There must have been something wrong with me to go out into the city again so soon after finding a safe place to rest. Ulia had more sense than I, but getting better at traversing the rooftops was enjoyable. We’d already filled my bag with timber scavenged from staircases and walls, choosing the sections with no paint or rot.

Darine was right in that there were fewer groups of ghouls, yet that meant one group per street instead of three.

“Why place the stones here?” I asked as she tucked another into a loose tile, the sigil on its surface facing outwards.

“Warding crystals,” Darine corrected. “The elders have us placing them on either side of this street to eventually create a path to the next gate.”

They were subtle in their effect on the surrounding mana, slowly turning to the average concentrations I was used to. It whispered of dangers ahead, goosebumps rising across my skin when I thought of ignoring the warning and crossing the threshold. I couldn’t imagine it scaring a bunch of ghouls, but it was effective.

It also made them glance over us as long as we hugged the tiles and stayed still. The crystals could only disguise so much, and a tile slipping underfoot almost got us caught.

Darine had to hold each crystal for a few minutes before placing them. She traced the already carved sigils in the salt crystals and muttered to herself. The first had taken the longest if you didn’t count her trying to teach me at the second, but she was working through them much quicker now.

I was unsure if it was pity or disappointment in her gaze at how much of a novice I was. The sigil tugged at my mana, and I wanted to let it happen for the sake of curiosity, but I decided it wasn’t the best place for experimentation.

“Should we have brought a weapon?” I asked.

We descended a rope ladder after waiting on the roof for the street below to clear, and I wanted to know the plan if we were caught. All our crystals, except one, had been used along an already looted path, and Darine wanted to see if the other pair was doing okay since they weren’t on the opposite rooftop.

“I did,” she said, pulling out a spiked dagger without an edge from her robes. “It’s a last option. Killing one attracts more attention than it's worth.”

“Stop,” Darine said for the hundredth time this morning. I froze in place mid-climb with a number of rungs still below me. I didn’t dare turn around and break the charm of the crystal as the scraping on the cobblestone got closer.

Despite the wards' demonstrated effectiveness, it was still nerve-racking, especially without being able to see the inhuman creatures passing behind me. They were drawing in more mana than any I had sensed before, and I worried what that meant for their strength.

Darine had been filling my head with the different types of mutations we could find all morning. They weren’t always the same, but general characteristics were found often enough to classify them. Since she hadn’t called for us to scramble back to the rooftops, I assumed there were none of the nastier kind among the group.

I held my awkward position on the swaying ladder; my body rejuvenated from the night of rest and thickening mana. The strangled snorting continued past us without pause, and they stalked into a building out of the corner of my eye.

“Go.”

I jumped, bypassing the rest of the ladder and ran after Darine into the temple across the street. It must have once been as impressive as the library in Drasda. Stained glass, faded from once bright colours, lay across the stone floor, with jagged portions still stuck in window frames.

The hundreds of worshipers it could hold would struggle to find a single intact bench to sit on. The portraits hanging on the stone blocks only mages could have moved were washed out from the elements. A cracked mural behind a tipped-over altar depicted prominent figures of mages, bringing the light of a sun onto a gathering of kneeling figures.

Why did they kneel when they outnumbered the mages? Did the mages not need the farmers, tailors, smiths and cooks more than the reverse?

I’d heard more than witnessed their power. The worst I’d experienced were the blasts outside Tamil, and I conceded that a single spell could have me grovelling if I didn’t have mana. I could still be hard of hearing without my peculiar body and people like Morris to depend on. With the introduction of dragon’s breath, was the average person not more scary than a mage?

Or maybe not, because like the witches were constantly vigilant, a normal person wouldn’t have relied upon their senses their whole life. It was more so frightening to mages who were used to telling when an attack was coming and who was capable of those attacks.

The temple had a turret at each corner of the complex, and we ran up the spiral staircase of one that was still intact. The whole building was detached from any surrounding houses, making room for an expansive, overgrown garden, so I was lost as to what we would do when we reached the top.

The giant brass bell we found was a tantalising sight, and I wished to hear it ring, but Darine's look warned of harsh consequences. The tower's sides were open arches that sat above the four-storey buildings surrounding us. Darine went to each side, shielding her eyes from the sun, to look for the girls.

