"Trust me."

"Trust— what?"

Scabs stood at the end of the semi-hallway between us, stale crimson light staining the tower storage-container walls on either side of us. His spear, tip pointed downward behind him, caught the light, glinting like a coiled snake. His face was a pale latticework of scars that stood out like blood on snow. Carefully restrained anger played on his expression, but when he stepped forward, his voice was level: “Needa pay you back for what you did to Patches.”

Weapons came up first; Clara regained her composure, immediately drawing back, widening her stance, dropping her shoulders, loosely raising her fists. The edges of her silhouette turned hazy. She held herself calm and collected— tense enough to keep herself focused, loose enough to dance on a knifes edge.

Arthur stepped forward, taking up Clara’s left and raising his blade— the same one I’d Transmuted earlier— with both hands. His stance was closed, tight and concentrated, anxiety playing across his expression, tightening his jaw. I grit my teeth, slipped my wand into my hand, and took up Clara’s right. Inwardly, I prepared myself; took a long breath, mentally gauged the distance, cataloged the spells I’d use, raised my wand and plastered a scowl on my face.

Scabs stopped. His eyes flickered to mine. “Ya did a real number on Patches— I’ll admit.”

I swallowed down the roiling knot of nausea in my throat, shelving the memory for later. Focus, Laurent, Talon’s memory intoned. Focus. My scowl deepened, and I projected as much cold arrogance as I could into my voice. “… Was that his name? I couldn’t tell from all the wailing he was doing.”

He scoffed, “Noble brats— all the same.”

Clara’s voice, low and focused, interrupting my response. “Stop biting, Laurent. He’s angling for time.”

“What?” I muttered back.

“It’s three on one. Think about it.”

I shut my mouth, turning my attention back to Scabs, who had stopped a decent distance away— he could dash it in a couple seconds, but it certainly wouldn’t be taking any of us by surprise. I weighed our odds. Before I’d fallen unconscious, Arthur had matched Scabs nearly blow for blow— Clara had supposedly fought off multiple assailants— and I’d been unable to assist either of them. Admittedly, I probably couldn’t do much to Scabs in my current state, and both Clara and Arthur were in less-than-optimal condition, but we still outnumbered him. It wasn’t favorable regardless of whatever perspective

“Eigenlicht—“ her eyes flicked back “— your Expression. Anyone else?”

Arthur visibly tensed. “Three will round the corner in a minute. Another three will be here in another.”

“Then— then what do we do?” Arthur ground out. “Run?”

“We can’t. I don’t like the odds of us trying to fend him off while running.”

“But you like the odds of seven on three?”

“Elle…”

“Better than trying to escape— we have no idea where this building is, Laurent.”

“C’mon!” Scabs shouted, “Cat got your tongue, noble shit?”

“He’s trying to goad us into doing something rash,” I muttered.

“He’s also drawing the others to him.”

“Y’know, I thought you’d be better at magic— but your icicle back then—“ he tipped his head back, laughing “— I’d seen bad mages— but you?” He whistled.

I tuned him out, my attention divided between the present and the near future.

“We— we have to fight?”

“What other choice do we have?”

“I… I don’t know.” Arthur reached the conclusion both Clara and I had, and his shoulders drooped, his eyes narrowing with strain as he refocused.

Beyond the basics of combat— or, as it was dubbed by my peers, ‘not getting stabbed’— Talon had foreseen the need to teach us other lessons; how to fight with a team, role composition and distribution when the practice field was in use; practical theory and battle planning and preparation. Preparation, he once lectured, was the singular most vital component to staying alive. It was a lesson I— admittedly— wasn’t paying much attention to. I had no aspirations to risk my life, and the only presentable dangers were horribly unlikely to happen, or were too large for me to do anything about. I couldn’t exactly fight Raziel on the wording of my Oath.

Regardless, I knew the standard plan the three of us were moving towards; Clara would act as our primary method of attack; Arthur our defense, and occasional support for Clara; and I would either aid Clara or Arthur as the situation necessitated. Normally, we’d have two others with us, to round the team out to five, but we didn’t, so the responsibilities of keeping an eye out for danger fell and healer naturally fell to whoever could do so. Naturally, that meant Clara and I, respectively.

