Fortunately, the Snow Queen didn’t chase me into the building, and - less fortunately - didn’t send her Snow Spirits in either. It would’ve been nice to be able to thin her numbers through attrition, but instead I had a moment of peace, and I was going to plan.

If I actually thought I could handle them individually, then forcing them to fight me and retreating whenever they had superior numbers would be a solid plan, at least until only the Snow Queen was left.

Unfortunately, even if I managed to get Copper and double team them, I didn’t think that would be enough to handle them. I might’ve had a good chance against Marie, though I had no idea how durable she actually was. But there was no way I could handle Matches. She was the second-in-command of Paradise, and the Leader of the Luminaries, and she had the power to back up the title.

Her frostflame could pin me down with a single hit, and she hadn’t pulled out her better tricks in her fight with Copper, probably because of the potential for collateral damage. Snow Queen’s [Kiss of Winter] protected from the cold, but it wouldn’t prevent being covered in ice. If she was fighting alone, she could recklessly use explosions and more uncontrolled forms of ice than a fireball that wouldn’t even spread. Even if I got in melee with her, she was incredibly durable, and she always had at least one more trick than the Frostflame, though what it was changed between runs.

Meanwhile, Hector was much faster than me. I might’ve been able to hope to take down Marie, avoid the Snow Queen’s blizzard, and outrun Matches at the same time. It would’ve been an incredibly slim chance already, but it might’ve been conceivable. But Hector had moved implausibly quickly, and he definitely had more than just that one trick. He was probably weaker than Matches, but he was a complete unknown to me. I couldn’t plan around his limitations like I could around Matches’.

I could try to run away until the dream collapsed, but it was too well-made for that to happen anytime soon. I wasn’t capable of playing cat-and-mouse games for hours, and the dream would probably take days to collapse..

My best option was to make a new ally, because with the current sides, there was no way we’d survive. There was only one entity in this situation that might’ve been possible to subvert. I couldn’t convince anybody to turn traitor, if they were in the Luminaries their loyalties were already decided. That said, William’s Paradise didn’t treat angels like people. If they were loyal, it was forced loyalty. Forced loyalty could be subverted, and I had the skills to stand a good chance at it.

Of course, that would require getting someone to set an angel on me, which would require making an utter nuisance of myself. Equally unfortunately, I had no idea how to do anything of the sort in a reasonable timeframe. Unfortunately, while I was trapped in the most advantageous area I could be, I was trapped, and pacing through the building revealed that the blizzard surrounded every exit it had. I could do something I knew was stupid, or I could stay on the defensive.

I wasn’t quite impatient enough to be that reckless yet.

Of course, Marie knew the limits of my ability, and she had reported back to paradise. It wasn’t actually a surprise when the edges of my skill began to freeze for no obvious reason. Matches was the logical counter for me, especially when working together with the Snow Queen.

Her one consistent ability was frostfire, and that must have been what she had used. The magical flames would consume all warmth it touched, leaving a thin layer of ice in its wake. To make matters worse, the only things it couldn’t cover in ice were gasses, sufficiently potent magic, and ice.

It was strong enough to spread freely through [Blood of the Sacrificed], and tricky to defend against. All she would have needed to do was toss it in one or more of the entrances, and with the thresholds, she could see whether [Blood of the Sacrificed] was in effect without having to step into the skill. If I were powerful enough to cover the whole mall I could’ve at least gotten a cheap shot off on her, but I wasn’t.

In any case, that was why [Blood of the Sacrificed] was beginning to freeze at the edges. I wasn’t particularly close to any entrance or exit, not that running into the blizzard outside was particularly appealing. What else could I do to endure the frostflame?

From what I knew of the mall layout, there wouldn’t be a threshold near any of the stairs, and so the flames would follow me between floors. Theoretically, I could jump over the frostflame, since the flames wouldn’t spread over ice, but frostflame was even quicker to spread than normal flame. Even if it was low to the ground and not a massive pillar of flame, it would catch on the ceiling, raining down sparks everywhere. It would take absurd luck to dodge that.

Was there a threshold I could reach in time? None of the shops would have one, I thought, already sprinting into motion. There was one option, and fortunately my feet had sent me running in the right direction. It wasn’t ideal, because it was an elevator, and I wasn’t certain how that would work in a dream.

I ran to the elevator. I slammed the button and hoped this would work. If not, I had a plan B, but it was an even scarier options.

Fortunately, and to my mild surprise, the elevator’s doors immediately began to open. There were good odds there were elevators in the dream; the chances that the elevator would be on this floor felt significantly lower. Regardless of whether it was working by dream logic or real logic, it was impossibly fortunate, I realized. I darted inside anyways.

The doors slammed shut with uncharacteristic speed, and I wondered for a moment if this was a trap. However, the odds of them guessing my plan to this degree would be fairly low. If they had a seer of that quality, they could have just stationed someone inside to ambush me.

That was when the elevator’s speakers activated. A disjointed voice blared from the speakers, formed of audio clips in a variety of voices, shifting between every word.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Ashlyn, nice to meet you.” They said, “You can call me Sandy.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Regrettably, this is a recording. I will be able to perceive what you have said afterwards, but this isn’t live, so I may not anticipate your questions correctly.” They said, “I’m the spokesperson of the Vermin. That would be those who William would have executed for crimes real or perceived, and all others who oppose his tyranny. Given that we share a mutual enemy, I would like to propose an alliance. Are you willing?”

