The Comfort Of The Knife

“Temple you have to stop. Temple!” Amber said

I pawed through the meat in search of the bullet. My fingers parted Melissa’s flesh like sand. The only thing on my mind was what’d happen if I didn’t find it. I’d have to call her mom—who’d been my second mom for over a decade—and tell her what happened. Then I’d have to choose between finishing the exam or going home for the…for the…no. No, I was going to find the bullet and pull it out. Yank it free before death could take her. I wouldn’t see another loved one step into that lightless place called death.

Amber slipped her arm under my chin, locked her hand in the crook of her other arm’s elbow, and yanked me back. She normally wore such long jackets that I hadn’t realized how muscular Amber was until those very same muscles exerted dominance on my carotid artery. She rolled onto her back. Slipped her legs between mine and locked them up using her own.

“Nadia, you’re killing her!”

My hands unclenched letting meat and scales fall to the floor with a pitiful splorch. I rolled my eyes to their corners to meet Amber’s face. She actually looked scared. For what? Of what? Me? I looked back to Melissa to find the Suppression summoner at her side. A rectangle of talismans creating an impromptu triage field.

“I’m fine,” I whispered.

“Are you?” Amber asked.

“Yeah.”

Her legs unwound from around mine. Muscles unflexed as she slowly released me from the full-body submission hold she’d had me within. I rolled onto my knees. Took in the scales, muscle, and blood that I’d scattered all around us in my mad search.

“Will she be fine?” I asked.

“Only if you stay back,” the small girl said. “Those flames of yours had you tearing her transformation apart like paper. You even being this close is messing up my work. Not like the anxiety of a sniper freely roaming makes me feel any better.”

I only had eyes for Melissa. They’d propped her upper body up using a rolled up binding suit like a wedge pillow. The kind Melissa and I would use when we’d be together. I dragged my nails across my arms in worry. My skin broke in a ragged stop-and-start line of a wound. It was the pain that dragged my memories out, spinning them up like one of dad’s old vinyls.

Melissa had taken a bullet for me. Her ears had turned moments—maybe an age to her—before the bullet had struck. She’d wrapped her arms around me to move me. Hug me. Was this going to be our last hug? I wanted to hold her hand. Hold her and say it’d all be alright. That I’d make sure none of us died. As if I was a god.

A bitter laugh bubbled past my lips. We were here because even gods didn’t get to delay death. I pulled up my knees and buried my forehead against them. Begged for purpose so I could do anything other than watch someone I loved die.

“Nadia,” Melissa moaned.

My head snapped up. “Yes? I’m here.”

Her hand groped about in the air for something—me?—so I took it between my own.

“What’d I say about touching her?” the girl asked.

“It’s fine,” Melissa said. “I just have one request.”

“Anything,” I said.

“Save the other three,” she said.

“Why?” I asked. They’d tried to kill Amber after all. Melissa needed me here.

“Already surrendered,” she said. “No need to die.”

Her grip was growing faint. If I’d looked anywhere but her eyes—half-lidded and duller than I’d ever seen—I would’ve noticed the way her scales sloughed from her body. How her muscles unspooled, provoking ripples beneath the skin. My touch was undoing everything. Killing her.

I tried to let go, but she gripped harder. Hacked up a clotted ball of blood with a shred of copper sunshine hidden within—the bullet. Then opened her eyes that sparkled alongside her smile. Even befanged, she had a caring smile that moved me as much as threats of her tears did.

“I took a bullet for you, Nadia,” she said. “You owe me.”

Winked. Then her other lid fell. Eyes shut she slumped. Her hand slid from mine like a leaf from a pool that’d filled past its edge. I nodded to no one. Grabbed my glaive and fished the bullet out of the blood clot. Took a breath using it to help me stand. Sphinx rose with me as we made for the door. I glanced to Lupe whose head was turned toward the door, but who I knew saw everything that’d transpired. Even if it was only as shining shadows.

“Play me off?” I asked.

Lupe stood and grasped the neck of her guitar. “Now’s not the time for innuendos. It doesn’t matter how hard I play if you get domed by some guy hiding out miles away.”

“I’m dealing with him,” I said.