Scabs’ attention fell onto Arthur. “You know,” he drawled, “your girlfriend might be a shit mage— but between the two of you— you’ve definitely got shit for brains—”

“Arthur,” I quietly warned. His jaw tightened.

“I know. I know.”

“We need to act,” Clara stressed. “Soon.”

"How?”

She glanced back. “You’re the mage.”

Helpful. “I’m trying, Eigenlicht.”

My mind spun through the possibilities. Nothing big— in my current condition, I couldn’t drown the area between us in ice and after last time, I doubted any Evocation would be effective. Transmuting the wall would be too much— I needed to be able to run or at the very least move afterwards. My eyes scanned our surroundings; storage containers rising in the dark, stained with darkening stale red; pockmarked, uniform concrete wall; the rusted staircase besides us; the archival office above Scabs. Scabs shouted something, but I didn’t hear it. Clara responded, her voice haughty.

“Laurent?” Clara hissed.

“Working on it,” I hissed back. My eyes darted around again. Nothing— I wasn’t finding anything. “How soon, Eigenlicht?”

“A minute at most.”

My jaw clenched, and I looked around again. The same surroundings; concrete walls, rickety stairs, storage containers— my coffin if I didn’t do anything about it.

Why do mages die? Talon’s memory pestered.

The answer was near automatic, drilled into me from his first lecture. They don’t exercise their options.

A mages lifeline is their ability to adapt— someone who can Shroud can swing a blade thirty different ways. They can change out their weapon— but they’re limited, Talon’s lesson continued. They cannot change their blade’s length, size— weight… The way they swing a blade doesn’t change the fact that it’s a blade. A mage can throw a fireball— and change every single parameter. They can turn the ground into spikes— lash an opponent to the floor. Never believe you only have a blade.

Then what were my options? My attention turned inwards, away from Evocation. Nothing I could think of would be tenable. Transmutation was a dead-end for much the same reason. I was— admittedly— barely passable in any other schools that fell outside Dimensionalism— I couldn’t weave illusions nor enchantments to save my life, I was hard pressed to find a way to solve this problem with Divination or Necromancy, and my knowledge of Abjuration lay solely in runes. Runes I didn’t have time to trace. Conjuration was all that remained.

“Elle?” Arthur’s voice was nervous. Scabs had stepped forward a little bit, and we’d taken a step back.

“What’s wrong?” Scabs spat. “You were so eager to fight us in the beginning.”

“I’ve got it,” I absently muttered, shoving down my hesitation. My gaze landed on the storage container above Scabs— nearly twenty feet up and forty or thirty feet away, and hopefully a good weight. I don’t know what I’d do if it was too light.

I drew a long breath, and a painful flush of cold air whistled through my veins, fighting off the wet heat crawling down my back. Pressure built behind my eyes, and my head gave a painful lurch as stars began dotting my vision— but it was better than earlier. Far better than earlier. My grip on my wand loosened, and I felt my ether spill out, pooling to encompass two points: the area below Scabs, and the storage container.

I exhaled, my breath clouding in front of me, and flicked my wand.

I saw Scabs’ eyes harden, and his entire body pulling taut, ready to move. I winced, my conscious snapping painfully taut as I felt my spell take hold. The little rest and energy I’d recovered leaked, pouring into the storm drain of the spell. The first storage container groaned, tipping over towards Scabs. His eyes shot upwards, the rest of him already moving towards us. The second one that had been below that also began to tip.

He wasn’t fast enough. The first storage container dropped and broke— followed shortly by the second— similarly shattering across the concrete ground in an shockwave of splintering wood. The third container crashed, though that one did less splintering and more flattening of everything it fell upon.

Arthur flinched, the point of his sword wavering as he took a step back. Clara took a long moment to look, held stock still, mouth slightly open. I doubled over, catching my breath, glaring through my curtain of hair at the place where Scabs used to stand, watching to see if he would rise— daring him to stand back up after something like that.

