Addie had been lucky, finding the man as he slept. His scraggly appearance was just as disgusting as the first time she saw him. Beneath the black cloak, he wore torn-up linens. Addie was just glad he had anything on underneath his cloak.

Sitting on the hard stone floor with her knees, Addie hovered her hands over black cloak’s chest and closed her eyes. She took a silent deep breath, then dove into her shared soul bond with Squishy.

She started by observing her own soul shell, and the connecting tunnel to Squishy’s soul as well. The ethereal tunnel existed somewhere between either of them, sturdy yet almost transparent in the way she envisioned it. From there, she allowed a small trickle of magic to flow up through the bond directly to Addie. Then, she used all of her focus and learning from the transcendent loop exercise, and brought her magic outside of her soul, just above the outside of her soul shell.

From this point forward, everything she did would be guesswork. She had never tried to touch another person’s soul before. In the past, Christena had manipulated Addie’s magic for her, helping her learn how to do it. Now, Addie needed to try doing what Christena had done. She moved that tendril out from her soul shell, out and out, blindly wiggling it around trying to search for something. Addie thought about where her hands were, and where the man lay below her outstretched hands. She tried to envision that location while she wiggled her magic tendril around, but it didn’t seem to help so much. The space that her soul shell occupied almost seemed unrelated to her body.

Frustration started to build up in Addie, forcing her to hold back a huff. If she couldn’t break the magic in his soul, would it be her fault if more children got hurt? She shook her head, trying to push the thought away and force her frustration down. She focused back on her magic tendril as it extended out from her soul shell.

With a great deal of focus, she split her magic into two tendrils, and then four, but by having so many different tendrils outside of herself, it became hard to focus on all of them at the same time. She did her best though, and wiggled them around all over, just trying to find anything.

Fleetingly, Addie brushed against something. It had been so slight, that she almost thought she imagined it. She moved all four of her magic tendrils over in a direction that wasn’t truly a direction—the spiritual place in between magic and reality. Then, all four tendrils grabbed ahold of something, strong and sturdy. Most importantly, it was round, the shape of a soul shell.

One of her tendrils, then two, and rapidly all four of the magic tendrils started burning, putting an ache in her soul that went beyond the soreness of her body. It felt like a taste of soul damage—reminding her of those days she had spent healing the burns on her soul shell.

Addie gasped, and cut the magic tendrils away from her core, simply letting them fall away from her soul shell to stop the spreading flames. The magic tendrils, now separated from her core, dissolved into nothingness, and she lost all awareness of them. She opened her eyes hastily and looked down at black cloak before her.

A sigh of relief began to make its way to the front of her lungs, but then her breath hitched. The man’s eyes were still closed, but coming out from his chest was the head of a white bird, the same one from the rooftops. It extended out of his chest like a disgusting growth, bubbling up and out from his skin. Ghostly flames licked the top of the bird’s crown, shading its white feathers in pale purple.

The flames started spreading, forcing Addie to hurriedly stand up and take a hesitant step backward. The flames spread all over black cloak’s chest and then stopped. He looked like the victim of a funeral pyre— though, his clothes did not burn, and the room did not smell like smoke.

Squishy started rumbling something deep within his chest, deeper than something as small as he should be capable of. Then, black cloak’s eyes opened frighteningly quick, and he snapped his head over to look at Addie.

The protruding white-headed hawk gave a quick squawk, then the situation caught up to it, and it screamed piercingly into Addie’s ears. Addie flinched but knew better than to close her eyes in front of an enemy. She had already made that mistake once before.

Squishy’s ears came down flat against his skull, and without hesitation, he ran toward the bird, Addie feeling his intentions as he aimed to chomp the bird’s head right off. His powerful protective instinct bled over through their bond.

The bird‘s head dropped back into black cloak’s chest fully, diving as if into a puddle. At the same time, black cloak himself rolled backward and jumped up before Squishy could reach them.

He sunk into the shadows for a moment, and Addie gulped down some musty stale air. Both of them stared at each other for a moment in shock, but Squishy would never be distracted like that. He jumped at black cloak, spiky dragon-like teeth bared as his claws gripped the stone flooring for traction. Squishy’s teeth made contact with black cloak’s leg, causing him to yelp and stumble a moment before catching himself.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

For a second, black cloak flailed his leg wildly as Squishy held on even as he was shaken around.

“Get off me you weird lizard!” black cloak’s voice was high-pitched, and squeal-y, especially in the way he pronounced ‘lizard’.

Addie wouldn’t let Squishy do all of the work, she started to build her magic, to punt everyone out into Realmspace.

Black cloak must have known Addie was doing something, as Addie felt a pressure on her soul, much the same as in her exercises with Christena. He pushed his soul out onto Addie’s, attempting to force her magic to stop early.