It was a unique sight—a sea of red and brown roofs between towering walls in the distance, with an occasional gap begging to be investigated. The howl of the wind carried the call of birds and the screech of ghouls. It wasn’t snowing, but the chill made it clear winter was upon us.

Darine sighed and moved to the steps without a word.

“Found them?”

“Ah, ha.”

She was more exasperated than worried, so they couldn’t have been in too much trouble. With only a single crystal hidden in her knapsack, we moved more carefully through the streets, ducking into every other house. I was playing a dangerous game, letting the groups I sensed get near enough to hear before warning her.

Darine was also frustrating in that she didn’t readily listen to me and waited to make sure before hiding. The street we had been travelling along was a main artery through the district and had more storefronts than homes on the ground level. Darine assured me they’d been checked for anything useful, but I still glanced longingly at them, wanting to explore.

I felt the collection of warding crystals before I found the two vacuums of mana motionless on a rooftop. There weren’t any ghouls in the area for them to be hiding from. I let Darine spin around, searching for them, not remembering which rooftop they were on from the temple.

“I think they’re up there,” I suggested, to be helpful and get us out of the street. She’d been frowning and becoming more agitated as we moved to find the girls, and I wanted to direct that anger away from me. The older girl had seemed steadfast in my limited interactions with her, and I was curious about what was annoying her more than my inability to help.

She went for the door and stormed up the stairs without a word. The attic window was diagonal, allowing easy access to the rooftop. Darine climbed out first, letting out that growing anger in forced whispers.

“You can’t be doing this. How many crystals have you even placed…or did you just come here directly?”

“Relax Darine. There are no elders here to crack the whip. Have a drag.”

I climbed out to find the two girls, Maisie and Andria, lying on the sloped tiles, arms behind their heads and holding out a smoking pipe to Darine. They were a season or two younger than Darine, with Maisie having coal-black hair barely long enough to reach her freckled cheeks. Andria was the polar opposite, with twin auburn braids that, if let loose, would reach her calves.

Darine went to bat away the slender pipe that smelled of medicinal herbs, but Maisie snatched it away in time.

“What happens when we decide to leave, and the eastern side isn’t warded?” Darine demanded.

“We’ll get to it. We were just held up by more infected than usual, right Andria?”

“Sounds reasonable,” Andria said, taking the pipe for herself. She let out a billow of thick white smock towards Darine, which the wind took before reaching her. “Even likely. The elders don’t know what it’s like out here. When was the last time they did their own work?”

“You know why we get sent,” Darine said, digging through their knapsack and counting the crystals. “And you stole from the garden again.”

“Is it really theft if we found the seeds, planted, and harvested them?” Maisie said, taking the pipe back.

“You wouldn’t be hiding up here if you didn’t think it was wrong,” Darine said, replacing her knapsack with theirs and walking across the roof, away from where we came. “It’ll be quicker alone. Stay with these two and make sure they don’t fall off.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“If you insist,” Maisie said, getting comfortable again. “We would have still got to it.”

Darine climbed up and disappeared through the window of a taller building, and the two girls turned to me for the first time. “Want to try?”

I shrugged and took the offered pipe, crouching on the tiles. My small inhale quickly devolved into a coughing fit, with my audience failing to conceal their giggles.

“Take another,” Andria encouraged, noticing the steel on my wrist. “Why do you have those shabby bracelets on?”

The unflattering strips of metal had peeked out from my sleeves as I lifted the pipe. I twisted them around, regretting not smoothing them out to look presentable.

Andria pulled back her sleeves to reveal multiple gem-encrusted gold and silver bracelets on each wrist. “Found these today. They sell all right in the settlements as long as you pick the decent pieces. Just ensure you don’t get any with mana crystals; that stuff attracts the infected.”

I couldn’t lie and say the steel pieces were sentimental since they knew I was locked up. “Where do you find it?”

“Small lock boxes and safes are my favourite. Lots of dressing rooms have unlocked jewellery boxes but less extravagant pieces. The bigger the home, the better chances for the good stuff.”