Then set my eyes on the tie of fate between this bullet and the sniper’s gun. It was a multi-thread chord of Mystery and something darkly primal alongside that familiar strand of Bloodlust. Through the Omensight I followed this braid like a merry road out the door, through the air, into the trees on the nearby hill, and onto a platform where a man in a thick jacket sat back in an unadorned chair. Within his grip was no ordinary sniper rifle. It was segmented like a lobster’s tail held up by adjustable legs that ended in three toes in a Y-shape. Six eyes black as an unlit tunnel lined the sides of the barrel. While the man’s eye was magnified by the sight attached to its back.

“Found you,” I whispered.

Back where my body was within the ERO facility, I flicked the bullet into the air. Sphinx gave it a glance as she tossed a coin-sized amount of chalcedony fire at it. It burnt through the bullet and disappeared into the air—not gone, but traveling. Seeking. Racing down that murderous braid all the way back to the man who pulled the trigger.

Whatever assassin’s trance he was in caused him to be unaware of himself. The double-edged nature of hiding within Mystery so that no one, not even yourself, could find you. It was with absolute focus and determination to land this next shot that caused him to make no noise as he burnt to death. As I pulled back my Omensight, I shook my head at the ties of fate that burnt away with him. Leaving him unable to be mourned or missed. Just another face forever embedded within my mind to suffer the torments of how I decided they’d be remembered.

“He’s dead,” I said.

Lupe asked, “Who is?”

“Exactly. Now, play me off. Time to go rescue the others.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Lupe said. “I’ll be your accompaniment.”

“Amber,” I said, “kill anyone who tries to touch Melissa or…what’s your name?”

“Ina,” the Suppression user said, dryly. “Thanks for saving them.”

“Save her, and no thanks necessary.”

Amber drew a rapier from her storage-spell. Its guard was gate-iron black twisted into gothic swirls of rose stems. The blade itself was a glistening obsidian thing whose serrations could only be seen from how the light caught the edge. Overall, the implement burned bright as floodlights under the Omensight—a Conceptual weapon, and a strong one at that.

“Don’t make me worry,” she said.

Then Lupe, Sphinx, and myself walked back into the night. We were only a few steps from the building—Toby, Shenshen, and Wren only a few yards away—when a familiar darkness fell over us. Our targets and even the way back imperceivable in that watery black. Lupe named its source before I could.

“Lurkers,” she said. “They’re—”

“Bonded to Abyss, I’ve been acquainted,” I said. “Sphinx, cover Lupe.”

“I can push this back easy.”

“Maybe, but I need you to play for me. Unless you’re willing to bring your entity out to cover the other one.”

She frowned at the suggestion—we all had aces to hide—then acquiesced to my plan. Sphinx stretched out her wings filling the feathers with the fate-bending light of an Inviolate Star. Her range covered Lupe who quickly began to let more of herself fall into a musician’s trance. The world distilled into six strings and twenty-seven frets.

Her pace was slow through the dark which Sphinx matched so Lupe would be closest to the centerpoint of its power. I circled them as I enforced the bubble’s perimeter in wait of anything that’d come rushing from the darkness or the slightest hint that the pseudo field-spell that’d fallen over us might decide to manipulate local pressure rather than just consign us to blindness.

The moments melted into minutes which stretched across my mind like hours. Questions rustling my senses in false alarms. Would the first attack be from our twelve o’clock? Maybe our three and ten? What if there was no one because they’d slipped around us, and were charging into the building to kill everyone? Amber was good, but just a Baron—if they had the numbers…

“Nadia,” Sphinx hissed.

I dropped to a crouch as a metal cudgel whistled overhead. Its wielder, a muscular woman with a Tyrants’ crown dripping lava down her face into a warlord’s mask—scowling with distaste. From the side a humanoid entity of walking chainmail thrust out to catch me in the side with a sword. The woman was one of the rarer combat strategies, a berserker. Loaded up with boost-spells so her and her entity could charge at you at once to catch you off guard. In some ways a great strategy just not against me.

“Godtime,” I incanted, to Sphinx’s surprise.

