Nusina said, "Hold her." He crouched, set his lantern down, and steadied her awkwardly around the waist with one hand.

Nusina told her, "Concentrate. Now here's a chance to apply what you were studying. I can help with raw power but don't have the spell itself. Can you feel the poison? It doesn't belong. Flow it out."

She felt it, all right, burning worse than the wound itself but distinct from it. She tried to hold her hand steady near the wound and use it to pull at the other liquid, coaxing it outward without looking too closely at the mix of blood and sickly yellow slime. With Nusina talking her through it, she made three passes at cleaning the area. It still blazed and made her shed tears of pain, but didn't feel like it was going to explode anymore. A puddle of foul orange-tinged blood pooled beside her.

"Don't put your hand in that," Nusina said. "Can you stand?"

Cloacus said, "Here, lean against me."

Ruyo made one more attempt at cleansing, then shakily leaned toward the man and let him pull her upright. Favoring her good leg. She pulled the cloth free from her face and washed it in fresh water, then held it over the wound. "I'll live," she said, grimacing.

Nusina assured her, "You'll recover quickly. We just need to get you some rest. Mister, can we turn back?"

The man nodded. "I don't see any alarms, but... Miss Nusina, you feel that, don't you?" He pointed toward an out-of-the-way corner, that Ruyo had been close to peeking into. Near it, a clever repeating crossbow trap was perched near the ceiling.

Ruyo wanted to smash it. "You mean the trap?"

Nusina said, "Something magical? No, I... eek! Milady, it's time to leave."

"What is it?" Ruyo leaned against Cloacus for support. No footsteps of people coming to kill them.

He said, "Fire magic, and lots of it."

Nusina added, "It feels a lot like that fire beast we fought."

"Even better," he said, pulling Ruyo a step away from whatever hidden door he sensed.

They retreated carefully, with Ruyo hobbling along and Nusina watching for any other magical threats. The stairs leading back up were the worst part. But they made it out from the stench, at least, to the relative safety of the nighttime streets.

Cloacus relieved her of her gloves and foul coat. She shivered but was glad to be rid of them. Cloacus said, "I'm sorry. Let's get you up the hill to the mansion."

One painful walk later, Ruyo was back at the Vissio estate, borrowing soap from a bleary-eyed servant. Her guide went to report on what they'd seen. While Ruyo tried to get the worst of the stink off her and check her wound, Nusina said, "He was right. More fire elementals are down there. But why?"

"The cult must know how to make them. Attacking the city, maybe." Ruyo gritted her teeth and washed her wounded thigh. The servant had backed off but was blatantly eavesdropping just outside the servant bathroom.

Nusina peered closely at the wound. "You at least got a lesson in purifying things. Try to focus your attention on exactly where and how it hurts."

"Don't need to feel sorry for myself."

"Ssh. You want to learn to heal, right? Your body is slowly becoming innately tougher than most, but understanding pain and injury can help you grasp what mending feels like."

Ruyo nodded, and made herself focus her attention on the clotted blood and gashed flesh. She tried to keep her dinner down. Then she looked into the bowl of red-tinged soapy water beside her, and struggled with that, trying to lift the pure water separately from the suds. It worked a little. "Behold the power of Ruyo, who can't set foot in a tunnel without getting nearly killed and needing help just to limp out."

"Get some rest, milady. You helped Cloacus find a major threat. We can come back with more force tomorrow."

Ruyo dried off and wrapped a fresh bandage around her leg. "'We', huh?"

"I assumed you'd want to join in."

She yawned, angry at the threats beneath her feet but for now, relieved to be away from them. "I do. Rest first, divine wrath after." She opened the bathroom door and pretended not to notice the servant lurking nearby. She limped back to the guest room and eased herself into bed.

She beckoned toward Nusina, who floated closer and into her arms, just solid enough to feel.

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#

She felt much better in the morning. Another of the servants arrived with food, and he bowed slightly to her. "We've been praying for you. What's going on?"

Ruyo patted her injured side. Still sore, but it wouldn't slow her down much. "Thank you. That really does help me. There's a problem in the sewers, and a couple of us are going to deal with it."

"What kind of problem had you staggering back here and bleeding?"

It was a secret best kept by only the city leaders. But she thought of being caged, seeing the flame monster coming for her. How could she let the staff be defenseless if she failed?

"Look... Do you have any magic power yet? No? Now might be a good time for it."

The man gladly accepted. Ruyo would've liked to set him up to create endless water and not just to control it, but couldn't raise him to that much power in one step. "You might want to keep all the tubs and buckets full for the next few hours. Just in case. If you send somebody else over I'll get him trained up too."

"Thank you, ma'am!" He fetched one of the household women, who Ruyo empowered the same way. Ruyo taught them the beginner water-shaping spell.

When they were alone, Nusina said, "Save your energy. You might need it."

