his skull, tapping into his Nexus for the magic—any magic—which he had once been taught at Camherst. Because where in Unknowing he had floundered uselessly at a wall, now he searched out the presence of his Beacon—buried under his right hip. He quested towards it with his mind, and the resonating material within it answered.

He felt the world around him. It’s warmth, it’s life. The vision was patchy at best, hardly as complete as what was expected of a Praetorian. But feeling the first semblance of magic travelling between his mind and the Beacon almost made him cry out then and there. The heat around him continued to ramp as he blindly fumbled for the threads of energy, using the Beacon as his guide.

There is heat around me, Alix thought, teeth gritted, But I already know that! The magic was sluggish, like a water pipe clogged at one end and shot through with holes. I could heat a thimbleful of water. But that’s not going to cut it. Alix took a deep breath, trying to filter the soot through his teeth and not breathe in smoke. He held it in while trying to cast the spell.

He reached for the heat. It was the only feasible energy source. The threads were there, he could feel them with his mind connected through the Beacon. Though he couldn’t capture it. He might capture a bit, stringing it together with the thin threads of magic that he could control with his Nexus. But it was like cupping water in his hands, simply leaking out before any could build up. When the energy splashed back into the flames around him, they only flared higher. Alix’s hold on his lungs broke, sending him coughing and gagging in the smoke that stung at his face.

I’m burning alive. It’s finally happening, despite the mage-armour. Alix tried to scream, but only coughed again.

“You like that, eh?” the mage said with a cruel twinge to her voice, “This is what happens when you disrespect our Lady.” Even the eyepatched gunman had withdrawn his weapon, looking on with perverted curiosity.

Alix forgot about his Beacon, dropping it as he tried to lash out with his body. But Eyepatch just pushed him down with a boot, back into the matted ash. His eyes darted wildly, for something, anything. And then just because they were the only things he could move without pain.

There is so much fire, he thought, bordering on delirium. It rose around him, burning even through his clothed torso and scorching his face. The energy hadn’t gone anywhere, but Alix couldn’t see it so clearly without a Beacon. In fact, there was more of it, released from the wood at the mage’s bidding. So much fuel, being metabolised into simple fire. Alix’s headache—which had been increasing at a steady rate since the mage had begun her ministrations—reached a zenith.

All this heat, he thought, why can’t I just… take some?

So he reached out. And he did.

Not using his arms—those were useless, anyway, with one shot through and the other covered in burns. No, it was a different type of effort that Alix used to reach his mind around the flames surrounding him. The fire continues all around, he realised. Because it wasn’t just his small patch, wood was burning all through the Bower Markets, wherever the mercenaries had chased him.

It’s mine! he said to himself, delving deep into his mind where his Nexus lay. There, he found resonance with the headache that had peaked. There, in his heart of magic, he stretched out with every thread of will and authority that he could muster, taking control over all the energy he could reach.

It was a lot.

He ripped it out of the hands of the other mage, condensing it and building it around him. Not as heat anymore, but pure, distilled magical energy. Whatever that was. It didn’t burn him, though, it caressed him. The headache he had been nursing all day completely vanished as every flame went out in a wide radius around him.

The eyes of the mercenary before him, just a moment ago so confident with her torture, went wide. But only for an instant, because the next second they were blasted out of her head by a gargantuan flash of light.

The flames didn’t return. Both of the remaining Crowspawn hirelings were dead.

Alix’s head spun, head throbbing with pain worse than ever. In the small period of lucidity before he fell unconscious he gripped his Beacon again, tight in his right hand. The rain fell on him slowly as he passed out.