Wren looked up. Anvon stood in the doorway, essentially taking up the whole frame. He was watching her with heavy eyes, like looking at the face of a large statue.

Wren knew it hadn't been a full hour yet. But she'd been wandering so mindlessly, maybe her trip wasn't as subtle as she'd like.

She basically ignored his question, taking a step closer and standing taller despite his intimidation tactic. She was actually taller than him if she stood up straight.

"This is my mother's room, isn't it?" she asked.

Tellingly, it wasn't his room. There had been dust on things like the ledge and dresser top. Everything was put away, and the bed looked too small for two people. No one had been here in a while. Or if they had, they hadn't done much. Watered the plant, maybe.

"Do you think I'm a fool?" Anvon asked.

What?

"I've been watching you from our security room the whole time. I wanted to see what you would do. And, interestingly, Arra tells me some people from Iva are here, heading to the edge of town."

Who was Arra?

Possibly the colbber Cooper and the others had just encountered. She would certainly know where Wren's friends were, and being a colbber, she could send messages pretty easily.

They didn't get to ponder any further. Anvon took advantage of Wren's confusion, and grabbed her wrist, pulling her a little closer.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Wren objected, even knowing the lie was obvious.

She tried to yank out of his grip, and immediately froze up. Not out of her own fear or anything either. Something more was going on. Her senses were still working fine. She could feel his hand on her wrist, see his feet from where her eyes were angled, and she could hear his voice when he spoke up again. But she couldn't move at all. Not even to change her gaze.

"Stop playing dumb, it's insulting. You barely remember a thing, if you haven't forgotten entirely. And you've brought some friends right to our doorstep. If you were anyone else, you're punishment would be more severe. But, we'll be ready for your friends. Maybe you'll learn your lesson when we deal with them, and you spend a few hours in the closet."

Wren had already been afraid when he used some kind of magic to freeze her. It only got worse as he spoke. She thought of her friends being in danger. She remembered Hathanier locking her in a closet while planning to kill her, and Cyep trying to eat her. And there was another, latent, fear in the back of her head. So the emotion peaked. For one second it was all she could feel, a blinding feeling like a flash bomb going off inside her.

Then Anvon let out a gasp. It sounded a bit like a stifled scream. He let go of her wrist and stumbled back, breaking his magic hold on her.

Wren wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but she wasn't going to sit here and puzzle it out.

Anvon was still shaken. She ran past while she could, out the door and back into the hall.

Of course, once she hit the main hall, there was the problem of the cameras. Even if Anvon didn't have some way of contacting everyone, it would be easy for anyone to notice something was wrong. On the cameras or in person. The halls weren't exactly abandoned.

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There were two people talking up ahead. One pointed as she came running up the hall, and both turned towards her.

Wren panicked, arms swinging out. She couldn't just retreat. The only path behind her was the one she'd just come from.

She put her free hand to the nearest wall, the other still holding the rock, and intentionally blasted it with dark magic. Damn. She'd tried to hold back, and a larger chunk than she wanted was still torn away, rocks and dust flying everywhere. But there was a room on the other side of the opening, and she was going in.

At this point, Fleck was also panicking. Well, she might be feeding him some of that emotion, but he'd feel it even without that. They had to act now.

Fleck jumped up, shouting at Moon when she tried to get between him and the cult's building. They were out of time to wait.

Wren didn't want Fleck to get killed by flinging himself at the cultists, but she knew she couldn't convince him not to come. Especially while the alarm sirens were going off in her head as she ran, complete with a red flare around the edge of her vision sometimes.

Fleck wasn't exactly right on top of the cultist building. Wren would just have to hope the dragons would take a little longer to get there, and that their other friends could catch up before anything too bad happened.

And that Wren didn't get killed while she waited!

Yes that too. And not to make Fleck move even faster, but that wasn't going so well.

This was a meeting room of sorts. There were a few rectangular tables pressed against each other so they could circle around, with chairs set up around them. Pauth stepped out from the shadows of the tables, where he certainly hadn't been before. With the momentum Wren had going, she had to sort of run sideways to avoid running into him.

"Going somewhere?" Pauth asked.

It wasn't as intimidating as if Anvon or Murv had said it. He tried, but that kind of intimidation really wasn't his style, evidently.

It did not take away from the fact that he was a dangerous cult member with a death spell. He reached forward and she quickly backed away. Pauth whipped out his wand. While he wasted time on that, Wren zoomed for the door on the other side of the room. It was locked. She just yanked in futility at the handle.

Pauth cast a spell. It looked a bit like his death spell, but the dark green bolt was smooth instead of jagged. It hit just above her ankle, slicing through her skin like a particularly sharp blade. Wren tipped. Another slice and she dropped the rock, the attack going through part of her wrist and hand.

Pauth reached for her again, closing the distance while he cast spells. Wren moved away from him again. She got out of his reach, but almost immediately hit a chair and fell back. Pauth grabbed her arm, and she felt him twist it behind her back as he lifted her back up.

"What are you going to do now?" Pauth asked. "You don't have your enhancer."

Enhancer? She didn't think she'd picked one of those.

But Pauth still had her hand behind her back, making it hard to do anything, and that was more important. She didn't know if he was planning to kill her, drag her off somewhere, or some third option she hadn't thought of. But she didn't think any option was good.

For a moment, in her fear, the dark power that made things explode rose up. She stamped it down. She still didn't want to turn him to paste. But it reminded her she wasn't completely helpless.

She knew there was a metaphorical deep red crack in her magic. She had just stopped it from spouting like a volcano. But she'd tried intentionally using it just a minuet ago, and she could try again.

This was incredibly dangerous. She'd never managed to control this ability, even when she'd tried five seconds ago. And despite it all, she didn't want to kill him. But what else was there?

Calming down and ignoring Pauth as much as she could, she focused on the crack in her magic, and let just a tiny, tiny amount seep out for use. As small as she could manage, forcing the metaphorical pieces back towards each other when they threatened to split. A drop of water from a leaking sink.

It was still so hard, but in some ways, it seemed easier when she intentionally tried to use it.

There was a bang as an excessive amount of power went off. She felt warm blood hit her arm and back. Pauth screamed. But if he screamed, he was still alive. She was pretty sure she'd turned his arm to bits. But she couldn't get a good look. She could move again, and she wouldn't waste time.

She grabbed the rock off the floor and took off running again, her own blood dripping from her hand and ankle, his blood staining her shirt. If the door was locked, she'd just have to blow it open.