Chapter Eleven: Commencing in 3...2...1...

 

We landed in a knotted mass in the atrium of the Western Territories' compound with a crack of at least one broken rib a piece.

Five layers of the earth shuddered, then stilled.

An object cracked the stone floor next to me. Five pieces of burnt paper fluttered down next to it. Ori lay dormant on the ground, pages splayed in the least regal way I had ever seen from it.

Its pages were blank.

“No, no, no.”

Tears falling, rage irreparably broken, I fought halfway free of the boys and pulled the book toward me.

I pressed the healing magic I had stashed in the wards over the past few weeks against the book. But the abundance pooled on top.

Empty. The book didn’t stir.

Healing magic flowed from my hands, and pulsed everywhere around me. Patterns and paint and possibilities appeared, but my mind was blank and broken on how to use it to fix this. I pressed my hands against the book, dragging my fingers down its pages, trying to inject the fibers. But the magic simply spilled over the edge like water poured over wax.

“Not that I don't enjoy your body pressed against mine, darling, but I’m going to require a stomach transplant as well, if your kneecap continues carving it from my body.”

I disentangled myself completely, wheezing as I completed the cracking of another rib in the process. But as soon as I was free, I turned shaking fingers overflowing with magic against Constantine's fibula and the fracture I could feel there, as well as Axer’s broken ankle. The magic reached into the air like a mushroom cloud, spilling down to fix their ailments.

Axer gently cut off my flow of magic to him before the magic touched the multitude of stab wounds he possessed.

No, of course. Why was I trying to…? It was dangerous healing Kaine’s strikes, as one risked sealing the shadows inside.

My thoughts jumbled, and I turned the entire flow to Constantine, who was a mass of bruises and internal ruptures. His eyes were shut tight, and he was mentally walled, as if he was thinking unpleasant thoughts.

He cut off the healing magic from me with far more force, making me stutter on the cold floor as the magic abruptly curled into the air, sparking, with nowhere else to go.

I couldn’t be trusted. Magic whispered from every corner about all the ways I could use it.

I clutched the book. Untrustworthy.

Axer was unsteadily pressing a cloth against each stab wound. Each time he pulled the cloth away, another shadow pulled free, snapping to the cloth where they wriggled in a half-Velcroed fashion.

Infected because of me.

“Does that get rid of the shadow entirely?” It hurt to speak, but it hurt more to think about the infection eating him away from the inside. I held the empty book against my midsection, magic pooling uselessly around it and me, like a cape of curling smoke.

This was why it was better to fight alone.

“Yes.” He winced, as a shadow the length of a sword popped free. “Worth the time we spent developing it spring term.” The words weren’t just addressed to me.

I looked at Constantine “You and Axer?” I wheezed.

Constantine jabbed two fingers against my sternum. “Fix your ailments. So help me, I’m going to murder you.” Magic sucked from the cloud surrounding me to the point of contact, then through my sternum out to my ribs.

My ribs knit back together, and I took a gasping breath. I felt him grab something in my brain—a point that controlled healing—and set the rest of the channeled magic free in a whirl that swirled out all the way to my hair, fingers, and toes, fixing everything wrong in my body according to some health map that existed in my subconscious mind.

“Trying to fix everyone else while you sit half dead,” he said darkly. “Trying to save everyone but yourself.” Lips tight, he fished out a bottle of elixir and drained it. He shuddered as it did whatever it was supposed to.

Trying to save everyone? I had nearly ended the world.

I sat with empty hands clasped around an empty book, restored to empty, full health.

Axer stuffed the shadow-writhing cloth into a Level 10 jar and sealed it, then let both the jar and his head fall against the floor as he painfully healed the rest of the injuries, closing each in turn, fingers pulling magic from the compound through the channels he had clearly identified as mine.

A cat meowed, and I could feel Guard Rock digging around under my fitted cloak, trying to inch his way out. Safe. The book would have been happy that Guard Rock was safe.

I looked at its blank pages, wiping my eyes against my shoulders.

“Breaking News” appeared on hundreds of holos lining the walls.

“Today, the Origin Mage tried to destroy the world,” a reporter announced.

With Ori cradled in my arms, I stared numbly at the wall. I stared at the millions of atoms of magic that made up every piece and component of the compound’s wall.

“With little regard for life or order—”

Numb anger pulsed, filling the emptiness in a rush, and I stared at the magic around the reporter which telegraphed a location in the Second Layer. Tweak the ochre line two degrees left, push the apricot square into a hypercube, flip the ginger spiral, array it all to black-and-white...and I could make a sand wyrm appear next to her.