It was the first time I ever spoke the language of entities to cast a spell of Revelation. Vibrating the spirit fibers in my throat to put to speech every complex bit of Sorcery that made spells like Godtime possible. Looking back, I’d seen enough incantations that day—even did some despite knowing how really—so in that instant where a hand was too slow to raise and point at my target, well, speech was fast enough and Lupe a good listener.

“Excellent diction,” Sphinx said.

The woman and her entity stilled to the most imperceptible crawl. I rose back up and politely cut off her head. Unbonded by her death, the chainmail figure collapsed into instantly rusting rings before discorporating. Lupe had slowed her playing. Missed a note as the head bounced against the ground. Notable—the missing note—only from how my flame briefly guttered.

“She wasn’t a Lurker,” Lupe said.

“Nope,” I said, “but she decided to throw her lot in with them.”

“Then she’s worse. Let’s keep moving.”

We walked like that under the Godtime. Each person Lupe became aware of fell under its effects. The spell’s efficacy unhindered due to how it affected targets directly rather than exist spatially and thus challenge the field-spell’s dominance—a challenge even the Inviolate Star’s light barely made by diverting its effects versus outright combating them in some attempt to break the field-spell’s hold.

Lupe stopped missing notes after I decapitated the third person we met. They were baby-faced with gentle eyes that didn’t match the sinuous serpentine neck that lashed out from the shadows in a bid to plunge their envenomed fangs into my shoulder. They’d gotten close enough that the overripe scent of rotten meat in summertime had clogged my nostrils and throat. The Godtime’s stickiness was losing its touch.

“Let the spell go,” Sphinx said.

“No. It’s the best way to keep us safe.”

“Revelation is not safety nor is it drawn out. You make her a poor target for later use if you spill all her moments over one night.”

“If we die then there won’t be moments to use anyways.”

“Nadia,” Lupe said, “save your strength for more important spells.”

I let out a breath and felt it erase the Godtime from the air. Listened to the way boots sucked into mud before kissing out with disgusting pops. I danced in front of my girls. Two men, one women, surfaced from the dark. Sighted their hands rose to shape spells. Under the Omensight I read the Courts that wove themselves around the signs: Cultivation, Glory, Instruction.

They looked like they had a plan, but I didn’t care. Mother’s Last Smile darted forward while I leaped to meet them. All three slipped against the dew-slick clover underfoot in surprise at the blood-painted face which met their charge bearing bright teeth. Their spells were useless as my glaive skewered their brains in the opposite order from which I read their Courts.

It was two feet past their corpses that we found Shenshen, Toby, and Wren. They were untouched and dangling just like we’d left them. I split infinity three times to flourish three quick needles of chalcedony fire severing the cords by which we’d hung them.

“Come on, we’re going back inside,” I said.

“Oh no,” Wren said.

“Wren,” Toby said, “let’s go.”

“You can go back to her. Not me. I’m running.”

“Why are you so afraid of Amber?” I asked.

Wren shook her head. “She’s the nightmare of every summoner bonded to Masks, the Star Killer. Alls below, she’s why I left the East and risked crossing the Black Vein. She’s death.”

A terror came over Wren as she stared into the past at a tragedy she didn’t care to name. Then bolted, her hands still cuffed behind her, and disappeared into the darkness. I heard the loathsome crack of gunfire and a thud of a life wasted to escape a death she thought she’d caught ahead of its chance to reach her. The rest of us retreated in a mad scramble.

“Jump in six steps,” Toby called out.

Six more steps from the safety of the facility was a bulwark of corpses. Their flesh melted into a quilt of tones and tattoos atop liquid muscle and shifting bones. Some had slipped around Lupe and I—from the height of the wall and its width, more than some—only to meet Amber waiting for them. Her face cold and pristine as all the blood flowed away from the facility’s lobby.

Everyone jumped the barrier to get back inside. I stopped and turned. I’d fulfilled Melissa’s request, but had failed to sate my own growing desire to stack up more heads. Kill enough of these people until I felt that I’d balanced my own pre-weighted scales. I clenched my glaive and ground the toe box of my shoe into the dirt. Readied to dive back into the dark…

“Did Nadia make it?” Melissa asked.