“Elle— you— you didn’t kill him— did you?” Arthur stammered out.

“I—“

“— It doesn’t matter,” Clara ordered, turning. “That made too much noise. We need to leave.”

Arthur turned with her, and as I stood to follow, my breath caught, the stars in my vision expanded, and I found myself bracing a hand against the wall trying to breathe. My mind burned, and embers of nausea burned at the back of my throat.

“Elle?” Arthur’s gently coaxed.

“… Laurent,” Clara said. I felt a hand on my back.

“I— “ I pushed off from the wall, and grit my teeth against the dry exhaustion flaring in my throat and behind my eyes “— I’m fine… I can do this. Let’s— we have to move, remember?”

Clara gave me an appraising look that said precisely how much she believed me, before nodding. “Don’t pass out.”

I swallowed, trying to convince myself. “I won’t.”

Simply like that, we fell into silence. Clara nodded again. Arthur shot me a look I couldn’t decipher— and our attention turned back to the world around us; the distant, whining whir of machinery; the rusty red light staining our surroundings; the distant tapping of footsteps against the ground; quiet snippets of far off shouts. At least the alarm had stopped screaming.

With a short look between both paths, we turned towards the one on the right, running. Well— less run and more purposeful jogging, Clara had to stop and watch or listen or whatever she was up to in order to guide us. Inwardly, I thanked her for the slower pace. I don’t think I could’ve handled having to sprint.

Our expedition out was much the same as our short skulk in; Clara took up the front, Arthur took the center, and I fell to the back. Occasionally, Arthur would glance back, as if making sure I was there, before turning back. Clara would move forward, pick between a direction, sometimes hold out an arm to stop us, or a finger to hush us, and then we’d wait for the voices to fade and we’d begin moving again. Down a right here, skip the turns and go straight, then a left— I couldn’t make sense of our directions.

I fell into a sort of weird lull, exhaustion confined my attention to my immediate surroundings, and to how I immediately felt. For all the sense I normally had, I felt horrible and utterly spent, like a pile of kicked-up ash— I could draw my through process around to plans for the future, what I’d do if everything went horribly wrong while we were leaving, or some other terrible event broke out, but I couldn’t draw anything meaningful from my thoughts. My wand felt numb in my hand, my cut of philosophers stone had become the same temperature as my hand, at some points I forgot both were in my hand entirely. The only thing grounding me to the present was following Clara, focusing on my breathing— however much it hurt— and the pulsating, mesmerizing embrace the Vitrine crystals were giving off from my bag.

Now that they were next to me, their presence— the whistling, scintillating frost across a lake’s surface— lilted at the edge of my awareness. Every so often, they gave out that same pulse that I’d felt in the bookkeeper’s office. Every so often, I found myself almost instinctively reaching for the ether stored within the crystals.

But each time, I drew away. I knew that it’d hurt— that the embers behind my eyes would flare into molten branding irons— that the dry straw in my throat would catch fire— that my exhaustion would turn into weights around my ankles— that despite the rush of elation I’d get, I’d become a liability.

Liabilities are often left behind, a quiet part of me whispered. The rest of me listened with pursed lips.

My attention drew back to the present when Clara held out an arm to block us. She held a finger to her mouth, shushing. Around the corner, people— workers presumably— were meandering around the entrance to the storage section, long dark sticks in their hands. Each of them were looking around— probably on guard. They didn’t show signs of moving from the entrance.

“We’ll… we’ll have to run past them,” Clara said.

“We can’t just make another distraction for them— like earlier?” Arthur whispered. I took the opportunity to sag against the wall.

“Out of distractions. Also there’s like eight of them.”

“Then what do we do?”

Clara glanced back at me. “Can you run?”

I nodded, feeling unsure. “We’re— we’re running past?”

“I’m pretty sure we could slip past.” Clara didn’t sound certain.

“No other choice?” I breathed.

“No other choice.” Clara held up a hand. “On my signal.”

