Maya looked up at the distant noise, the roar of many voices joined in anger.

"That sounds so awful," she murmured. "I hope they're okay."

"They're fine," Fin murmured. "The boy lives, also."

"Oh," said Maya. She looked around; they were all clustered at the bottom of a stone staircase, standing before a very heavy and very securely locked wooden door. "Ash, are YOU okay?"

"Fine," Ashley grunted. She was holding her hand an inch from the door, concentrating as much heat as she could summon into the lock. "This tough bloody wood's harder to burn than the damn metal."

Maya gasped at the sound of footsteps above, then breathed a sigh of relief as Selene appeared.

"They all got away, but they ran in different directions," she said. "Lina had the boy, Sophia and Ada were together."

"I suppose that can't be helped," said Fin. "I'm just relieved that they're all unhurt."

"Sophia didn't look good," Selene said. "Not injured, but she pushed herself too hard."

Fin considered this, frowning. Then he shook his head.

"There's little we can do for them now. We'll reunite later, for now we must concentrate on the task before us—"

"Got it," said Ashley. The lock was a molten mess, the wood around it charred and blackened.

"Well then," Fin said, with a smile at Ashley, "let's venture inside, shall we?"

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"Sophia, stop!"

Sophia slowed, then stopped completely. Her entire body was aching, her head felt too tight, and she kept seeing flashes of colour.

"We're nearly at the edge of the city," Ada said, breathless and hoarse, her face shiny with sweat. "We have to, to think about how we're going to get back to the others—and Lina and the boy, I don't know where they went—"

"I do," Sophia said. "They're somewhere..." she waved an arm vaguely. "And the others, and you..." She frowned. "No, you're standing right here. And ... I don't..."

Sophia trailed off, frowning.

"What is it?" Ada asked. "Is something wrong?"

"I feel ... something ... really familiar, but I don't know what it is," Sophia said. "It's so weird, it's like I should know what this feeling is, but I don't, and that's like ... like an itch I can't scratch. Maybe I'm just spent from holding that crowd for so long."

"That was amazing," said Ada. "How did you do that?"

"I don't know. When I was standing there it just seemed so ... obvious. But I still can't—"

Sophia looked up at the sound of rapid footsteps.

"Guards," Ada said.

Without a destination in mind, with no plan other than to get away, both girls ran.

----------------------------------------

Lina stopped running as soon as she realised that she had no idea where she was.

Which should be obvious, she thought, as she looked around the tall alleyway she found herself in. I've never been here before. I've barely been to a city at all before. I'm just an ordinary girl from a nothing little village. What am I doing here?

"Now what?" she mumbled, miserably. "Now what do I do?"

I've lost the others, she thought. I don't know where I am, I don't know where to go, I don't even know—

Lina heard a sharp crack, and the question of what to do suddenly became completely irrelevant.

----------------------------------------

Fin led the others through narrow little twisty corridor after narrow little twisty corridor, the only light coming from a tiny lantern he happened to have.

"How the hell do you know which way to go?" Ashley asked, after they'd turned a corner into yet another twisty little corridor. Fin just glanced back at her with a knowing look.

"It's creepy in here," Maya whispered to Ashley, as they made their way down a particularly long twisty little corridor. Ashley couldn't argue, the stone walls were high but the corridors were narrow, and the carvings along the sides, while abstract and not depicting anything specifically horrific, had a definite air of menace about them. Every so often they passed old dark wooden doors, covered in dust and cobwebs.

"Here," said Fin, firmly, after stopping in front of one particular door, perhaps with slightly less dust and cobwebs covering it. "Ashley, if you please."

It didn't take as long to burn through this lock, but by the time she had Ashley was breathing heavily and beginning to sweat.

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"Hope there ain't too many more doors between us and this statue," she said.

"There aren't," Fin replied, as he used his cane to lever the door open, Selene now holding the lantern. "The statue is in this room."

It turned out to be a narrow storage area, the walls lined with shelves, and the shelves filled with junk. There was no other word for it, broken shards of old pottery and scraps of metal and mouldy wooden bowls and other such rubbish, dull and dirty and seemingly valueless. Many of the shelves were covered over with long red and white cloths, and everything was covered in dust.

"Packrats, Pyrians are," Fin said happily, as he peered and prodded and poked. "You wouldn't think it, but those in charge hate to throw anything away, especially reminders of how things were. Still, it's useful for us, it means—hello, what do we have here?"

Fin yanked a sheet off a shelf, sending dust and debris flying everywhere. He gestured for Selene to come closer with the lantern, then plucked something small off the shelf.

"Aha!" he said.

"If that puny thing's the statue then I'm real disappointed," said Ashley.

"Not the statue, but an unexpected bonus. Here, take a look."

He held the object up in the lantern's light—it was a wooden ring, thick and smooth, with a simple spiral design carved into it. After the others had gotten a good look at it, Fin turned to Selene and held the ring out to her.

"A gift," he said, and she took it. "For my very first student. A reminder that, no matter what happens, you will always be special to me."

Selene stared at Fin.