I could make her eat those words.

The book fell from my arms and I dove to where Axer was rising to his feet. I grabbed his cloak. His arms wrapped protectively around me as we crashed to the ground.

I thrust my hand into pocket after pocket of his form fitting cloak, frantically searching for what I needed. He stilled my motions—clasping both of my wrists in one of his hands. He stared at me for a long moment, then slowly withdrew a heavy cuff from an interior pocket. I squirmed free of his hold, grabbed the cuff, and snapped it painfully around my wrist. Magic immediately dampened, taking everything with it.

My forehead hit his shoulder, and I stared blankly at a singed patch of his coat while the world dulled.

“You can’t wear it for long,” he murmured.

“We’ll see.” My shoulders shook as I blindly pulled the empty book back to me.

“Stupid girl.” Constantine’s fingers splayed over my spine and magic from a dozen familiar, precious sources started to flood me—a different type of healing. There was a lot of emptiness to fill. His cheek dropped to my crown as the magic started winding through me faster, physically bouncing back to me from each of them. The heavy cuff gave me no power to push it away.

Which was a relief, because I didn’t deserve it, but I wanted the comfort.

I gripped a torn piece of paper in one hand, cradling the book against my chest as the three of us huddled in the hall listening to reporters along the walls argue and speak over each other trying to deliver the news.

“At first, the apocalyptic event just affected the First Layer with the Origin Mage using Awakened ferals as the lodestones to break the seals on the wards holding the magic in place—or the magic out of place, as it were. Then when the Department shored up the seals, she began breaking pieces of all the layers.” A dozen recorded events rotated around his hand with each delivered point. “Even the Third Layer, home to terrorists and dissidents, expressed shock and dismay, as they, too, were targeted.”

The First Layer problems hadn't been caused by me—not at first. But I had enveloped it into my revenge—I had enveloped everything into my rage.

The broken red threads to my first home fluttered untethered in the air between my knees.

Check on them, the threads whispered.

I closed my eyes, refusing to act on the desire to seek out my parents—suppressing the feeling with long practice. The wards on their house had been one of the first things I had checked after my expulsion from campus, doing so from far afar, on a deliberate route elsewhere, in case I was followed. My gaze had swept across everything for twenty miles, so that a sweep across their house wouldn't register as anything pertinent. The wards were intact. I had to trust in them. In my own work, in Olivia, in Raphael and Marsgrove.

I had seen enough movies. I knew that the moment I went there with fear driving me, they would be found. Staying away was the best protection I could give.

I pressed my chin against the top edge of the book’s cover and turned my head just enough to focus on one of the reports.

“Two hundred governments have condemned the Origin Mage’s actions, with thirty already declaring war against her, after her magic was shown coating every affected site. The Origin Mage has extensive knowledge of wards and protection enchantments. She is dangerous, and should not be approached. She is being aided by Third Layer terrorists in the Western Territories. All information should go through the Department terrorist-alert frequency. Any information you have should be given immediately, no matter how small. Any tie that can be made could save—”

Another newsfeed on the wall showed a panel of people involved in a vehement argument. I recognized one of Bellacia's reporters arguing against another.

“The Origin Mage destabilized the entirety of the First Layer,” the other man said. “Every non-magical felt it, and the suppression spell hasn't entirely been able to erase it. Diplomats are working feverishly to blame it on changing environmental factors.”

“She stabilized it again though, John,” Bellacia's man said.

“Maybe. There is a lot of cause to doubt that. And, frankly, who cares if she restabilized it. She destabilized it! That she can do it at any time verifies that Prestige Stavros was absolutely right when he declared last month that this would happen—and he announced minutes ago that this will happen again.”

“Prestige Stavros wants Priority Five invoked. It's no secret. And Priority Five is dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Our way of life—our very lives are under attack! And you are worried about losing a few freedoms? It's being reported by the Department that all but one of the feral mages were killed in the Awakenings. And outside reports are that the praetorian guard was wiped clean by the Origin Mage. That only Praetorian Kaine survives. The guardians of the Prestige wiped clean.”

“But Origin Mages don't kill people—”

“Excuse me? Does your small mind not recall Flavel Valeris and the millions destroyed? Or countless dark ages across layerkind? This is an executed attack. She knows she must take out the Department—our last line of defense—to ruin us, and this is her first step. The longer we go without bringing the Origin Mage in or putting her down, the closer we are to total annihilation.”