"Yeah, that's enough for now. Oh! I owe food back at the Wellspring." She concentrated to find the location, though she still didn't trust that sense well enough to navigate by it. A few minutes of effort let her cast the food-making spell several times, targeting the cave. Hopefully, there was now a pile of bread sitting around in there. There had to be a better way to do that.

#

Lady Vissio arrived with all three of her sons. She said, "The Council is gathering a raiding party to disrupt whatever the cult is trying. We'd like you to join the attack. These three all want to go, and I want you protecting them."

"Of course, ma'am. But should any of you be fighting?"

"No," the lady said.

"But we will," said one of the older brothers. "Just not Virid."

"What?" Virid said, looking up at him in shock.

"You're not a fighter yet."

"I've been in a fight, with this kind of monster! Or at least I saw Miss Ruyo fighting one. I need to know everything I can about elementals." He looked at Ruyo. "Take me with you."

Ruyo winced. "It's your mother's decision."

The lady of the house obviously wasn't eager to lay down the law, either, but now had her older son's support. She stood up straighter and said, "Your place is back here for now."

Virid tried to argue, but his mother would have none of it. Sulking, he said, "I'm going to pray for you, then. And I want to talk magic theory when you get back, ma'am! We'll all eat together and... and you'd all better come back!"

#

Ruyo went to the same sewer entrance with them. Whatever higher-ups were organizing this job were taking it seriously. A trio of city guards waited there with large shields and armor, and a mage in a thick cloak backed them up. What she could see of the wizard's face reminded him of Anemos; probably a relative and fellow wind specialist. Cloacus, the man who'd helped find the hideout, was said to be hunting down the cultists in some other way.

Nusina said, "See the guards' shields? That's a fire protection enchantment on them."

Ruyo studied them as the group prepared. The rectangular metal plates had a vague unreal haze around them when she peered closely. The mage's cloak had something similar. "I think I'm starting to recognize a magic item when I see it, so long as somebody points it out to my blind eyes. But I don't recognize the spell. And the caster has one, too?"

"That's right. The shields are fire-based, and the cloak is wind-based. Obviously not your style. But you could learn to come at the same effect from any elemental angle, like how healers tend to use water but often apply earth-based spell design."

Ruyo nodded. "I'll have to talk more later about enchantments. For now, we have a mission."

One of Ruyo's guards, Hastro, showed up in response to a messenger Ruyo had sent out. He said, "Khulis has an awful hangover. You wouldn't want him." He looked red-eyed himself, but ready to fight.

A man in merchant's clothes spotted the gathering group in the alley, and looked afraid. "Move along," said one of the guards. He fled.

Ruyo conjured a pair of water elementals to float beside her, fed gallons of water to Nusina to carry, and wielded a big glob in each hand for good measure. Any fire beast was going to get splashed to death.

The team descended as quietly as they could into the sewer depths: the three shield-bearers with maces, the mage, the Vissio twins with crossbows, Hastro hauling a battering ram for the guards, plus Ruyo and Nusina. Shields and boots thudded against stone walls and floors. By wordless consent they sped up, abandoning stealth.

Ruyo reminded them of the trouble in the room with the ancient mural. They spotted a suspicious discolored patch of the floor and set it off deliberately. One guard stood ready and watched a poisoned crossbow bolt thud harmlessly into his shield. He nodded in satisfaction. "That's attempted murder of a guard, to add to the charges."

They reached the hidden door near the trap. Now that Ruyo was looking for it, it glowed with power. Or more accurately something behind it did. The door itself was painted to look like the stonework around it.

One of the guards signaled. They took up the heavy ram and together, slammed it into the door with a mighty clang. It cracked, just wood reinforced with metal strips. Again! The door splintered. Inside, someone shouted. A third blow bashed the door in and sent the trio staggering through it.

And down. The floor dropped away into a pit several paces deep. The room was a ruin with rubble scattered everywhere; the guards crashed onto it. Blazing monsters lit the room. Like great cats whose bodies were ash and flame, whose eyes watched the newcomers hungrily.

Four of them were penned in by rune-etched metal rods along the floor. Except that one of the frightened criminals lurking here was yanking one of the rods out of place.

"Surrender!" shouted the Vissio twins.

One of the six men and women in the cult was a robed man with a sharp-edged face, sunken eyes, and a walking-stick. His hands and one cheek were bandaged. When he saw Ruyo he raised the stick and said, "Attack! It's the lucky thief!"

The cultists closed in on the fallen guards. They were armed only with knives, but two let fly with spells that hurled chunks of broken stone from the floor. Two of the guardsmen raised their shields, desperately trying to recover while blocking. The third had landed badly and was shouting, clutching his left arm.

The other men found a rough stairway of stones to climb down, entering the fight. The wind-mage flung a blast of air that knocked flying rocks aside. He and the rest braced themselves against the elementals' attack as they swarmed out of their pen, but the beasts were climbing up to reach Ruyo. She was faced with four pairs of white-hot eyes.