A couple seconds passed, and the stale red climbing the walls seemed to turn darker. The guards crowding the entrance weren’t moving. I wasn’t sure what Clara was looking for. Another couple seconds passed, and I swallowed, pushing myself off from the wall. Then, we ran.

Immediately, shouts came our way— and I quickly realized that the number of guards were certainly not “like eight of them.” The number had to of been closer to ten— maybe twelve?— I couldn’t be sure. Clara was ahead, dodging and weaving, blurring as she struck out at anyone who got near— clearing the way for us. Arthur trailed beside me— making sure I didn’t fall behind— brandishing his blade at anyone who got closer to us. Most paused, glancing uncertainly at Clara.

The three of us had reached the entrance to the storeroom when another rough shout cut through the air— Scabs, booming, “Get them— get them! You all know whats at stake!”— I spun back, unable to believe my ears— Scabs had gotten out of the storage containers thrown at him. From where I was— running deeper into the hallway— he didn’t even look worse for wear. The numerous guards, who were hesitating, had all leapt back into motion, coming after us. Clara barked something at Arthur I didn’t catch, before falling behind, allowing Arthur to take a position farther up as we ran.

The walls of the corridor blurred, my vision darkened and my lungs burnt, the red light danced along the walls, mixing with the reflections of the pipes above us. Ahead of us— the stairs.

We climbed the stairs— my vision shuddered and darkened— and I stumbled with a gasp. The floor filled my sight, pins and needles and live coals burning through me. Arthur shouted something, and I heard footsteps before a hand was on my back, and arm looping around mine. My vision shook and I unsteadily sent a glance behind us.

They had gotten closer, halfway down the hallway from us, pulling ourselves to the small landing. Arthur shouted something, and the tug on my arm got stronger—

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Focus, Laurent— Talon’s memory quietly replayed, before a quiet part of me added to it. Else you’ll die.

I didn’t want to die, but I had no idea what to do. My thoughts drew to a fuzzy darkening static. Arthur gave another tug on my arm, his voice had grown frantic.

I heard a voice not my own.

It wasn’t Arthur’s, Clara’s or Talon’s either— or some other snippet of my memory or past coming to revisit me. It wasn’t my Shade’s— I could recognize the younger tenor of my own voice anywhere. The voice was vaguely feminine, evenly-pitched, and in my ear— drowning out every other sound in a deafening hum of hollowed, ringing bells.

“Trust me,” she coaxed, gentle and calm and serene, but promising, almost looming— the voice had a weight of expectation in its undertone.

Her impression grew sharper— a roiling static sky yawning open beside me, calming lifting my wand. On my periphery— a fluttering of snow-white cloth, descending into ash gray— and unwavering, near predatory candlelit eyes. Their expression was grinning— a slash of uncanny white— a smirk that had too much teeth to be friendly.

I dimly registered the clouding of my breath— strangled beneath the feeling of an empty blue sky reflected across a lake. A small droplet broke the stillness, ringing out like singing frost, rippling and warping the reflected sky into oblivion. One of the Vitrine crystals in my bag blackened, hollowed out.

Farther away, near the center of the hallway where our would-be captors were running— a single point of oscillating ice bloomed, suspended in the air. The bead fulminated, drowning the world in an ear-bursting shriek of ice.

I blinked, and the hallway had vanished— replaced with a wall of opaque ice composed of thorns. Each spike was longer than I was tall, and near the base of the stairs, where the last of the ice reached, some of the spikes had pierced and cracked the concrete forming it. I couldn’t see where it ended.

I spun, found myself looking to my side— only to see Arthur there, mouth agape staring out into the once-hallway.

A fuzzy blackness ate at my vision, and I felt myself falling.

[][][]

My slumbering senses jerked awake in painful shocks of slowly brightening clarity. I felt myself cough, and curl— only to find myself curling around something warm and stiff, my face mashing into cloth. I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt both hot and cold, like I’d come down with fever.

I was moving— I could tell from the jostling that sent electric jolts of pain through the rest of me, and the sensation of me clinging to something. My eyes cracked open— and my vision was that of a clear night sky, framed by brick walls that towered far above us. The sight was a visual far cry from earlier. Here, in this alley, as I dimly registered the changing of my direction the distinct lack of visual noise between here and the workshop was dissonant in a way. I felt like a second observer, weightlessly watching myself go through the motions.