“Is there anything we can do?” another reporter asked.

“You can vote on Priority Five.”

A murmur of discontent cascaded through the newsrooms aligned along the feeds on the walls.

The first man held up his hand. “No one wants Priority Five. But want and need are two separate things. What needs to be done to save our world?”

“What's Priority Five?” I asked Constantine and Axer woodenly.

“The Department's ability to hook into any magical signature in the layer and lock it down,” Axer said, voice dark as he finished healing himself and used tender muscles to bring himself further upright without dislodging me.

“What, like they can find any person and freeze them in place?”

“Then they take you, process you, put you away. Or they let you go, of course, if you are innocent,” Constantine drawled from my crown, and I could feel his dark emotions swirling through all of my other friends’ in the cocktail he was feeding me. “Nothing to fear for people who are innocent, as they say. Without considering that the people driving the policy might not be.”

The options for misuse of such power in the hands of someone with ill intentions...

I looked at my hands shaking around the book’s spine, and the heavy cuff circling my wrist. What were my intentions?

“Stavros tried to get it passed twenty years ago using Alexander's mother as fear bait, but Stavros was careful to always separate himself from the action. If you watch the memories, he always sounds regretful. Highly regulated, no misuse,” Constantine mimicked, and I wished I could see his face. “Another politician took the political hit when the public reacted negatively.”

“So, they already have the system?” I asked, voice as hollow and strange as my emotions.

“Yes. However, a few politicians made it so that the regulation of the 'button' to instigate the system is under a mile of red tape. Only an emergency action pledge on the part of two thirds of the voting countries will unseal the policy vow—which was magically bound. There is nothing Stavros can do without those votes. Priority Five is as useful as a dream to him without the unsealed vow.”

“Constantine’s father is one of the premiere votes in the block.” Axer touched my knee, then my hand, sliding down to my fingertips. “Give me the book, Ren.”

I hugged it closer. “No.”

“Ren.”

“It’s dead. I killed it.”

Constantine’s fingers tightened on my back, and he abruptly spun me a half turn so they were both in view.

“No,” he said, pointing his freed finger at me.

“I wanted revenge,” I said. Constantine’s gaze tightened.

This wasn’t like Rosaria’s Awakening magic accidentally killing her brother. I had whipped the world into a frenzy on purpose.

“My revenge did this. I did this. The book died cleaning up my mess. I would have ended the world to kill Stavros. I don’t want this power,” I whispered, staring at the cuff.

Axer’s hand darted out, and I looked up to see him clasp it around Constantine’s wrist abruptly. Axer’s gaze was steady on me, without looking at his roommate, whom he held immobile.

“And yet you chose the world over your revenge, when it was pointed out to you, a mage of seven months. You figured out how to fix it.”

“At the expense of—”

“Maybe the book is dead. Maybe not,” Axer said calmly.

My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

“Magical books aren't the same as magical creatures, beings, and mages. The enchantments imbue them with life—real life. But if their pages and knowledge are left intact, they can enter dormant states. Bringing them back is something best left to a bookspeller or spellbook.”

I let the book fall open, pages still blank. Whatever was needed of my magic, I’d—

Constantine bared his teeth. “Absolutely n—”

Axer’s hand tightened on his wrist and Constantine made a strangled sound, then shook himself free, lips tight and gaze firmly on the wall.

Axer held out a storage paper I'd made for him, gaze never leaving mine. “Books that magical don’t have a ten-minute limit. One day or fifty doesn’t matter. And we have far larger problems to circumvent first. Like the matter of your freedom.”

“But—”

“Put it inside,” Constantine barked angrily.

I put the book in the paper and Axer folded it and carefully tucked it into my fitted cloak pocket.

“It will be okay,” Axer murmured.

“Will it?” I asked numbly.

Constantine’s eyes slid closed, then snapped open to focus narrowly on the crowd of people who had gathered down the hall.

“Come on,” Constantine said, lifting me to my feet, dark gaze ahead.

We started moving through the gathered crowd and I tried not to flinch at the fear and awe that pulsed from both sides of the hallway and every open door.

I had earned those looks this time.

I looked at the boys, who were getting their own fair share of looks. I could stop those, though. I was toast, and I would take responsibility for my actions, but the boys could return to normal life away from my dangerous company. I just had to disentangle them from me.

There were ways. I flexed my fingers and looked at the cuff. If I was careful and thought through the magic… For the good of—

An emergency alert pealed across the newsfeeds.

