Minutes later, not one but two boats had come in support of her. In the lead was Palis with the pair of sailors and Elly and Lisette. Coming up behind them, Mena had a second boat with three half-dressed neighbors plus an actual city guard.

They held the oarsman captive and scooped his colleague out of the water, barely resisting. While Ruyo watched them for treachery, Palis asked them, "Where is your base?"

"Won't do you any good," Jack muttered.

"Why's that?"

He fell silent, and Palis patiently turned to the oarsman. Elly had eagerly taken Pir back and was feeding the spirit with wood chips.

The oarsman said, "It's not supposed to be anything criminal! We're just seeking old knowledge. We were trying to find the right metals for a project, not to hurt anybody!"

"Oh, and captive water spirits don't count?"

"I don't know anything about that. Maybe in the lower levels? We're not allowed down there. There's this door only the inner circle knows how to open."

Ruyo snapped, "Did it occur to you that a secret lab on a hidden island with an even more secret basement might possibly be doing something wicked?"

The man looked her in the eyes. "We were trying to make useful machines. There was this ancient device called a 'bicycle', and we were completely on the right track with our hunch about using steam for machinery. But we needed better materials."

Palis laughed. "Ruyo, your spirit friend is more clever than I thought. She gave them honest advice about lost tech, and encouraged them to go buy strange materials that'd get noticed!"

Ruyo nodded. "Sounds like they had a bad accident too." The oarsman shuddered. "Mostly fire in there, huh?"

"Not all. We're researching whatever Lost World magic and technology we can find."

"But you have other mages?"

"Yes. And more flame embodiment spirits."

"Elementals."

"You're the one holding us at knifepoint. I'll call them whatever you want. Ma'am."

"Just fire ones?"

"All four kinds, but the fire ones work best."

"And which island is it?"

Finally he relented and described where it was. Not the one that had a reputation for being an occasional smugglers' den, but one near that.

She said, "Tell me about the locked door."

"It's a sealed slab, no lock visible. It just opens when the master casts the right spell."

Interesting; she had seen a door like that before, at the ruined hospital. "If your gang is really mostly innocent, can you get them to surrender while we clear out the ones who aren't?"

Jack sat there sullenly. The armed city guard poked him and said, "What do you know? Are you one of the ones involved in the crimes?"

Elly said, "Better question: Why did they have a spare cage along?"

Lisette added, "And why does it remind me of the spirit-trapping spells the Witch Hunters use?"

The oarsman said, "I didn't know he had that."

Mena said from her boat, "Maybe he was planning to show it to somebody in town. That's more likely than that he just happened to be ready for catching another spirit."

Ruyo was still standing on the water. "Enough speculation. These guys' friends are going to notice they've been gone too long, if we delay. I say we raid their island right now."

She looked her companions over. Elly and Lisette. Pir. Her parents. One professional guard. The two prisoners. Two sailors. Three barely-equipped townsfolk, one of whom she recognized as a pastry chef. "This really isn't a battle group, though. Best I can do for spare weapons is a crude club or a piece of metal each."

Elly said, "I'm here to protect you, Ruyo." Her sister nodded too.

The sailors were both tipsy but recovering, and had just seen a fight between mages. "Do we get paid?"

Ruyo said, "I'll buy you lunch and oh yeah, teach you magic if you haven't got it."

The guard said, "I'm in. This looks big. The city will probably offer a reward."

"I'm going to meet with the Council probably tomorrow."

One of the neighbors said, "You're Mena and Palis' kid, right? Used to know you when you were going around selling muffins. Is this really important?"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Ruyo nodded. "For Starshore, not just me. And Averell wants this gang's leaders for murder, kidnapping and arson." She smacked her hands together and created a showy flare of magic that condensed into a simple wooden truncheon. "This is going to be dangerous. Are you in?"

#

Ruyo rode in a boat, pushing it along by magic. With her were the sisters and the guard. The second boat was falling behind, so Ruyo hopped out, bounced two steps across the water like a skipping stone, and entered that one to help it catch up. This one held the sailor duo, the more cooperative of the two prisoners, and Ruyo's father Palis. Since they had three boats in total, she'd sent her mother and all but her toughest neighbor back to town to get more help.

Of them, the cult prisoner, whose name was Jilis, was the only one left unarmed. He said, "You mentioned we've got a water spirit held captive?"

"My friend, yes. Don't be in the way when I spot her."

"That'd explain how Master Veneri suddenly got inspired. Said he'd found a new source of ancient wisdom. So what will you do when you get down there and he threatens to kill the spirit?"

Ruyo clenched her fists, briefly losing control of her current-pushing spell. "How much do you know about me?"

"All I got told was, there was a crazy water witch and her henchmen after us. Jack might know more; I'm just a scholar looking to learn things and get rich."

On the other boat as they passed it, Elly looked pleased. "I'm a henchman now!"

Ruyo switched vessels repeatedly to keep them both moving quickly, pausing mainly to don the rest of her armor. No crossbow tonight but she at least had a knife. "I'm going to focus on any fire elementals and then other magic threats. If hitting it with a normal weapon is good enough, that's mainly your job. As for Nusina... She's a higher priority for me than catching the criminals."

