Alex quickly slipped spell upon high-tiered spell into Claygon’s bag.

Cursed Land was described as a spell that inflicted wide swathes of terrain with a bloody curse. The earth would turn treacherous, the air stifling and shadows would grow deep. Where luck had once been neutral or good, it would abruptly turn ill, and all plant life would turn poisonous.

‘A classic witch’s spell from legend,’ Alex thought, recalling the tale of a bewitched princess who was cursed to wander through a never ending maze of poisonous thorns.

The next spell guide contained a much less sinister sounding spell; Army of Heroes.

‘This spell will empower armies with valour, fearlessness, and strength,’ Alex read. ‘Those under this spell will know greater strength, speed and agility, while fear dulls within their souls. Their bodies will be filled with vigour and stamina as their skin toughens harder than boiled leather. Their weapons will gain magic—but only temporarily—allowing them the ability to overcome any foe’s defences with greater certainty. By the Traveller, yes!’ He placed it in the satchel. ‘Here’s another one that sounds like it has something to do with armies…Phalanx of Wood and Stone, it’s called.’

He read the spell’s description. ‘This conjures a squadron of towering soldiers of living wood and stone, armed with diamond-tipped spears and stone shields. Their strength can almost match that of a stone golem, and they will serve the wizard faithfully for one hour before returning to the earth. Yes. Maybe this can work with Army of Heroes…’

Alex put the book into Claygon’s bag.

‘Now…what’s this? Mass Control Corpse? This blood magic places an army of corpses under a wizard’s power; the caster is then able to puppet them by blood magic. Note: control is crude. Now, that’s quite the power!’ Alex thought. ‘Sounds like it could be useful against the church and certain Ravener-spawn. Awesome…okay, so, what’s next?’

He and Claygon drifted along, checking bookshelves, looking for a few more ninth-tier spells.

‘Mass Shatter,’ the young wizard’s eyes fixed on a guide bound in shards of shattered glass, though magically treated edges were smooth to the touch. Dust coated reflective surfaces. ‘This spell will shatter any number of objects within an area of the caster’s choosing, the size of which is limited only by their mana and skill. The magic can be used to destroy weapons of an attacking horde, or the food supply of unruly peasants. Use wisely.’

Alex put the book in his bag, imagining its possibilities. ‘If I get ambushed by the hidden churches’ warriors, I could disarm them with a spell like this…and…oh my, what’s this now?’

He carefully took another book from off the shelf, one bound in what looked like sand, though not a single grain fell as he held it. ‘Mass disintegration?’ he thought to Claygon. ‘Can you believe this? What in every hell…? This almost sounds like you’re cheating!’

‘Father…does that mean…you can disintegrate…entire groups of enemies…or objects…?’ Claygon asked.

‘Yes! It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?’ Alex thought, flipping through the book. ‘I mean, wouldn’t this spell just be better than mass shatter….oh. Oh, I see. It can only affect up to ten objects or opponents at a time. That’s limiting…but still devastating, turning ten enemies—or their weapons—to dust at once—”

A sudden sound, jarring and abrupt, shocked all on level nine.

There was a sneeze echoing through the room, halting Alex’s breath, freezing his blood.

‘Please let that have been one of those knights,’ he pleaded, glancing at a time keeper. ‘Please let that be one of the knights, please let that be one of the knights—’

Deep down, though, he knew better.

The sneeze hadn’t come from the guard station, but even more importantly…things had been going too smoothly. They’d managed to break into a highly secure library filled with magic without being seen, heard, discovered, or attacked.

Things never went that smoothly.

Never.

“Hello?” one of the knights called out in High Irtyshenan. “Who’s there? Did any of you hear that? Did you hear someone sneeze?”

“I thought so but ...there shouldn’t be anybody else up here but us,” another knight said.

There came the sound of scrambling feet and leather on metal.

A hatch closed, iron creaked.

The floor shook.

Alex floated higher, peering over a bookcase.

A golem-knight had donned his powered armour and was stalking along between rows of bookshelves. His helmet turned slowly, scanning the floor for signs of an intruder. Alex swore silently, flying back to Theresa with Claygon right behind.

He touched her shoulder, leaned in close, and whispered. ‘Are they back yet?’

‘No,’ she whispered back.

Alex’s heart pounded hard.

He checked a nearby timekeeper.

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Two minutes.

Two minutes before they were supposed to come together.

‘Come on,’ he thought, anxiously ‘come on!’

More knights climbed into their armour, sealing themselves in.

Alex watched the timekeeper, feeling his sweat turning cold. Ninety seconds.

Out of the knights’ view, books were disappearing. Dust was rising in the air; Alex could almost feel the Guild members’ desperation.

‘Hurry up,’ he thought.

More knights were walking between the shelves now.

“Are you sure you heard something? You’ve been drinking,” one called, her armour a swarm of trident-shaped patterns.

“Drinking or not, I did hear something,” said the one who’d first geared up, his armour etched, displaying a sea of blades.

“I heard something too,” another said, the shape of a bear forged across his metal chest.

A fourth looked around, soaring eagle’s wings emblazoned upon her chest. “No intruder has ever made it up here…it’s been quiet all night…there’s no way anyone’s here, right? The glyphs haven’t sounded; if anyone came through the door, they’d have to be invisible, but if they tried to teleport, they would have been turned to ice. I don’t see any ice, so it can’t be, it—” She paused, looking at a bookshelf. “...when was the last time someone came in here and took out a book from this level?”

“I can’t remember a single time,” replied the bear-knight.

The eagle-knight swore. “Someone’s in here! There’s books missing! A lot of them! Sound the alarm!”

Alex swore.

A knight at the guard station—ram’s horns built into his pauldrons—turned, reaching for a glyph on a wall nearby.