A familiar voice, cutting the serene stillness: “Elle? Elle? Are you awake?”

It was quiet, so very quiet that it felt nearly deafening. I hadn’t realized how much noise there’d been back at the alchemical workshop until we’d left. The only sounds that I registered in my muddling senses were the crunching of snow and someone's ragged breathing. There was no longer any hissing pipes; no clinking, clanking machinery hugged by a hundred walls; no cascades of panicked shouting; no shuddering parade of thundering footsteps made by a hundred people who wanted us in chains; no more screaming alarms; no more rusty crimson light staining the walls. No more anything.

A quiet, shuddering part of me celebrated, rasping, We did it. We made it. We escaped. It’s all over.

“Elle?” Arthur’s voice was gentle. Warm. “Are you awake?”

My limbs relaxed, finally, finally being able to crash from the adrenaline, and I nestled deeper into the fabric of Arthur’s cloak.

A memory: Arthur and I, bundled together beneath a blanket beside my fireplace, far from the shuddering blizzard outside. We were younger, barely into our first decade, and at my father’s feet. My father sat, a smear of warm skin and smiling face and brown hair and orange light, sitting beneath his own pile of blankets in the armchair, a book was on his lap. Farther away, in her own armchair, my mother, a picture of serene grace. Even while she napped, she seemed to still look happy.

“One more story,” Arthur and I excitedly whispered, “one more!”

My father chuckled, sparing a glance to my slumbering mother, before turning his smile back to us. “Just one more,” he relented. “Then you’re off to bed, okay?”

We excitedly nodded, and he flipped to anther page, “Would you like to hear about the pirate who sailed the sky? Or about the—“

— Clara’s muttering: “She’s awake?— Arthur. Arthur. Is she up?”

The tone dragged me from my comfort; stern, edging on panic, like a jagged knife taken to cloth.

I cracked my eyes open again, the jagged jostling of my bones making itself painfully apparent as my mind fully woke up. I was on Arthur’s back, Clara was ahead of us, and we were still running.

Running from what?

“I’m—“ my throat rasped like dead embers “— I’m awake. I’m awake.”

Clara glanced back, swallowing, before coming to a stop. “Good— good.”

“We’re stopping?” Arthur asked.

“We need to rest— we need to catch our breaths. We’ve been running for—“

“— how long was I out?”

“… An hour, maybe?”

“Elle— can you stand?”

“I— I don’t trust myself to stand— set me against the wall?”

He gently set me down in the snow, softly exhaling and coming to lean against a wall. I understood. Even the lightest person would be a heavy burden to run around with. I ignored the freezing sensation beneath me.

“What— what’s the situation?” I winced at the soreness of my voice.

“The dude’s still after us,” Clara bit out, panting.

“… after everything?” I couldn’t keep the despair from my voice.

“After everything,” she echoed, rising. I stumbled to my feet, swallowing down the blossoming pain. We had to move. We weren’t out of the woods yet. We couldn’t stop until we reached somewhere we could rest. This alley wasn’t it.

Arthur came to my side, supporting me. I quietly choked out: “Where— where are we going?”

“Somewhere he can’t chase us,” Clara quietly hissed. The autumn air cut like knives in my lungs.

“Where?” Arthur asked. “The Keepers?”

“We can’t,” I bit out. My throat felt like it had spent coals shoved down it. “How are we going to explain it?”

“But— but Clara’s assignment—“

“— It’s not official,” Clara cut in. “Laurent is right. We have to get ourselves out of this mess.”

“Then… then where?” Arthur breathed.

“I don’t know.”

Silence fell. Clara had said the conclusion that we’d all been thinking, confirmed the fear that we hadn’t dared to earlier: what happened after we got through everything— what happened when we ran out of options? We didn’t know. After a minute, by which we stumbled around mostly in the dark, Clara came to rest against the wall again, breathing heavily.

“Eigenlicht?”