Amusement crawled up Addie’s chest since she knew that wouldn’t work on her. Immediately, she channeled her magic all around her soul shell, protecting it fully from black cloak’s influence and shoving his magic away from her in the process.

Then, Addie retaliated with her own attack, and their surroundings went dark as everyone entered Realmspace.

Black cloak cursed loudly, something about Aggan. If Addie had spoken those words, she would have gotten in trouble.

Squishy was still attached to black cloak’s leg, digging his teeth into him. Addie wanted to help too, so she ran forward right into black cloak, bowling him over onto the ground, making him curse again— this time much louder.

Addie tried to push her magic out into his soul again, but like before, she was blindly flailing her magic around just trying to find black cloak’s soul. She had never done this in lessons, before, and she found it to be more difficult than she would have thought.

Like before, her magic tendril once again started burning, forcing her to let the magic go before it would spread to her soul shell. This idea wasn’t going to work.

She opened her eyes, and the black hawk was in the middle of pushing its head out of black cloak’s chest. Then, the hawk pushed its wings out of his chest, too: rippling out as if surfacing from a still pond.

Ghostly flames ignited on the tips of its feathers, and then it flapped its wings once. The wisps flew out from the hawk and spread all over.

Addie watched in fear as two landed right on her skirt, and another one ignited on Squishy’s paw. Hurriedly, Addie ejected black cloak from Realmspace and practiced the transcendent loop exercise Christena taught her. It wasn’t enough though, and she felt the flames start licking against her legs.

Addie pulled her dress off as fast as possible and dropped it on the ground. She grimaced as her limbs became exposed to the cold air. That seemed to work, though, and the white-purple flames stayed on her dress, without spreading to the ground. She only took a second to glance at herself and confirm the flames hadn’t spread to her underclothes. Then, she ran over to Squishy.

His paw was still burning, and it was slowly spread up his arm. Due to their shared soul connection, she knew he was using the transcendent loop, so at least they didn’t need to worry about his soul.

He looked up at Addie and whimpered. It was more in fear than pain. The flames didn’t seem to burn his arm, they were only spreading across his body. Addie turned her head over to her dress for a moment and saw the same thing over there. The dress had flames all over it now, but it wasn’t turning to ash, or even smoking.

“Does it hurt?” Addie asked, “Are you ok?”

“This is most certainly not ideal, and I can feel the flames attempting to attack my soul shell, but they have been unsuccessful thus far.” His tone sounded brave, but she could see his body trembling. “I am worried, however. The more the flames spread across my body, the stronger the bombardment against my soul.”

That worried Addie, too. She didn’t have much time to think about it, though. Unfortunately for them, by now, their earlier magic ran out, and Realmspace seemed to be displeased with their presence as it swiftly punted them back to reality.

The world snapped back with the sharpness of a slammed door, leaving Addie blinking against the gray light that now filled the room. She was on guard the moment they reentered reality. She waved her head around, wildly scanning the room, looking for black cloak.

She didn’t see him anywhere within the room, but she did see her discarded dress on the floor not too far away from her, so at least she wouldn’t need to retrieve it later. She did have a thin undershirt on, but without her dress, the damp breeze snuck right up against her back, making her feel exposed. Unfortunately, there was no time to deal with her currently burning dress.

She looked back over to Squishy, “He’s not here.”

“That is for the best. Allow me to concentrate. I must protect my soul.” Addie watched as the nearly transparent flames danced across his black scales.

“Let me help.” Addie grabbed onto their shared magic bond and pushed some of the magic over towards Squishy. Now, with her focus within his soul shell, she could see the magic he was cycling over his core, keeping the sinister flames at bay. She wrapped an additional layer of their magic over his shell, allowing him a moment to rest. “I’ll protect you. Can you try to get rid of the other fire?” Addie spoke within the soul bond.

Still focused on protecting Squishy’s soul shell, Addie watched as her little warrior dropped onto the ground and started rolling all over. Luckily, that did not cause the flames to spread to the stone ground. Unluckily, it didn’t seem to help Squishy at all either. He rubbed at his face and whimpered. Addie noticed that his eyes were closed, too. She wouldn’t want her eyes to be open while her face burned, either.

Squishy quit whimpering and sat on his haunches. She felt him draw on some of their magic, and push it outside of his soul shell. The next thing Addie knew, the fire started getting smaller, and gradually, over about a minute, the flames completely extinguished. Squishy huffed out a big breath, and then flopped down onto his stomach, with his black paws sprawled out.

“How did you do that?” Addie asked excitedly.

“I simply extended our magic out from my soul shell, and used it to protect my physical body.”

“Teach me to do that!” Addie exclaimed. But right after she said it, she thought better of it. “Not right now. Where did black cloak go?”

“The obscure absence of smell has spread throughout the entire room. We will have to exit it before I can begin tracking.”

Before that, how was Addie going to save her poor dress?