"Uh," she said. "Uh ... thank you. I ... I don't know ... thank you."

Ashley sniggered.

"Put it on," said Fin. "Does it fit?"

"It's a little tight," said Selene, as she pushed it on to her finger. "But not uncomfortable."

"I'm pleased," said Fin. "Maya, could you possibly hand me that shard of pottery on the shelf next to you? Mind you don't cut yourself. Thank you."

Fin examined the shard for a moment, then he turned and hurled it at Selene's face.

Maya cried out.

Ashley stared, shocked.

There was a short, sharp gust of wind, and then the sound of the shard falling to the stone floor.

Selene stood, her hand raised reflexively before her face, ready to catch the shard—but it had never reached her.

"Forgive me," said Fin. "I have such a juvenile love of theatrics at times. That ring is an artefact, similar to the statue we will soon hold in our collective hands, though not nearly as powerful. It has the energy of an air user bound to it, something of a defensive item; it can create a short, strong gust of air, a shield of sorts."

Selene was gazing at the ring, her eyes bright.

"I'm sure you'll have fun experimenting with it," Fin said, with a chuckle. "Ada might be interested in helping you with that, once we are reunited. Now—"

"Sorry, just gotta ask about this," said Ashley. "You said air user, you mean that ring's got someone's, what ... their soul in it?"

"Not ... quite," said Fin. "Although in a certain sense I suppose that's accurate. You must first understand that it is possible to separate the energy from a person's body. The process is agonisingly painful and invariably ends with said person's death. In the old times, before the Devastation, many artefacts were created in this manner; draw the energy from a person, and infuse it into an item such as that ring. Air and pure energy users especially were commonly sacrificed in this way, perhaps the reason they're now so very rare."

Maya's eyes were wide.

"That's horrible!" she said.

"Of course, not all artefacts were created involuntarily," Fin continued smoothly. "If an energy user was dying—of causes natural or otherwise—they could, with the help of a pure energy user, choose to infuse an item with their essence. I suppose it's a form of immortality. They live eternally within the object, in order to give strength to others."

"But ... but ... so..." Maya seemed almost in a state of panic. "So they're trapped in the thing forever?"

"No, it's not quite like that," said Fin, reassuringly. "Some ... emotion remains, echoes of personality perhaps, but no consciousness."

"Huh," said Ashley. "Almost wish I didn't ask, now. Dunno if I got this right, but you're saying that ring Princess is wearing's got feelings?"

"Something like that," said Fin.

"It must be so lonely," Maya said, her sad gaze on Selene's new ring.

"Not at all," Fin said. "Presently there is a sense of ... not happiness, exactly, but satisfaction, anticipation, perhaps a little nervousness—as I said, faint traces, but detectable."

Maya blinked at Fin, then looked at Selene's ring again, then back at Fin, her brow just slightly creased. "So ... so the person's okay? The person they made that ring out of?"

"In a manner of speaking," said Fin, slowly. "It's easier to bind the energy of a person to an item they're familiar with so it's likely this ring was a treasured possession of the air user, there are feelings of comfort there ... really, I can't say anything, I don't know if this item was created through sacrifice or self-sacrifice, so to speak, but ... well, I don't personally have any belief in an afterlife, and to continue to help others even after my life had ended, the idea does hold some small attraction. But I digress. To answer your question as plainly as I am able, young Miss Maya, the energy in that ring is not unhappy, not at all."

Ashley had been thinking while Fin talked. "So this statue—"

"The statue has the energy of many, many people within it," said Fin, poking at a line of small pottery vases with his cane. "Part of the reason it has such a powerful and distinct signature. The very signature that is coming from ... here!"

The tip of Fin's cane shot out, to catch a crumpled sheet and whip it off the shelf it covered, revealing...

Nothing.

Fin gaped, and then frowned, and then gaped a little more.

"What?" he said. He stepped forward and ran his hands over the shelf, then he turned and crouched down to pick up the sheet he'd just whipped off. He shook it out, then turned it over, then turned it over again, and then he stood once more, and he looked back at the shelf. "What?"

"Problem, Finny?"

"It should be here," he said, genuine puzzlement in his voice. "I can feel it, the shape of the statue IS here, and yet..."

For a long moment Fin just stared, at the spot where the statue should have been. Then his expression changed.

"No," he said, his voice low. "No, of course, but no! Someone has beaten us to the punch! The statue WAS here, of that I am absolutely certain, it was stored here for, oh ... at least a decade. But recently..."

Fin trailed off, staring back at the shelf, his eyes wild.

"How recently?" he muttered, running his hand over the dusty surface. "Perhaps a month, perhaps half a year ... no more than that, certainly..."

Fin whirled on Selene.

"Less than six months ago," he said. "Less than six months ago somebody else came here and took the statue ... or it was moved ... but no, why leave it here for more than a decade and then ... and no again, because I cannot feel it, nowhere in this city could it be, it was taken, it was taken away from here, but to where? We have no way of knowing. We have no way of finding out."

Fin stared at Selene.

"Here," he said. "At this place. It is here the trail runs cold..."