“Fine— fine,” she panted. “Just pushing my limit.”

“Are— are you injured?”

“… No, I kept my Shroud thick enough to ward off any harm that I could’ve been hit with— just exhausted, is all.”

Arthur chimed in, “Then we should take a moment to rest.”

Clara nodded, and neither of us didn’t put up a fight despite the urgency of the situation. The three of us understood that we were all pushing our limits— some more than others. Any rest we could get— we had to. I stumbled to a halt, and came to sit against the wall, my head tilted up. My breaths were cloudy, but the chill was anything but comforting.

Clara spoke suddenly, quiet in the dark: “You know, I never expected this..."

“Starting to regret taking your assignment, Eigenlicht?”

She laughed. “No— no, I can do this. People are being helped from this. This isn’t much. I can handle tougher assignments, I just need to prove to them that I can."

Them.

“Clara…” Arthur voice felt like a wince. “… How long have you been doing this?”

“Long enough,” Clara gave a bitter, coughing laugh. “What would Professor Talon think if he saw us?”

“He’d probably lecture us.”

“… then said like five things about how we could’ve avoided this mess,” Arthur chimed in.

Clara gave a light chuckle, and I found myself softly smiling despite the situation. The silence settled back in, punctuated by our breathing. “You know,” I began. “There’s something—“

Clara jerked up, a look of blooming shock. “We— we have to—“

“Finally found ya.”

Scabs rounded the corner, his face twisted into a furious scowl. His spear trailed behind him, dragging a line through the snow.

Our silence swallowed everything, and Scabs charged us.

Why— why go this far— We stumbled to our feet, quietly cursing as we turned to run. Clara kicked a bin of garbage— Arthur haphazardly toppled waterlogged boxes as we ran away. It seemed to work— Scabs wasn’t gaining on us— it seemed he was just as tired as we were. Not that that mattered— he still had more people chasing us. A part of me overruled the adrenaline— cut through the fuzzy brain-fog of fear, NONE OF THAT MATTERS— Think— THINK. Shut up and think! Where can you go that he can’t chase?

“A cliff!” Arthur yelled. “I— we have Feather stones!”

Neither I nor Clara spoke out to contradict the— admittedly— awful plan. It was better than no plan at all— and at first glance seemed to have no problems. Clara shouted, “Where? The cliffs aren’t a sheer drop! We’d have to—“

“— Clarion Isthmus!” I yelled, pushing past the glass in my throat.

Clarion Isthmus was an old, defunct airship loading dock that stuck out of the side of the cliff or tower like all Isthmuses. It’d been abandoned years ago under the pretense of maintenance, but had fallen to the wayside after a new Isthmus had been opened, featuring new advancements and rendering Clarion obsolete. The late hour, combined with the fact it’d been forgotten, and it’s relatively nearby location in the district, made it a good choice for what we needed. And at the rate we were headed— it appeared more and more likely that it’d become our only choice.

Clara swore. “There?!”

“Do we have any other choice!?”

Scabs gave a shrill whistle from behind us, and we didn’t turn to look at what that had caused.

“How— how far are we?” Arthur shouted.

“We’re pretty close— actually!”

“You can tell where we are?” I yelled.

“Expression!”

We continued running, following Clara as we ducked into deeper alleyways, knocked over more bins, and generally just did as much we could to slow down Scabs behind us— who seemed to have been joined by more people, if the multiplying of footsteps was anything to go by. My lungs burned, and my legs promised me a world of hurt when I next woke up, but I kept running alongside Arthur and Clara. We had no other choice.

The three of us broke out onto a main street, where the bespelled street lights hung at regular intervals and the slope of the road ran down. Clara took a glance left— then right, before rushing up the street, to the right. In the distance— the shadowed arches of the barred entrance to Clarion Isthmus. It’s sign was rusted, and the fence gates were locked with loops of frozen chain. Clara slid to a stop, pounding against a bar— it groaned, creaking, but didn’t break. She swore—

“Move!” I reached her, my Focus already in-hand and before I could think about the repercussions, I tore away the entirety of the fence gate— remolding it in a flash of freezing flush into the form of a fence cutting across the road— blocking Scabs and his gaggle of men from coming after us. I knew that it wouldn’t keep them away for long— but delay was all we needed.