“Breaking news coming in from the Department Pressroom. And this one is a doozy, folks. Two mages have been identified as complicit in the Origin Mage's actions today—Alexander Dare and Constantine Leandred. Proof of involvement is being transmitted to all news outlets.”

My legs gave out beneath me, and only Constantine's grip kept me upright, as the media showed pictures of both their faces.

“Alexander Dare just won the All Layer Combat Competition for the second year straight, and is classified in the most extreme threat level that the Department maintains.”

A montage of Axer obliterating opponents played beneath.

“Awakened in the one percent of stirring mages at age ten, he has been watched and tested consistently for the Bridge abilities of his mother. The Dare family was unavailable for comment and their island home of Itlantes is under port lockdown from ingress and egress per Prestige Stavros' instructions. Under no circumstances should Second Layer citizens approach the Dare scion.”

The way to contact the Department was again displayed with a place to automatically connect to the frequency.

I'd lost him his home? Nausea overtook me, making me lurch.

“Constantine Leandred is the prodigious only child of Senator Stuart Leandred. He Awakened at age ten as well, and was the winner of the Science and Magic Olympiad at age fifteen—the only year he entered. He has twenty patents to his name. One of the most troubling is a maelstrom synthetic, that if unchecked, could destroy everything in a four-mile radius of its unleashing without damaging the mage holding it. Adding to the troubling reports, sources at Excelsine University say that the Leandred scion is vicious, reactionary, and unprincipled. Senator Leandred has been quick to deny all claims against his son, but recent investigations by the Department have shown that Senator Leandred—”

“No, no.” I looked around wildly for anything that could help—numbness setting into my limbs and making my actions heavy.

There was no surprise on either of their faces. Grim acceptance and a bit of dark pleasure showed on Constantine’s. Axer was the blankest I'd ever seen him.

His hand wrapped around my cuff before my fingers made it to the metal latch.

“Let go,” I said, struggling against his power which easily overwhelmed mine beneath the cuff’s field. His far larger hand blocked the latch beneath his palm, and there was no way I could overpower him physically.

“No,” Axer said, quickly taking my arm in his other hand and putting me into motion as he and Constantine shouldered me through the hall of blank, staring gazes.

Their homes, their freedom, Dare's family—the ties to which I could see pulse just as brightly as mine once had. This was why I hadn't wanted help. This was why I hadn't wanted anyone risking their neck for me.

“Disavow me,” I said, trying to peel his fingers away. “Anything. I'll do anything.”

People flattened themselves against the walls when the “shoulderings” started to be accompanied by electrical shocks.

“I know,” Axer said. “Paradoxical thinking, given that you wanted to give up your abilities a moment ago.”

“That’s not… I’m poison,” I said, struggling. Because it was true. I had automatically reached for the cuff to save them, I still was trying to peel Axer’s fingers away. I would do anything for people I loved. And when that “anything” turned to actions that would impact the world, there was a big problem. “I’m poison.”

“You are speaking to the wrong person if you think that makes you something to avoid,” Constantine said, nearly lifted me off the floor to keep me moving—a sack of potatoes between them.

The news reports kept going.

“This is just the beginning. There is a dark history of what happens when Origin Mages are left to their own devices. When our entire existence is predicated on the goodwill and good judgment of a single person, we risk much, for what if that person falls to the dark?”

The live feed switched to a woman holding a baby. A man stepped up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders. The woman stroked the head of the baby, pulling him close against her chest and tucking her chin against the fine hairs at the top of his head. My god.

“Where will you be when your magic is taken? Will you be at home? Work? Will your children feel the choke of magic when you are unable to reassure them that everything is going to be okay? I'm here to tell you, it won't be okay—not unless we do something about this threat. Not soon, not when, now, before everything and everyone you know dies. Before she—”

Axer yanked the entire grid of magic from the wall with a curl of his free hand and everything went blank. He crumpled the magic in his fist and let it drop with a crackling thump. People screamed behind us, causing me to crane my neck back to see, as the ball of magic bucked and sparked like a firework with multiple fuses flopping around, deciding which way to shoot first. Panic erupted behind us.

“And I’m the one who gets called an asshole,” Constantine mused, dark pleasure undercutting the words.

Axer’s magic saturated everything in sight as we walked, testing and weighing strengths and weaknesses in the compound. The bravest residents continued to watch with inscrutable gazes darting between the three of us as we passed.

“Ten minutes, Origin Mage,” called one of the elders at the end of the hall, bringing my attention forward. Judgment and darkness painted her face.

