Noah stared at the grimoire, trying to make sense of the words upon its page. The book had never spoken to him before. He’d known it was sentient, but this was a step beyond showing Bird inappropriate drawings purely to get him in trouble.

There was something going on that he didn’t understand. The grimoire was more than he had thought it was. But, no matter how badly he wanted to figure out what the hell was up with it and why Sievan’s men had been so unsettled by the book, there was no time right now.

The only thing that mattered was his students. He couldn’t waste precious seconds trying to determine what the book was or what it wanted. Noah didn’t care. If it could help him, then everything else could wait.

More ink bloomed within the grimoire’s page, but this time, it didn’t take the form of words. It made a pattern from runes — but they weren’t just any runes. Noah recognized these runes.

They were his own.

Noah’s eyes went wide. It wasn’t just the runes he recognized. It was the pattern as well. A circle. A circle he’d seen many months before, though it now seemed like it had been years ago.

The runes within the circle were different than the last time he’d seen it. That did absolutely nothing to change its purpose. Noah knew exactly what the purpose of this pattern was, and he realized what the book was suggesting.

It was an idea so ridiculous that it would have been laughable in any other situation.

But this wasn’t any other situation. His students were putting up an incredible fight, but their time was running out, slipping like grains of sand past Noah’s fingertips as he did nothing but watch.

This situation called for something ridiculous.

Ink twisted beneath the rune circle to form into more words upon the grimoire’s pages.

I will require payment.

“Done,” Noah barked. “I don’t care what you need. All I care about is saving my students. If you can let me do that, then anything you want is yours. You’ve seen how I work. You know I hold true to my promises as long as you aren’t asking for something that I’m not willing to offer.”

Accepted.

Noah slammed the grimoire closed. There was nothing more to be said. He and the book were on the exact same page — figuratively and literally.

Mascot hopped down from his shoulder and landed on top of the book. For a moment, he met the cat’s gaze.

“The book,” Noah said, his voice as taut as a tightrope. “Take it to Isabel.”

There was a flicker of acknowledgement in Mascot’s eyes. A ripple of reddish-purple energy washed over the cat and the grimoire beneath it.

Then they were gone.

***

Isabel dove to the ground. Pain flared through her shoulder as she hit it in a roll, and a loud crash behind her marked a root demolishing the dirt where she’d been moment before. Her breath came out in ragged gasps as she scrambled back to her feet, exhaustion gripping her heart and piercing into her side like a blade.

She had no time to give in to it. Isabel dove out of the way once more as another root whipped through the air with a whistling howl.

Dust and wispy white mist swirled through the air around her. It stung her wounds and coated her tongue with the cold flavor of iron and earth.

Another root was already moving for her face by the time she started to rise. Her muscles screamed in protest as she prepared to dodge, but before she could, Alexandra slipped past her in a blur of motion, her blade carving Jakob’s magic to shreds as she tried to find an opening in his defenses.

Isabel spat gritty blood onto the ground as she fought to catch her breath with the brief moment that the other girl had bought her.

Their fight wasn’t going well. Jakob was wearing them down. It was pathetic that the professor hadn’t actually managed to defeat them yet, and it was pretty clear he knew that. The scumbag traitor’s features were twisted in fury and embarrassment as he simply used his superior magical reserves to grind away at what power they had left.

He knew that there should have been no contest in the fight. Numbers meant nothing in the face of overwhelming strength. He’d said that himself, and yet he hadn’t managed to beat them.

That would be little solace when they all ran out of magic and died.

Isabel’s jaw clenched. They only had one chance. Emily’s pattern was practically optimized for destroying shields. She’d been steadily making her way closer to Jakob over the fight, but it was hard to tell if she’d make it in time. Emily was almost certainly close enough to attempt her attack now — Jakob didn’t know the full range of the mist she could summon — but the moment she started doing anything, the professor would turn his full strength against her.

And if she does break Jakob’s shield… I don’t know what we’ll be able to do after that. Can we really kill him, even without a shield?

Damn it. One step at a time. Emily needs an opportunity.

I can give that to her.

“Hey,” Isabel screamed over the rushing crash of the vines all around her. She drew on a tiny amount of the magic she still had remaining to summon a flicker of blue energy to her palm. “Torrin scum! Did you get so caught up trying to beat children that you forgot about why you threw your honor away?”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Jakob’s eyes snapped over to her. The vines surrounding him writhed like a dying snake.

“You have a good point,” Jakob hissed. “Perhaps I should just deal with you first.”

Oops. More effective than I was hoping for.

Todd tackled Isabel out of the way as a dozen massive vines exploded into motion and reached for her as one. They hit the ground in a tumble and he was back to his feet in an instant, yanking Isabel up along with him.

Isabel’s heart slammed in her chest as she put every scrap of energy she had left into running. She couldn’t risk throwing a glance back at Emily to see how things were going. She heard Alexandra and Yulin fighting behind her, trying to keep the vines from growing close, but they were losing the fight.

Todd slammed his shoulder into Isabel’s side out of the blue. She lost her footing and hit the ground in a tumble. There was a loud crunch from above her. Todd snarled in pain, and panic ripped through Isabel’s chest like a blade.

A root had wrapped around Todd’s arm. His bones cracked as it clenched down like a snake and he let out a cry of pain.

“Todd!” Isabel yelled.

Another root rose up above Isabel as she tried to rise to her feet.