We stumbled past— I slipped my Focus back into a cloak pocket as my vision warbled, but I held steady— into the abandoned yard of Clarion Isthmus.

Beyond them, stretching into the dark, was a long, wide bridge of gnarled stones, cracked in spots, frozen in others, but mostly coated in a clean layer of snow. It’s age was apparent— from the rotting wood and crumbling stone that dotted the small buildings and warehouses along the bridge, to the distinctive lack of crates or workers that normally occupied Isthmuses. The lights there hung from the buildings, meant to light up at night, were dim, broken or busted. Ramshackle paint was thrown across the walls that weren’t utterly unrecognizable, featuring imitation frescos and phrases I had no mind to remember.

Clara, Arthur, and I staggered towards the other end— we weren’t exactly sure where we were headed, but the goal remained that we needed to get out and away from the cliff. Suddenly, I realized how quiet it had become— our frantic energy dimmed without the reaper breathing down our necks— without Scabs actively chasing us.

My thoughts spun back around to why— and stuttered to a halt as I nearly tripped.

My body was crashing, and Clara caught me before I could fall face first into the snow. In the next moment, Arthur was at my side, holding me steady. The three of us held ourselves together, stumbling blindly past the buildings, eyes darting around for danger, only to find nothing. Silence had fallen again; Scabs wasn’t behind us, chasing us with unrelenting fury; there wasn’t any machinery, just our breathing piercing the quiet again.

This time though, none of us spoke. I caught Clara’s eye, mouthing, “Expression?”

She shook her head, a tired look in her eyes, confirming that she was indeed at her limit.

Eventually, after minutes that felt like hours, we approached the end of Clarion Isthmus. The railing had rotted away, and we stopped, lurching to a halt a good distance from the ledge. It wouldn’t do to accidentally slip off in our haste.

Clara broke the silence. “Arthur… the stones?”

“I— I— Yeah— yeah.” His hands were slow, and his eyes narrowed as he dug through his bag.

We heard it before we saw it: a silent hissing of metal on metal. It stopped, then it started, clanging, then hissing. Then, Scabs turned the corner, spear glinting in the moonlight. Footsteps thundered behind him, heralding the appearance of a dozen more armed figures. We backed farther away. Scabs’ yell: “There’s no reason for somethin’ like this!”

“We have to leave,” Clara’s hiss cut through our silence. “Now.”

“Hold— hold on,” Arthur stammered, his hand shaking as he rummaged through his own bag. “I— I can’t find them—“

Clara’s expression grew strained, bordering on manic, but her voice was still mostly level. “Find them, Arthur.” She glanced at me. “We have to hold him off, got anything like you pulled earlier?”

“Like—“ Like that explosion of ice you created through a very illegal source— another part of my mind interrupted, strained— Doesn’t matter! Just focus on surviving, please! The box lay in my bag, pulsing with a soft chill. “I’ve got something. Though— I need a little bit of time.”

Clara grimaced, before nodding. “Okay— okay. Let’s do it.” She spun, a fluttering of wine-red cloth, before stepping forward to meet Scabs.

“Sendin’ out a single one of you to buy time for the other to escape? Awfully altruistic.” Scabs called, leveling his spear. “Or maybe the noble bitch coerced you into it? You sure you lot don’t want to surrender? We can still steer away from an undesirable outcome.”

“An undesirable outcome? Like what?” Clara called, voice twinged slightly with jitters.

“Like you endin’ up on the ground bleedin’ out.” Figures branched out from the corner behind Scabs, moving to surround us. We were running out of time.

Even I could tell that my condition bordered on severe, the chances of me doing anything exceptional with a spell strayed closer to zero, but I had insurance. Clara stepped forward, raising her fists.

Carefully, ignoring the feeling of frost quickly numbing my hand, I extracted two Vitrine crystals from my bag. One would be for Scabs, the other would be insurance.