The other elder—the one who had lived in Aurum before it had been destroyed—stood next to her, and she looked at me in sadness as we passed.

Such commands had always preceded unpleasant meetings. I couldn’t imagine what kind of town hall I was facing now. If there'd been a target on the complex before, there was a huge bullseye in the deepest crimson painted on it now.

Their home.

I looked at Axer's thick family threads, which were blazing hot, like they were being tested in fire.

“Your family,” I said to him, reaching out with magic, then curling it inward, shaking.

His fingers tightened momentarily on my arm. “I accepted this event long before today.”

I felt like I might lose whatever lunch I had eaten the day before. “Your family—”

“Knows exactly why I am doing this.” His gaze never left mine and I could feel the heat of it straight to my toes. “And what is at stake.”

He deliberately let go of the cuff.

Without looking away from his locked gaze, I touched the latch. I hesitated, then let my hands drop to my side.

He touched my neck, warmth gathering beneath his touch. “It’s going to be okay.”

Constantine opened the door to the turret and slipped inside.

Axer's quick, discerning gaze took in everything about my workspace even before he entered. The way the slopes and angles were slightly askew—deliberate choices—making it look ramshackle when it was anything but.

“Mbozi would never let you get away with that corner angle,” he said, deliberately light.

“Then he hasn’t the vision I credit him with,” Constantine said, tracking his roommate’s progress with dark eyes, and unleashing a packing spell for his things—hundreds of items that had been steadily collecting across my work space.

Apparently, only Constantine could call my turret a hovel. And apparently, he was leaving.

I looked down, and swallowed. I should feel relieved that he was finally leaving. Yes. I was relieved. My stomach asserted that it was as hollow with relief as my magic and my mind.

Guard Rock inched out from my cloak, then hopped to the table. He looked at the pocket containing the storage paper, then into the empty air of the turret’s ceiling—an open question in the actions. I swallowed heavily and shook my head, touching the pocket. The book was gone. And it was my fault.

Guard Rock's pencil drooped, then he straightened his rock, thumping his weapon down. Vengeance on our enemies.

I touched the top of his rock.

Behind him, Axer's gaze was firmly fixed between Kinsky's sketches and my world bending painting. He looked from them to me, fingers curling into his palm instead of touching either, eyes blazing with some sort of hunger.

“Why are you standing there?” Constantine demanded, making me jerk. His gaze was fixed on me as he piled everything movable by magic onto a flattened, open drawstring sack. “Pack. Alexander is taking you to his cursed home.”

My brows pulled sharply downward. “What?”

“When things inevitably disintegrated, as was always going to happen,” Constantine bit out, throwing himself onto a stool to reach items on the back of a worktable that couldn't be moved with a packing spell. “You would go to Itlantes to hide. We agreed.”

Axer looked down at the paintings again, fingers drifting to his chest. “We can't go there,” he said, voice even, but for a moment he couldn’t hide the flash of pain and regret. “Not anymore.”

“What?” Constantine exploded off the stool, packing spell exploding with him. The stool hit the stones. Papers littered the floor in fury.

“Itlantes has been locked,” Axer said, and the sudden fiery red glow illuminating his family threads made me nauseous again.

“Yes, my ears work just fine,” Constantine bit out. “But you expect me to believe that a government lock means you can't get in?” he demanded.

Axer looked at him dispassionately—a mask for something else. “I can get in. We can physically find our way there and under the wards, but the Department will know within the hour. And Pri—”

“I know what bloody Priority Five means.”

Axer slapped his hands on the table between the paintings and Constantine’s growing pile and viciously leaned forward. “They'll get the signatures immediately if she steps foot in Itlantes. Think.”

“They are going to get them anyway,” Constantine answered, just as savagely. “You can’t tell me that your father doesn’t have measures against it in your wards. I know he does.”

“Of course, he does. But then we are stuck there. With Priority Five in place that means permanently—while the rest of the world burns.”

“Let it burn.”

Axer laughed without humor, straightening back up. “You never grow up.”

“And you don’t prioritize your friends.”

Axer’s nostrils flared, jaw tight, and gaze fierce. “No? Not all of my friends reside in this room. You are the one who has given yourself a single link in the world.”

“The best choice I’ve made,” Constantine said viciously. “You don’t deserve her.”

Axer’s magic flared around him before he did something internally that visibly buried the anger.

