Remarkably, Daphne had a feeling of deja-vu as the Rabid Daydream lifted her towards its wide, gaping mouth.

This is how it happened with Mark, she thought with a hazy sense of unreality. In the first battle. Maybe I can go see him…

“Wordsmith!”

But the Rabid Daydream didn’t eat him. Runar saved us. Runar…

“Daphne! Wordsmith!”

Was Runar’s voice coming from outside or inside her head? Maybe both. It sounded weak…

“Daphne — Wordsmith — Lore-light —”

Regardless of where it was coming from, the golden griffin’s voice pierced the haze of Daphne’s senses, making a hole wide enough for the full reality of the moment to get through.

The reality was not good.

The Rabid Daydream was moving very slowly. Veeeeeery slowly. The monster was dying, and the effort to bring Daphne up to its mouth was clearly costing its hand a great deal of excruciating effort. But, just like that first creature with Mark, this Rabid Daydream seemed to have a vindictive side. If it had to go, it was going to take Daphne with it, excruciating effort be damned.

And Daphne couldn’t go. Not yet. Not while Runar needed her.

“Wordsmith —” The golden voice was definitely inside her head, thrumming faintly in the back of her brain. It faltered, then gathered strength for one more push. “Forge — Lore-light —”

Daphne’s breath was being squeezed out of her. She couldn’t make a sound, but she managed to send out a semi-coherent thought along their developing mental link.

“The Prism — don’t have it —”

“It is a tool.” She felt a spasm, like Runar had gasped in pain. “Thou art a Wordsmith. Loresmith…”

The voice broke off in another spasm, but it had cleared the haze from her mind. She knew what to do.

Daphne didn’t have a magic pen. But she had summoned Lore-light in the tunnel with her bare hand, gathering it from the powerful carvings in the stone. And this monster had just had a field day sucking up lore from the powerful carvings in this room… using the hand that was holding her now.

Daphne placed both her hands on the colorless, rippling-metallic skin of that monstrous hand.

She thought of Runar, and Bjarni, and Eydis. She thought of Mark. Gathering that weight of need into her gut, she took a deep breath.

She pulled.

And, somehow, the lore responded.

Light began pooling around her fingertips, summoned from the depths of the Rabid Daydream and leeching through its skin.

It wasn’t nearly so painful or dramatic a forging as the fiery word-chains. This word-power was in the wrong place. It had been torn from its true home and consumed by a ravenous beast. It was stretched thin and partially digested, but it was still kicking, and it wanted to be called forth.

The power also wasn’t as smooth as the fireball she’d summoned against the Pinchers. The light that flooded her fingertips was chaotic and unwieldy, refusing to form into a neat little missile.

Fortunately, this was a situation that did not require a missile. Five flaming word-chains were doing their work, draining the Rabid Daydream of all its stolen word-power. The monster was already halfway out the door of life. Even its roars were decreasing in volume. Daphne’s hands were just taking the place of the sixth and final word-chain she hadn’t gotten to make, finishing the job in extra-shiny Loresmith style.

She felt herself sinking. The creature was getting smaller, shriveling into itself as all the lore it had eaten was drained away. The grip around her stomach loosened. After one last wrenching effort, she tugged her hands free and jumped the last few feet, sprawling on the floor with a messy blob of light in her arms.

The Rabid Daydream staggered. It made a final attempt at a roar, which came out sounding more like a squeaking cough. Then it fell, its now-hollow husk of a head bouncing harmlessly off the remnants of the council dais on its way to the ground.

Daphne gave herself exactly seven seconds to lie on her back, savoring the cool solidity of stone beneath her spine while she remembered how to breathe.

Then she pushed herself up. First sitting, then standing, holding on to the Lore-light as best she could while trying to get a read on the post-battle scene.

Carnage. That was the only word for it.

The gray light of pre-dawn filtering through the windows provided the perfect lighting for the sad mess. The Hall of Parables was in shambles. Blank splotches covered the walls where the Rabid Daydream had used the lore-rich carvings as its own personal grazing pasture. Half of one entire wall was completely smooth, thanks to Daphne’s environmentally unfriendly forging efforts. The council dais was a large stump, barely seven feet high and still crumbling. Stone littered the floor from all the ledges that had been smashed by the monster’s swinging limbs.

Daphne registered all of this vaguely, logging it away for future hours of grief. Then she looked carefully at the Rabid Daydream carcass. It had shriveled down to half its size, the fiery word-chains flickering loosely around its dried-out limbs.

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No need to ‘extract’ anything from that. The Lore-light had sealed the deal and taken care of the clean-up, all at once.

The most important thing right now was…

“Runar!”

Daphne stumbled over to the golden griffin, who was still lying where he had landed when the Rabid Daydream smacked him away. He lifted his head weakly to greet her.

“Hail, Loresmith.”

“Hail, Lorist warrior ninja combo.” She stopped herself from dropping the Lore-light as she considered wrapping her arms around him. Given the fact that her muscles felt like jelly and his body was one big bruise, a hug probably wouldn’t go well for either of them. Instead, she sent a wave of you-are-the-absolute-best vibes along their emotional link. “Seriously, you were flinging those word-chains like a top-notch Reader. Is there such a thing as a combo class here?”

He coughed, then winced. “Of course not. Thou knowest Euloban too well even to ask.”

“Well, Euloban seems to love surprising me.” She scanned the room. “What happened? I lost track of Eydis.”

Runar’s eyes widened. He struggled to sit up. “Eydis — by all the Legends —”

“Brother!” Bjarni approached in a shambling run, shaking his flame-colored head as if to clear it. “The Wordsmith and I, we finished it! We brought the beast down! But thou art hurt, we must go, I can take thee.”