Very dangerous insurance, an absent part of me mused. I stuffed the second crystal into an easily accessible cloak pocket. The first stayed in my hand, its icy glow stifled as I held it close and considered my options.

There isn’t anytime for anything fancy, or strenuous— nothing— my mind stuttered at the possibility that bubbled up. After a heartbeat, I shoved away the concern in a fit of necessity. Both Clara and Scabs are Shrouded— this won’t— can’t be lethal.

I stepped forward, rolling the small crystal in my palm, and took a deep breath. I reached for the ether stored within the Vitrine crystal, spooled and crystallized, calm like a frozen lake. It was stable, as most gems holding ether were, but the supports were weak, brittle like ice. It didn’t take much effort on my part to snap one of those supports. It was easy— like snapping— and the entire structure began to crumble like a deck of cards. A icy snap bloomed into the world, cascading over and around me. It reached Clara and Scabs, who both paused.

I remembered the form Clara took when she threw the knife, adopted a similar stance, and with a hoarse shout to Clara, flung the crystal towards the two. The next events were a wild blur.

Clara spun, eyes widening as she immediately turned tail to run back towards me. Scabs had stiffened, spear turned up towards the glinting crystal. I twisted to run—

Boom.

The world shuddered— a sound like a crackling cut of thunder across a night sky, a gust of wind that knocked me to my feet and rattled my vision, and an ensuing wave of devouring heat. A hand was looped under my arm, supporting me, dragging me to my feet and towards Arthur— who had stilled with the Feather stones in his hand. The world felt deathly silent, slowly stumbling into a shrill ringing. The dock felt as if it was swaying beneath us.

The ringing settled, and my hearing returned. “— we ready?!” Clara was frantically shouting, her arm looped under mine. Arthur seemed to realize we were in front of me, panicked as he dumped a Feather stone into Clara’s hand.

We stepped forward— Clara’s arm was replaced with her hand, and I reached for Arthur, grabbing his hand in mine. Hand in hand—

We took each others hands— Arthur on my left, Clara on my right, Feather stones in each of their free hands, we approached the ledge—

And I froze, and the two of them pausing beside me.

The dark below us yawned open— infinite. Endless. So much larger than I. A black ocean reflection of the night sky above. It would drown me if I tried to swim. I remembered the tales again— of sailors and divers swallowed by the abyss at the bottom of the ocean— of spelunkers and adventurers plummeting into unknown depths— of mages who stole away with measures of magic they shouldn’t have, swallowed by secrets they couldn’t comprehend, paying the price in blood and sanity. I stay rooted to the spot, Arthur and Clara beside me.

There was a voice again, calm, serene, the eye at the center of a storm. “Jump,” she said.

I— I can’t do this— this— this is insane— what— why— shit— no nono—

“Jump,” she insisted again. “Trust me.”

“Get them!” Scab’s roared. “Nowhere to run!”

Behind us— Scab’s spear glinted in the firelight, his scars shone like knife marks in the dark. Shadowy figures rushed beside him and around the spindling tower of fire— towards us. In front of us— the fall I couldn’t see the bottom of. The abyss that swallowed better mages than I.

We jumped.

The sense of vertigo vanished— hollowed out by the feeling of falling down—

down

down

down

down

down—

— I felt my arms jerk— buoyed by the Feather stones tumbling into effect, devouring the sense of falling— replacing it with a weightlessness. My arms and shoulders complained— fiery pain that burnt itself into numbness. It took my strength with me— and I twisted, thrown into free fall.

Clara and Arthur hung above me, Arthur’s head reached out— Clara’s face a picture of slowly burgeoning shock. Beyond them, farther up, a tall, wiry man with crisscrossing scars across his face, holding a pale spear that glinted in the firelight behind him. Beside him, a woman of sweeping ivory-charcoal robes, of glinting firelight eyes and undecipherable looks. Even farther away, past the strange charcoal-snow woman, nestled in the nook of the sky, a star.

I fell— farther

farther down

further

down and down

and down—

— down

and down and

down down down down down

down into the gentle embrace of the void.

The star winked out.