Alex teleported behind him, grabbing his helmet, he vanished. Holding the guard—catapulting across the planes—he appeared in the wilderness a hundred miles away.

“What th—” the man began shouting.

Alex was already gone, teleporting back to the tower.

He reappeared on the ninth floor…and the screaming of a blaring horn slammed into his ears.

“Agh!” he tried shaking off the deafening noise.

Another knight had sounded the alarm; others were rushing through the library floor.

“Pietr disappeared!” the eagle-knight cried.

“Doesn’t matter!” the bear-knight called back. “If we don’t catch these thieves, our hides are cooked. They’ll flay us to death! Flash-dust the room! Now!”

Alex leapt on the bear-knight, taking him to another patch of wilderness dozens of miles outside the city, and still invisible, he teleported back.

‘If I don’t physically attack them,’ he thought. ‘I’ll stay invisible and—’

Suddenly, glyphs began glowing on the library walls; flooding the room with glittering dust. Golden particles drifted from all directions, bouncing off most objects…but clinging to Alex’s skin.

Throughout the room, the forms of his invisible comrades were now marked by the flash-dust clinging to any exposed skin.

‘Shit, it must stick to living flesh!’ he thought.

“Thieves!” the trident-knight shouted. “Surrender now, or be destroyed!”

“Hurry up!” Crow shouted. “We’ve gotta go!”

In the centre of the chamber, teleportation circles flared.

Alex felt something coming. A lot of somethings were on the way.

“We’re about to have a lot more company!” he cried, leaping onto another knight, instantly appearing in the forest.

When he reappeared, the crystal door leading from the eighth floor had opened and knights were charging through. Guards were making their way for the outlined thieves, iron clubs raised, poised to drop them on the intruders.

Alex reached into his bag, grabbing booby-trapped sleeping potions from the satchel; glass shattered, potion mist dissipated.

“Don’t go near the gas!” he shouted at his comrades. “You’ll fall aslee—Oh shit!”

Golem knights charged through the gas as if it wasn't there.

‘Shit, they must have their own air supply!’ he realised.

“I’ll…help…!” Claygon shouted from across the room.

“Don’t attack!” Alex cried. “You don’t want to break your invisibility!”

“I am not attacking…them,” Claygon said.

Suddenly, a bookcase began creaking like old wood, rising high in the air then toppling sideways; slamming into another one, falling atop the next in a cascade.

Golem knights scrambled, trying to catch the shelves.

“Stop the shelves from falling!” the sword-knight shouted. “We can’t let the books get damaged!”

Alex teleported to the centre of the room, tossing sleeping potions into the teleportation circles. Potion-mist filled the air as a hulking figure appeared in the circle. Mounted on the back of an iron-drak was a massive iron-watcher with hair the colour of ash.

In one hand she held a hammer crackling with lightning. In the other, a spear-staff.

Potion-mist swirled around her, kept at bay by orbs of air around hers and her mount’s heads. She glowered across the room, raising her hammer, taking aim at a thief, she hurled it.

It arced through the air like a lighting bolt.

Alex teleported, and grabbing the thief, he vanished. The hammer struck the wall, sounding like an avalanche as the floor shook.

The guard raised her staff, chanting a spell.

Alex teleported behind her.

“No,” he touched her and her mount.

The Traveller’s power surged as he threw his will against hers; she proved defiant, even more so than the ancient Kaz-Mowang.

But her resistance was brief.

Hannah’s power surged, and he teleported away, taking the guard and her mount a hundred miles away, leaving them in an icy field, then teleporting back to the library.

“Freeze the floor!” a knight shouted.

“We need to get out of here, now!” Theresa cried.

“Gather up! Gather!” Crow shouted. “Doesn’t matter if you have everything! It’s time to go!”

Alex teleported to the centre of the room as the marked thieves flew toward Theresa. Golem-knights charged from all directions.

“Grab hold!” Alex cried.

Claygon, Theresa, Brutus and the four Guild members reached for Alex from all sides.

The golem-knights barreled toward them.

More iron-watchers appeared through the potion-mist, the eyes of their mounts glowing.

Alex threw everything he had into Hannah’s power.

His mind locked on the image of the safehouse.

And Brightfire’s ninth floor was gone.

They hurtled through time and space, moving past planes—images of a thousand realms—surging past them. Then darkness met them, and the only sound briefly heard in the safehouse were the ragged breaths of the four Guild thieves.

“Are we out?” Crow asked. “By the gods, we’re out!”

Alex dispelled the invisibility magic on the party with his staff. “Do you have everything you went there for? Did you get it all?”

Mouse, Rat, Crow and Fox looked at each other, and began rifling through their bags, speaking in code.

Theresa touched Alex’s face. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay.”

“We have everything!” Rat said, his voice tight with excitement. “We got out!”

In the distance—from the direction of Brightfire—an alarm began rising, growing louder, cutting clear across the city.

“We should go,” Mouse said. “We have what we need, and now they’ll be looking for the ones that robbed them. We should get back to headquarters.”

Fox looked at Alex. “Thank you, we couldn’t have done it without you; I swear, if Warder doesn’t give you a coin, then he’s addled.”

“Either way, you’ll find out soon enough.” Rat opened the secret passage in the back wall. “You should come with us.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “You’re letting us come to your headquarters?” he asked.

“Yes, if we succeeded, Warder said to bring you with us, if we got a good feeling from you; you saved our lives tonight. Feelings don’t get much better than that. Come, I’ll pour you all some potato wine, and we can show you the way to the Founder’s sanctum. At least…the part that we know of, I hope you can find the rest of the way yourselves.”

“I hope so too,” Alex said, patting Claygon’s backpack. “Well, at least tonight’s been a good night. A very good night.”