Then it crashed down.

Alexandra blurred. She slammed her shoulder into the root, knocking it out of the way. The thorns covering it scraped along her arms and sides as it smashed into the ground directly beside Isabel with enough force to shake the dirt.

The swordswoman fought to catch her breath. Her clothes were ripped apart and her magic was clearly nearing its limits. There was only so long she could keep her pattern active.

A root snapped up from the ground and snapped around Isabel’s legs, binding them together and yanking her into the air so fast that a flash of pain shot through her neck.

“No more running,” Jakob snarled. “I’ve had it to my neck with you slippery little rats. I don’t understand how a group of Rank 2 and 3s could be so blasted infuriating.”

He was so focused on her that he didn’t seem to notice the white mist that coiled across the ground at his feet.

“Go back to licking the Torrin’s feet, you worthless shitstain,” Isabel rasped. “My father accomplished more when he took a shit in the morning than you will throughout your entire life.”

The root binding Isabel’s legs tightened. She cried out in pain as the bladed growths covering it dug into her flesh and ground against her bones.

“I don’t typically enjoy killing, but I’ll make an exception for you,” Jakob growled. He extended his hand toward her —

A hundred shrill shrieks, overlaid over each other and in rapid succession, carved through the air. Minuscule needles flashed within the mist and Jakob’s shield flashed to life. Ripples exploded across its surface at the violent assault.

His eyes went wide.

His shield shattered in an instant, and razor thin cuts bloomed across the professor’s body. Jakob spun, bringing his hand down with a roar. A root exploded from the ground beneath Emily, heading straight for her heart.

The air before her shimmered as James appeared directly before her, crossing his arms before himself. Several disks of yellow light took form between himself and the white growth. Jakob’s attack smashed through every one of them.

It continued on into James, slamming his hands into his stomach and driving him into Emily. Both of them were launched off their feet and slammed into the ground with a resounding crash. When it rose, neither of them moved.

Agony tore through Isabel’s body as she twisted in a desperate atttempt to free herself.

No!

A tiny flicker of reddish-purple caught Isabel’s eye as she swayed from the root suspending her in the air.

Her eyes went wide. Mascot sat before her, perched upon a massive grimoire. The cat pawed at its closed cover.

It couldn’t be, but there it was.

Noah’s grimoire.

Did he send this to me?

The mist around Jakob evaporated. He turned back toward Isabel.

“Now it’s your turn,” Jakob growled.

Isabel ripped from her minuscule reserves, spurred by the flicker of hope blooming in her chest. A tiny blue blade formed in her hands and she heaved herself up, driving it into the root and giving it a sharp jerk.

The plant split apart and she dropped unceremoniously to the ground with a pained thud. Isabel dragged herself toward the grimoire with her hands, her legs worthless.

The shadow of a root rose up over Isabel.

She grabbed onto the sides of the grimoire.

“I could use a little help, professor,” Isabel whispered through ragged gasps. “We need you.”

“What would your father say if he saw you crawling away from a battle?” Jakob asked, his cold laughter ringing through the clearing. “Pathetic until the end.”

The root crashed down.

The grimoire in Isabel’s hands ripped itself open, and inky shadow arose from within it with a howl like a soul escaping the depths of the afterlife.

A clawed hand made of darkest night formed from the books pages and moved in a split instant, grabbing the root an inch before it could come into contact with Isabel’s back.

There was a loud crunch.

Plant matter splattered across Isabel’s back as the hand closed down, crushing the root into pulp.

The dark arm rippled, and a second one emerged from the book. It crashed into the dirt with enough force to send tremors ripping through the earth beneath Isabel, and an abomination rose free from within its pages.

Twisting strands of sinewy flesh as black as night had been crudely sewn together to make up its figure. It undulated and pulsated like a warped parody of a beating organ. The monstrosity had a slender, sickly form that bent like it had been broken over and over, and it would have been easily twenty feet tall if it hadn’t been so hunched over.

Long arms as thin as bones jutted at its sides and dug into the ground, slender fingers digging through the dirt like there was nothing there. Its eye sockets were empty and sunken, a crooked mouth of all-too-wide teeth twisted into a horrifying smile as the creature drew in a deep, wheezing breath.

“What in the Damned Plains is that?” Jakob asked, his voice raising in pitch and disgust. He flicked his hands forward and every root around him exploded forward, crashing down toward Isabel and the monster like an avalanche.

The horrifying creature lifted its warped finger into the air and touched the nearest root as it approached. There was a loud, wet squelch.

Every single root in the clearing shriveled in on themselves like they had been flash dried. They collapsed to the ground, brittle and worthless.

Jakob’s disgust turned to horror. He took a step backward, his lips parting. Then his hand shot up to his neck, pulling free a pendant and preparing to rip it off his neck.

That fucking coward. He brought one of the escape pendants meant for students?

The monstrosity beside Isabel drove one of its arms into the ground in a blur. Black flesh exploded up from the dirt before Jakob and a spindly hand clamped down around his arm.

There was a crunch followed by a wet, splattering rip. Jakob’s arm flew free of his body, torn clean off at the shoulder. He let out a scream of agony.

“Don’t leave so quickly, Professor,” the abomination said, its voice a hissing whisper. Massive teeth ground against each other as its grin stretched to cover its entire face. “I have been promised your runes. I will ensure you live long enough for me to properly enjoy this.”