“What terms?” I asked.

“For now? That you keep fighting, one way or another.” Sandy said, “If you do that, I promise we’ll do our best to help.”

“Certainly.” I said.

The tape paused for a second, leaving only the soft crackle of static, and then it spoke again.

“You’ve agreed? Good.” Sandy said, “If you trust me, you should hit the ground floor button when I tell you to. Then you’ll need to fight Matches, if things went according to my predictions. Don’t try to beat her. Try to get away instead. Don’t worry about her frostflame spreading with your blood mist, it won’t. When you get away, if you head directly for the city library, you should be fine.”

I paused, “Are you a seer?”

“Of course I’m a seer.” Sandy said, “Ground floor, now!”

I slammed the button.

As the elevator doors opened, I was overwhelmed by a surge of cold wind flowing into the elevator. The entire mall had frozen over, a thin layer of ice covered every inch of the building. It glittered in the light that streamed through the windows. I stepped carefully outside of the elevator and released [Blood of the Sacrificed], walking carefully over the ice. I could feel Matches in my range, and hit her with [Beast in the Blood]. Then I rushed for the exit, as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I underestimated how slippery the ice was, and tumbled off my feet.

Matches surfaced an instant later. Fortunately, she was in range of my blood mist but I wasn’t in eyeshot of her. She pulled out another matchstick and threw it down the hall. It hit the ground and shattered into a hundred spears of light, bouncing between all the walls and cutting through any of the mist they hit. She broke into a run, though she was only guessing which direction I would be in.

She guessed wrong, racing down the hall in the opposite direction.

I didn’t bother trying to stand up again, and just began to crawl across the ice as quickly as possible.

For the record, I have no idea if this was the right decision. I don’t know how to move quickly on ice, or how Matches was running after me without issue. I’d never bothered to research it, and I was guessing. People will tell you a lot about how to move safely on ice, but very little about how to move quickly and recklessly.

It took Matches a while to find me, longer than I had expected. I managed to dunk her with Beast two more times before she got in eyeshot of me.

Once she did, there was no dignity in the fight. I blindly cast [Unpredictable Detonation], which bought me another few seconds with an explosion of flame. Before she could recover, I rushed for the exit, but not fast enough. She tossed a box of matches at me. It landed a few inches away and exploded into blinding light. I collapsed in a haze of pain, bleeding from a dozen different places at once.

Dream Durability meant I could take the hit, but the pain was still overwhelming. I didn’t see the sphere of frostfire that hit me coming. It glanced against my legs, and slowly began to spread over my body.

Matches towered over me, smirking viciously.

“You’re a down payment, princess.” Matches smirked at me, “I’ll kill your goddess for murdering Kai.”

I tried to gasp out a response, but she stomped on my stomach. Her boots were covered in spikes, and came away bloody.

“Just lie there and die.” Matches said, “Eris won’t be fast enough to save you.”

That was when she froze.

“What?” She said to thin air. She must have been wearing a communicator. Was this the help Sandy had promised?

“Don’t you dare hurt Snow!” She said, desperately, “What do you want?”

There was real fear in her voice. I didn’t have any sympathy, not when I was bleeding on the ground. I felt distant from my own body, like it was no more me than the blood mist was.

“Fine.” Matches continued, “You do know they can hear you, right?”

“Of course.” She said, “I’ll leave the princess. Please don’t hurt Snow.”

With that, she ran off.

I was still “on fire” and the spread of the ice was slowly accelerating. By now, my legs had been frozen to the ground. The frostfire slowly spread across my upper body as I tried to shake myself loose. I failed, and was completely covered in ice. It was awful, freezing and suffocating at once. The cold chilled me to my bones, and I couldn’t even shiver under the layer of ice.

That was when I thought of the other option, and hit myself with [Beast in the Blood]. It smashed through the ice and dragged me under, and then I had it let me go. I surfaced with a desperate gasp.

It would’ve been an understatement to say I was half dead, seven-tenths would’ve been more accurate. All of my body was working, but whatever kept me alive as a Dreamer was significantly depleted. Matches probably could’ve killed me with another repetition of that matchbox trick.

Sandy had saved my life, or at least prolonged it for a few minutes. As I crawled out of the frozen mall, I noticed that the blizzard outside had completely subsided. I was alone, somehow.

I took off at a run for the Library, like Sandy had told me to.

By the time I had made it halfway to the Library, I was staggering from exhaustion. I was keeping up [Blood of the Sacrificed] at all times, so when Marie and her horse entered it, I knew immediately.

I hit her horse with Beast, and continued running. A projectile arced through the air and slammed into her chestplate, shattering it instantly. Another slammed into her gauntlet. Whoever was firing the projectiles continued systematically destroying the other pieces of her armor. By the time she reached me

Marie raced towards me, and as I summoned [Mirrored Night] and readied myself for an unpleasant fight, she pulled out her scroll and ripped it open.

The Angel's reality engulfed in an instant.