Axer took a deep breath. “We aren’t going to Itlantes,” he said, voice even, but firm. “The governments have to go through emergency measures, and the Department has to get buy-in. We need the governments to calm down, not to obtain the long-awaited evidence that the Dares are finally taking over the world. Taking Ren there will consolidate the governments under Stavros. We need them separated and questioning.”

“You will always protect your family over everything else,” Constantine spat.

“You were once part of that family,” Axer said tightly.

Energy angrily zinged between them.

“Go,” I said. Magic slipped unheeded from beneath my heavy cuff and pushed toward them in command before I even realized I’d channeled it.

Constantine pivoted sharply, slicing his hand through the magic and shattering it. “Your asinine desire for that cuff… It won’t stop you. Not even a null cuff will—it will just cause your eventual, utterly splattered death when your stoppered magic destroys everything in its attempt to escape.”

I touched it. “I know. More reason to—”

“To what? Leave you?” He magically tore the thought from my mind, leaving a blank space that quickly filled with the same reflexive cogitation. “Before you embed it in your thick skull that you are better off without us, no one is going to believe we aren’t with you or that you are without us now. There is nowhere to go.”

I had nothing to say to that that didn’t include a sob, so I pressed my lips together.

Constantine grabbed his head with both hands then wiped them outward, magic pulsing and flinging a wrench across the room so hard it stuck into the wall. “Stop! The only thing to feel guilty about is your stupid, self-sacrificing ways!”

There had to be a way to fix this—a fix without using magic—

A ribbon of magic lassoed around me, sealing my arms against my body as he towered over me suddenly. “If you go anywhere without us again, I will end you,” he said furiously.

Overwhelming streams of input from those still at Excelsine abruptly lit the air around him—becoming visible as they crashed into him in crazy waves and made his gaze wilder.

Axer’s spike of surprise at being included in Constantine’s spontaneous statement was nothing next to whatever emotion made him narrow his eyes at the magic streaming wildly into his roommate. He reached out a hand, but Constantine jerked backward. The lasso around me abruptly released, as Constantine prioritized getting away from his roommate’s concern over making his point.

Axer’s hand fell limply to his side, and he took a deep breath. “Death threats aside, we need a few days. The Department knows we are here without a doubt—they will know, eventually, wherever we go in the magic worlds—but this is a secure facility. I can fortify it further.” I could see his magic flaring out and touching different places in the wards, as if tagging what areas to strengthen first. “The First Layer is the only one that might truly hide us for a while—if Ren can stop herself from doing magic.”

Axer tipped his head at me in question.

I looked at my trembling hands and the cuff that was even now causing me a dull ache. “No,” I whispered.

He nodded, as if fully expecting the answer. “You are already part of these wards. They can sustain a few outbursts. We—”

The complex started to shake. Axer and Constantine instantly layered shields together five deep with me squashed in the middle.

But this wasn't an attack from without. It was from within.

I felt the magic in the complex start to shift. With regret and understanding I unlatched the cuff and connected myself to everything in the room—allowing my hungry magic to shift everything as a unit.

I had given the elders power over the complex. Given them the power of the wards I had put in place—even against me.

When they had said ten minutes, I thought that meant the time I had until they flayed me in a meeting. Naïveté.

I understood exactly their reasoning in this move. I closed my eyes and held onto the edges of my overwhelming magic.

Colors whirled, and I landed heavily on the ground, Guard Rock slamming against my stomach.

Axer and Constantine were immediately on their feet on the spiky grass, backs to each other and to me in 120-degree angles, magic ready.

The magic of the room formed an invisible dome around us in the bleak, unfriendly landscape of deep Outlaw Territory, but the dome would only last for half a minute.

Small additions of magic dotted various areas of the dome in small bubbles—apology gifts from two of the residents.

I closed my eyes and with the hand not holding the cuff, I fished a storage paper from an interior pocket and held it up. I hesitated for a moment, but there was no rage left within me, only sadness. Sweet bitterness curled, and I let calm descend over my hesitation. The dome’s magic abruptly swirled and funneled into the paper, pulling the papered edges inward to form a small, tightly folded cube. The action dispersed the dome's hold on everything within, including the extra bubbles. Their contents fell to the ground with everything else.

The worktable shook, then broke, scattering the projects and items Constantine and I had been collecting. Unnatural lightning blasted in the distance, then steadily began rolling closer in a 360-degree circle around us.

I looked at the barren landscape and the drooping, unfriendly skies, then at the eager death shift tumbling toward us from all directions. Even Rock Guard looked resigned to fate.

“I’ll kill every one of them,” Constantine vowed.