The barrier snapped as Kai stepped over line. His feet left footprints in the dried mud.

Hina turned sideways to push through the gap, her bag catching on the doorframe.

She bumped into Kai, who stood still just outside the door. Then Hina saw the beasts. Two of the smaller ones were lying down, watching from the tree line. The big one was standing in the open, watching.

It took a step towards them.

"Back back back," said Kai, pressing against her.

Hina squeezed through the doorway and moved out of the way. Her knife in hand, held low and ready.

Kai turned to face the door as soon as he passed through. He had his hammer in his right hand, knuckles white.

The two of them waited, watching the doorway for a long time. Nothing came through.

"Are they waiting?" Kai said. "For us to come out?"

"It looks like it."

"What do we do?"

"Unless you want to fight them," Hina was breathing hard. "We just have to wait them out."

Kai ducked his head out the door and pulled it back. "At the edge of the trees. All of 'em. Just sitting there. Not good. Rather fight in here than out there."

"I don't know. I don't think I like our chances one way or another."

"Hmm. I think—it could work." He gestured to the doorway. "Head in the doorway, hammer to the face. That's a bad day for anybody, wolf or not. No matter how big it is."

"If it doesn't bite off your hand first. Do they even fit through the doorway? Is what why they're waiting?"

"Smaller ones, maybe."

"I figure we wait. We've got water for a day or two if we stretch it out. How long can they possibly stay out there? They have to eat, right?"

Kai shook his head. "Hopefully not too long."

"I'm going to put the barrier back up, yell if anything happens."

Hina moved a few paces away, and sat cross-legged on the floor to cycle, branch in her lap. The torrent of potentia was just as strong as it had been yesterday, but she found it to be less overwhelming this time. It didn't wear away at her quite so much.

Perhaps the force of her will was a little stronger, or it was because she was better rested.

She was full to brimming within moments.

Standing up, she took out her water bottle, and splashed water on the dried mud in the doorway, stirring with her sandalled foot until yesterday's lines and their footprints were obscured.

The barrier snapped together and Hina leaned on the wall for support, slid down it to sit on the ground until the wave of exhaustion passed.

Stolen novel; please report.

It was good practice, if nothing else.

* * *

"What am I gonna do in the city?" Kai asked. "While you're at the academy?"

"You're asking that now? Like I said, we'll find you an apprenticeship, or you could go back to school once we get there. I'm sure we'll be able to arrange it. What would you like to do?"

"I'm not—" He cleared his throat. "What would I apprentice in?"

"You liked the militia training, right? Maybe you could join the guard? Everywhere needs guards."

"Maybe." He paced back and forth from one side of the room to the other, stopped to stare at the painting. "Who's this old guy, anyway?"

Hina had barely looked earlier. It was a faded full-body portrait of a stocky man well-past his prime in a wooden frame, to scale with the doors—enormous. The subject wore a dark suit with a white shirt and spectacles, and had tufts of bushy grey hair and a full beard. He was glaring down at the room with his arms folded. "Not a friendly looking fellow."

"Is he..." Kai walked from side to side, looking at the painting from different angles. "Is he looking at something?" He stopped. "Oh." He walked over to the rug. "Maybe..." Kai folded one corner back, and began to roll it up. "He's looking this way. Maybe..."

Hina watched.

"Yes! I knew it!"

"What is it?" Hina couldn't see past the rolled up rug from where she was sitting. "A safe?" She slowly got to her feet.

"Looks like..." he was still rolling the rug towards Hina. "A door? A hatch? Knew I was sleeping on something weird."

Kai had stopped with the rug a little more than half rolled up. He was bent down with his hand on a handle in the floor. "Can't. Quite. Lift it."

A square wooden door was set into a frame in the floor, with a ring handle—like the main doors—that Kai was pulling with both hands. The hatch matched the rest of the room in scale.

"Let me help." The handle was big enough for both of them to pull on it at the same time. Hina stood beside Kai, feet on the frame around the hatch. She bent to hold the handle with both hands. "Ready?"

They pulled. Hina could feel the strain in her arms and her back. Something shifted, the door began to lift. First only a fraction, and then as Hina continued to pull, a gap appeared between the hatch and the floor. A wedge of darkness into the space below.

As the door rose to the height of her waist, Hina shifted one hand to the wood of the hatch itself, and then both hands. She stepped around the sides of the frame in the floor to keep the door in reach as she pushed it up towards its midpoint. Past the mid-point, the door slipped out of Hina's grasp and it fell to slam against the rolled up carpet with a boom.

"You okay?" Hina asked, eyes wide.

Kai grinned. "Glad I didn't try to catch it."

"It's a long way down," she said. "I wonder what's down there."

A ladder led down into the shaft, the walls of it were lined with pale stone—the same stone as the rest of the building.

"I bet there's something great."

"A way out, maybe."

"Or treasure? Bet nobody's been down there for years."

"Someone made the fire, Kai."

He glanced at it. "Oh. I thought... I dunno what I thought," he said. "Are we going to go down there?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe there's something to help with the wolf-things."

Hina gestured to the hatch door. "If someone closed this while we were down there, we'd never be able to get out. It took both of us to open, and I can't imagine that working from the top of a ladder."

"Hmm. What about..." Kai moved over to the fireplace and picked up the iron poker, which was as long as he was tall. "A lever?"

"You want to carry that up a ladder to wedge under the edge of the door?"

"No, won't work. We climb to the top of the ladder, lift, then wedge this under the rungs to hold it open." He gestured to the open door of the hatch. "The loop of the handle will keep it in place."

"I guess. If the poker and the rungs of the ladder are strong enough to hold the door open."

"And it works as a weapon." He held it with both hands and made a poking motion. "Like a spear. Or a club."

"Pretty blunt for a spear."

"Better than what we've got."

"My other thought is that whatever's down there might be worse than what's up here. Like, we don't know what's down there, and we might get trapped in with whatever it is."

"Does it matter? We can't deal with the wolves already," Kai said. "If we have to run away from whatever's down there, we'll be no worse off than we are now."

"Okay, but we're going to run away at the first sign of any trouble. If I say run, you run, got it?"

"Deal." Kai gave a small smile. "I wanna go first."

Hina followed Kai down the ladder.