Wracked Island loomed ahead in the darkness. Its terrain was rocky and good for nothing but lurking and writing gloomy poetry, or doing illegitimate business. Even approaching it meant threading between rocks and past shallow pools. When the boats ran aground for the third time Ruyo said, "Close enough."

No buildings stood here, but Jilis knew the way past some of the boulders to a pit lined with wooden stairs. Below that that was ruined brickwork. Ruyo had heard of this island holding a minor ruin. Jilis echoed her thoughts, saying, "Our group excavated beyond any level that past diggers had tried. We were persistent, and we found something."

The entrance had been hidden by stones heaped up in a way that might look natural at a distance. The cultist hesitated by a modern iron-bound door. "You're just going to clear out the people in the upper level, right? They're not hurting anyone."

Ruyo said, "I'm all right with that."

The guardsman tapped a club against his leg and said, "I'll want their names for later questioning." Under his breath he muttered, "Getting a promotion out of this."

Lisette said, "Ruyo, we should probably wait for the reinforcements."

Ruyo was starting to feel the same way, since they'd now blocked the threat of the Inheritors fleeing out the front door and any back exit would be underwater. She opened her mouth to agree.

Just then, one of the sailors said, "Let's do this." He ran up to the door and whacked it with the butt of his knife, shouting, "Open up!"

The captive shoved him aside and said, "Jilis here. I'm back."

The door unbolted and a small man peeked out. The sailor charged back up to yank it open the rest of the way. He drove his knee into the man's gut, then charged in like a hero.

Ruyo swore and everybody rushed in, trying to restrain him before he could brain somebody with that club. The floor was tilted crazily, making everyone stagger.

The other sailor got to him first and leaped to tackle him. It worked but in the process he crashed onto a large pair of scales, catapulting a potion bottle. Elly reached, fumbled, crashed into a human skeleton dangling from a set of wires, and rolled to her knees still clutching the intact bottle.

"What's going on?" shouted an outraged man in a leather apron and gloves.

Ruyo and her team had invaded a ruin turned laboratory. The floor sloped maybe twenty degrees off balance, and the modern furniture had been propped up with stones and metal clamps. Three men and a woman were up here and a fourth guy was running in with a crowbar. The guard shoved him and knocked the weapon aside, saying, "Council business! Surrender."

Ruyo said, "It's your lucky night, lady and gentleman. Your buddy vouched for you so I'm going to assume you didn't kidnap the water spirit, Nusina. Or have anything to do with all the burning in Averell."

There was a clamor. "Burning? What are you talking about?"

Lisette lunged at another man, threatening him with her sword. "You! I saw those shifty eyes. What do you know?"

"Somebody get this kid away from me!" he said.

"Kid!" But Lisette was mature enough to back off, still holding the sword ready. She'd already bloodied it once tonight.

The guard said, "This island is being investigated for fugitives." He handed the crowbar to the less drunk sailor, and pulled out a little wax tablet and stylus. "I want all your names and contact information."

Ruyo said, "Where is the sealed door to the inner lab?"

Jilis told the others, "Please cooperate. This woman is that sorceress we were warned about, and she's not happy."

Ruyo cracked her knuckles.

The man who'd gotten ambushed got up; nobody helped him. He spotted Pir and said, "Another one? Oh. Oh dear."

Ruyo's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"I... may have helped with the equipment to contain the spirit you're talking about."

Palis grabbed Ruyo's arm even as she conjured a blade of ice in it. He said, "Wait."

The researcher cringed. "Master Veneri insisted the spirit was quite mad, talking about a lost goddess."

One of the others said, "Really, Lir? You were down there and you had no damn idea anything criminal was going on? You let us get involved in a crime?"

The woman said, "The rest of us had nothing to do with it, whatever it was! We were working on innocent things."

The shop held alchemical gear, odd crystals, and purely mechanical tools and parts. An assembly of rods looked like a bizarre chair, and a wheel lay nearby.

Elly said, "Nobody knows anything, huh? Great, open that door." She pointed to a shut, ancient door in the shadows down a hall.

Ruyo said, "I think I can handle that. Now, mister... Lir? Give us a tour."

Jilis tried to calm the other workers down and cooperate with the guard. Taris helped out. Ruyo and the sisters, with Pir floating nearby, followed the little man down the tilted hall.

It had side passages, and Ruyo's eyes widened as she looked down one. Multicolored light shined from four runic circles that filled much of the three adjoining rooms on this side. From one spot Ruyo could see a blazing fire elemental, a watery one similar to her own Quill style but larger, a vaguely humanoid boulder, and (new to her) a swirling little tornado.

"As you can see," her captive guide explained, "we're doing some fascinating study of the generation and control of embodiment spirits. I theorize that there's a fifth element we've yet missed."

"Heart," said Ruyo.

"Really? Perhaps! Now as you can see, the markings on the floor safely contain them until I do this." He slapped a button on the wall. The restraint runes vanished.

"Aw hell," said Elly.