I had died.

Gesai was next to me and I could feel the warmth of her healing magic washing over me.

“What happened?” I looked around. I was sitting in a chair just outside the middle area. There wasn’t a portal anymore, instead, there was a miniature boss room in the middle of the crowd that was about ten feet in diameter.

“That Roge kid has almost every debuff in the book for his level.” Gesai squeezed my shoulder, “You couldn’t tell?’

“I knew I was being debuffed.” I felt really stupid, “But I didn’t know I was being killed.”

“We should have gone over debuffs and what they feel like.” The red-haired woman shook her head. “Trent covered that with us in the second semester.” There was a disgusted look on her face, “You weren’t ready for this.”

“How’s everyone doing?” I looked at the other side and saw both Rals and James sitting in chairs next to Arlo. I looked around and noticed that neither Celia, nor Trent were in the circle. “Where’s Trent?”

“He said that there was a call from the Cathedral that they had to take and left with Celia.” Gesai nodded at Arlo, “We’re supposed to serve as the teachers for now.”

I started to wonder if Trent and Celia hadn’t agreed to this fight so they could look into whatever Rix was looking for. I had no idea what was keeping the Hero preoccupied, but I was going to try to remember to ask her about it the next time she surfaced. There wasn’t anything I could do about it now though.

“It’s five on four now.” I turned my attention to the fight in front of me, “How’s everyone doing?”

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“Ether’s about to beat Francis.” Gesai pointed to where the white-haired woman was fighting against their Shooter at melee range. “Savyn is about to be ejected.” She pointed to where Jovena was still trading blows with Savyn, but Jovena had the benefit of Justia healing her. “Oz is about to take out the runt.” She motioned to where our black-haired friend was slashing at Gileon’s staff and had already cut him a few times. “Which is leaving Aelin and Andes.”

I swallowed. It felt a little shameful that I had been taken out first, but we’d managed to turn the fight into a bunch of duels and we had the numbers advantage.

Savyn appeared in a seat next to James. She was breathing hard and holding her chest. Jovena had found a clean hit to shoot the other woman in the chest.

Ether was using her shield attack to keep Francis from focusing his weapon and following it up with a sword attack. He went down on one knee as Jovena joined the fight and started shooting him with her weapon.

Fyth spread out her hands and that portion of the fight zoomed in as Francis looked up at Ether.

Her sword glowed green and sliced across his neck. The crowd screamed as he appeared in a seat beside Savyn. I flinched at the number of boos that we were getting. But Tophua was as close to the middle as he could be screaming his head off and cheering for us.

The white-haired man grabbed his throat with both of his hands as his brain tried to reconcile the damage that his body had felt. I felt for him. Getting stabbed earlier hadn’t been fun, but it was a lot better than the real thing.

“It’s five on two.” Gesai shook her head, “They should just surrender.”

“Do you really think those two are going to do that?” I looked up at the older woman.

Gesai sighed, “No, but… it’s… what are they doing?”

I looked back at the fight and saw that Oz had disarmed Gileon and was holding him down, but not finishing him off. Instead, the other three were standing behind her and watching the fight between Aelin and Andes.

“They need to finish this!” Gesai smacked her fist in her hand, “Just because they have the numbers doesn’t mean the other team can’t come back!”

I smiled as I watched the miniature boss room zoom in on the two blondes. “They know she needs this.” I put my hand on my teacher’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay. She’s got this.”