“I found this thing under the floorboards,” Maisie said, pulling out a dagger with a dead enchantment lingering on the blade.

I took off my knapsack and laid back on the roof with them so I wouldn’t fall off and tried the pipe again, still feeling like coughing as I drew in another breath of smoke. My anxiety at being left alone with new people faded slightly, and I blinked at the clouded sky without a thought.

“It’s good?” Maisie asked, reaching for the pipe. The feeling faded right after, and I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the brief moment of forced calm.

“A little,” I said, voice strained as I slowly breathed out. “Do you come out here just for this?”

“Wish we could,” Maisie said. “The eldest of us need to go out; this is the only chance we have without scrutiny.”

I waved off the pipe as it was passed back to me. “Have you thought of leaving?”

“Listen, not to be rude. You don’t yet understand what it’s like to live here. This is all we know, and the few times I’ve gone to the settlements, I walked around in fear of being found out.”

“It’s not the same, but I grew up in a forest and only met people besides my mother a few years ago,” I said, reaching for the pipe this time, wanting to get rid of my swelling emotions.

It didn’t work as well as I wanted, and I passed it back in disappointment.

“And she let you do this?”

“Nope, she tried to stop me before and died after getting involved in something she shouldn’t have.”

“Ah, sorry. At least…well, I suppose you got caught, which is what they’re always warning us of.”

I wanted to let them know it wasn’t like that, except I couldn’t without revealing the truth. They seemed understanding enough and even willing to accept my new allegiances and the freedom that came with it, yet it was impossible to know for sure. They wouldn’t even need a Duke to take them in, rather give up their witchy behaviour and live in the settlements as alchemists. Though, they might be under extra scrutiny among the remnants with an occupation like that.

Darine’s scream made Maisie drop the pipe, and we all watched as it rolled down the last few tiles and disappeared over the lip. It took another shout to get us moving, and Andria nimbly climbed up to the window first. Maisie turned to slam into the wall, back first and cupped her hands to boost me up. I reached back down to pull the shorter girl up after.

Andria already reached the opposite side’s window, and without my mana senses, I wouldn’t have been able to follow her path.

I leapt up to the window sill, bracing against the frame. Darine was three houses ahead, dangling off the roof's overhang, loose tiles sliding down around her from the damaged ridge. Andria rushed over to help, wobbling to the side in haste.

I turned to scale the side of the building to reach the adjoining rooftop and looked to the sky as Maisie jumped out to land ahead in a crouch. The shattering tiles pierced the silence as we ran across to Darine. She no longer held her knapsack. It was down below with the tiles, leaving all four of us exposed to the gathering ghouls below.

They didn’t understand how buildings functioned and surged into all the doors below us. However, most entered the correct entrance based on the proximity to the struggling Darine.

Andria neared her but had to go around the widening gap in the roof, wary of more loose tiles. Maisie had a different strategy and went to the edge first to approach Darine. From the conflicted look on her face as she glanced down, our predicament looked as bad as I sensed.

The rapid thoughts running through my mind concerned where I would hide once I had to use magic to get us out of this mess.

I followed Andria’s path, not trusting being so close to the edge. She’d shuffled around the collapse and kneeled to help Darine back up. There were so many ghouls below us that it shook the foundations as they crashed into the walls on their way up the stairs.

Their clamouring and growls filled the air. Nearby packs rushed towards us, alerting more further out. Those already inside reached the attic of the building we were on. Andria struggled to pull Darine up until Maisie arrived to grab the other arm. They didn’t have enough time. A pale arm broke through the tiles between us, reaching for a ledge to pull the rest of its body through.

I shifted my shabby bangles into claws that would be ineffective for the number of ghouls besieging us. They were more of a comforting presence than anything. Not seeing any way out of this, I mentally screamed into the mana around me as if talking to an animal. Like the single ghoul in the tunnels, those around us reacted badly to the mental intrusion.

My knees hit the tiles, reaching for any handhold I could find. They were screeching; I pressed my palms over my ears, but it wasn’t merely the sound affecting me. They’d responded to my mental attack with an equal retaliation.

A myriad of human voices spoke to me as clearly as Evie did, yet they didn’t have any of her coherence. Pleas for help overlapped with begging for it to end, yet it was all drowned out by the incoherent screaming.