“Hang on, Bjarni.” Daphne pushed Runar back down, speaking as soothingly as her rising dread would allow. “We’ll help Eydis first. Where is she?”

“Beyond help.” Tears pooled in Runar’s golden eyes. He pointed a trembling wing at the tunnel arch across the room. “The Rabid Daydream, it fed upon her. Drained her, and discarded her. I was too far away, I could not —”

Daphne was moving before he could finish. She started staggering towards the other end of the room, trailing Lore-light from her spaghetti-noodle arms.

“Wordsmith!” Bjarni came bounding up behind her. “Come, let me carry thee.”

Somehow, she got herself and all of the blob-esque Lore-light onto the young griffin’s back. He took off, soaring in a low arc to let her down by the tunnel arch.

There, in a pitiful heap, lay the shell of Eydis.

She was completely intact, with only a few scrapes that Daphne could see. Her fur and feathers were the same glossy dark brown as always. Her beak was open, as if about to deliver a scathing rebuke. One taloned foot still held a basher. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, even breaths.

But this was an empty shell. The eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. And they were blank, the rich amber replaced by a dull white that held no thought. No understanding.

No words.

Daphne wished she could scream. Bjarni was weeping beside her, but she felt hollow, as empty as the husk of her friend lying still at her feet. Even her brain, normally vocal about its desire to quit in distressing situations, was silent.

There just weren’t any words strong enough.

“Loresmith.” Runar’s voice stole gently into Daphne’s empty mind. “Thou hast power in thy hands. Use it.”

Looking down, she couldn’t even see her hands. They were hidden by the glowing blob of Lore-light filling her arms, large and unwieldy and pulsing with power…

Word-power.

The lore of the ancient ways, stolen from these sacred walls and reclaimed by a Wordsmith wielding the gift of Euloban.

Thou hast power in thy hands…

Daphne didn’t think. There was no time, and no need. Gathering up the whole gelatinous mass of word-power, she tucked it under one arm. Then, using the other hand as a funnel, she began pouring Lore-light into Eydis’s open beak.

Bjarni’s weeping stopped. Daphne didn’t think he was even breathing. Of course, she was holding her breath also. Her entire existence had narrowed to this one moment: keeping the flow steady, careful not to spill a drop of the precious word-power, willing the dark brown griffin to receive and be restored.

Come on, Eydis. Come back, Daphne prayed.

Runar joined the call, sending a tide of warmth along their emotional link, reaching out to Eydis through her.

Come back.

Finally, the last of the golden substance disappeared down Eydis’s throat. Daphne didn’t move. She still didn’t breathe.

Come on, Eydis…

Like the magic of a flame kindling from a single spark, light flashed in Eydis’s eyes. The light grew, flooding the empty whiteness with rich amber. A shudder ran through the dark brown body.

Eydis blinked. Her beak opened, closed, and opened again.

“What…”

The keen amber gaze drifted from Bjarni to Daphne before narrowing into a stern squint.

“What hast thou done?”

“Eydis!” Bjarni caught the elder griffin up in his strong wings, wrapping her in a smothering hug. “Thou art returned! Thank the Phrases!”

Daphne’s breath came out in a rush. She sat back and let the happy sounds of Bjarni’s joy and Eydis’s muffled protests wash over her, breaking gently like waves on the beach of her mind.

The gray light pouring through the windows shifted, turning to a pale gold. The sun was about to rise. All this destruction, all these rollercoaster emotions, and the day hadn’t even officially begun.

A fragment of thought finally coalesced in Daphne’s exhausted brain: What now?

What more could this world possibly throw at them?

As if in answer, a crash sounded behind her. She whirled around to find another Rabid Daydream, only a quarter of the previous monster’s size, pulling books off the shelves and devouring them a handful at a time…

Daphne blinked. Books? Shelves?

They weren’t looking at the Hall of Parables. The landscape was flickering, just like it had on her very first day in Euloban. That time, the Silent Plains had shifted briefly to Daphne’s street back home, right outside her apartment building. She and Mark had watched in horror as a Rabid Daydream snatched customers fleeing from the corner deli. Then the scene had vanished.

This time, the Hall of Parables had been replaced by the interior of a bookstore…

Daphne’s stomach twisted. This wasn’t just any bookstore. It was Story’s End Bookshop, one of her favorite local haunts and the site of her most recent book signing.

Now, a monster of her own design was tearing it apart.

With a sickening chill, Daphne realized the Rabid Daydream wasn’t alone in the scene. One of the store’s workers was sneaking up behind the creature, arms full of heavy reference tomes. As Daphne watched, the worker hefted a particularly weighty volume and threw it at the Rabid Daydream’s head with a defiant shout, scoring a direct hit.

Daphne’s stomach untwisted rapidly, leaping to her throat.

“Don’t!” she yelled. “You’ll just make it stronger!”

Too late. The monster ceased its perusal of the shelves’ culinary offerings and bent down, its giant mouth twitching as it sniffed for the collection of words that had hit its head. Seconds later, the large reference projectile was down the Rabid Daydream’s throat, and the monster’s hand was reaching for the worker bearing more yummy volumes, like they were being silver platter…

Before Daphne’s scream could get past the stomach-block in her throat, the scene vanished. The real world was gone, replaced once again by the ruined Hall of Parables.

But this scene was different, too. At some point during the brief overlay from Story’s End, Mynna and Vyth had entered the hall. Now they were standing on the wreck of the council dais, surveying the desolation wrought by Daphne’s imagination.

Mynna’s gaze landed on the Wordsmith. Even from several yards away, Daphne felt the sharp cold of the white griffin’s fury stab her like the point of a fountain pen.

“I think,” Mynna said in a voice as icy and biting as her gaze, “it is time for thee to leave, human.”