Very few of the ghouls were capable of thought—and those that were—repeated the same phrase incessantly.

Someone grabbed the scruff of my robes and encouraged me to my feet. I squinted through blurry vision as the girls around me also covered their ears. From where we came, a ghoul had fallen out of the window and tumbled off the roof, paralysed from my attack.

Maisie pulled me again as a second ghoul toppled out of the same window, and another pulled itself up through the hole in the tiles.

We stumbled across the rooftop as fast as we could without falling. All while a worrying number of ghouls made it up, learning all fours was better than running after those ahead fell. As the person in the back, I was in the worst position.

However, the ghouls were adamant to prove that belief false.

“Scalers,” Darine called from the front. Ghouls with a strong enough grip and instinct to climb were rare. Yet three had found us and managed to climb up to block our path. We slowed as Darine approached them, her spiked dagger out. Maisie withdrew her dulled dagger as support.

They were catching up behind us, the sheer numbers making up for how many fell. I mentally screamed at them to go away. They still babbled their pleas but were not as physically affected as before.

However, the ghoul Darine was facing off against was impacted, and she stabbed it through the eye socket while it flailed wildly. The remaining two slipped off, clawing at the tiles on their way down, not before adding their begging to the racket in my mind.

“Go, go, go,” Andria said, tapping Maisie’s back while looking past me.

They were catching up, and my attacks weren’t useful against those already hit. The sliver of humanity still inside these creatures could only be awoken once.

Darine pulled a vial from her robes and threw it high. It arced through the air as we ran beneath and hit the rooftop before the ghouls clamoured past. Those closest clutched their throats as the liquid vapourised.

The mist dissipated in the wind, and those that followed pushed through without issue.

From the increased build-up of ambient mana, we were getting further into the district's interior, away from the safety of the abbey.

A second vial went overhead to hit the masses, but it would be the last.

“I don’t have anymore,” Darine said, her arms out for balance. When none of them were looking back, I blasted behind us with a wave of wind empowered by the ever-increasing mana balancing out in me.

Tiles lifted out of place to smack into the wave of ghouls also pushed back. The girls looked back to find the ghouls tripping over those now underfoot while others thudded into the swarm running alongside us on the street.

We were reaching the end of our row of houses, and I didn’t have a plan for what to do next. Darine kept pace towards the drop-off, so I hoped she did. When she looked back in panic, I knew she didn’t.

I weakened the already fragile wooden framing underfoot and broke the struts in half, indiscriminately ribbing apart anything wooden below me. I threw my clawed hand at the area, blades of wind hitting their mark, the pointed steel doing better to sharpen the strike than my last attempt.

The tiles cracked and crumpled inwards as the ghouls joined me on the roof. The entire structure buckled and fell onto the floor below and then the next. I jumped after Andria, latching onto the next roof as the building collapsed below me.

That stopped at the ground floor as the rubble fell to each side, allowing the sturdier foundation to remain upright.

I pulled my body up, and the girls all turned at the composition and quickly grabbed my robes to yank me over the edge.

“That was fucking close,” Maisai shouted, covering her mouth from the dust.

“Shhh.” Darine pointed below us, and we all crouched before laying flat against the roof in the cover of the dust cloud.

The ghouls running beside us had stopped to investigate the crash, the loud noise more important to them than us. However, those reaching the opposite ledge kept their gazes locked on us until those behind pushed them off, and a fight ensued.

“We’re so fucked,” Andria whispered, slowly peeking over the edge to find ghouls entering our lonely building.

“They’ll forget about us,” Darine said.

I leant back onto the tiles, listening to the human voices still screaming in my head. I chose to believe they were dead. Whatever I was dealing with was an unimportant piece of leftover consciousness. The other possibilities were too monstrous to entertain.

If every one of them was still alive, living with something else using their body…

The ghoul on the outer edge of the city had only screamed. These were using single words and short phrases over and over. Would those in the throne room speak?

“Who has the pipe?” Maisie asked.

Even Andria joined Darine in glaring at the girl.

“You dropped it,” I said, retracting my claws before anyone asked.

“Right…crap.”