Her voice sounded better—stronger. Good enough to worry about me, again. I loosened my grip and turned away from the foes I knew had to be lurking in the umbra. There’d be other times to chase, but I wouldn’t make Melissa worry. I hopped the bulwark and entered the building. Avoided Amber’s foxish grin and rosy ember eyes that applauded my decision making.

Freed up from healing Melissa, Ina directed Shenshen and Toby to close the door. Then tossed talismans at the frame’s corners and one that bridged both doors. A pane of amber-hued force winked into existence to present another obstacle if our attackers wished to siege the place. As she did that I crossed the lobby to Melissa. Arms wide to embrace her. Sphinx caught the hem of my shirt as I was mid-step.

“Sphinx, let go.”

“No,” she mumbled over the clothing. “The maiden is sealed into health. Not fixed.”

“Ina, you said you’d save her,” I said

“I did. Used my best talismans to Suppress everything from hemorrhagic shock to the slightest hint of an infection,” Ina said, “but that doesn’t mean she’s healed. Suppression doesn’t fix things. Just bury them. It’s the Caverns in us.”

“So no hugs until we get to a hospital,” Amber said.

I crossed my arms in a poor bid to hug myself whole. Lip quivering as I refused to let my eyes drift from Melissa’s face as if some force might blow her away if I don’t look. Shenshen and Toby helped each other out of the binding suits.

Toby, fiddling with his answers and the scope of his worries, asked, “Not that I’m unhappy about being saved, but are we just waiting here to die? Is anyone coming to rescue us?”

“Good question,” Amber said.

She pulled a sorc-deck from her pocket. The device was wrapped in a leather fold-out case with an embossed insignia of the regional Lodge headquarters.

“Where’d you get that?” Shenshen asked, his voice a raspy whistle.

“The secretary’s corpse. Pocketed it as they fell.”

“Unbelievable,” Ina said. “No wonder Wren was scared of you. Speaking of, where is she?”

“She tried her luck elsewhere,” Shenshen said.

Toby added, “Said Amber was a star killer or something. A big deal to Mask summoners.”

I snuck a glance at Amber in the hopes there’d be some tell or tick that’d draw back the blinds on who she was and what she’d done. Though if the accusation meant anything to her it passed her by without notice or comment. Rather she focused on the sorc-deck in hand. Mimed a flurry of hand-spells before the device flashed on. A screen projection cutting up into the air.

“Then she’s twice scorned the boat. Not my problem then,” Ina said. “Anything on the deck?”

Amber’s thumb slid across the screen as she swapped through different screen projections. I walk over to peer at the projection myself—a contact sheet. Amber selects an entry, Test 1 Proctor, and calls. A pleasant tone bobs in the air for a moment. Then a sucking noise that leveled out—he picked up.

“Secretary SW#430, any insights on the attack?” he asked.

“They’re disposed currently,” Amber said.

“How’d you break into the deck, it’s encrypted.”

“Eh, through Caverns, so not too difficult. Anyways, what’s the Lodge’s plan for examinees during this attack?” she asked.

“Are you sending any rescue teams?” Toby asked.

“Alls below, no. We’re thin enough as is discerning real attacks from fake ones.”

Lupe said, “It was pretty real when the secretary’s head exploded.”

A silence. “Noted.”

“What if we get ourselves out?” I asked. “Anything the Lodge will do then?”

“If you get yourselves out the Lodge will handle any injuries incurred whether it be during your escape or from the exam itself. Comes with the probationary badge. Now, who’s in charge?”

Amber pulled me close in a side hug. “That’d be Temple here. Nadia Temple, she’s in charge.”

“Perfect. We have your deck number on file—”

“How?” I asked. “I synced with the city.”

“We have it on file,” he said. “I’ll send you the address of a few Lodge sponsored hospitals outside and within the district. Good luck,” he said.

My own deck chimed next to me. I looked around in surprise, noting that I’d left it in my bag which was back on the fourth floor—third sub-basement technically. Only to see it and my deck within the hands of Nahey currently in the form of me. The map was already up on my deck with a display illustrating our position at the edge of the city, and the few roads that wound back into Brightgate proper.

“Appreciated,” I said.

She curtsied—used my body to curtsy—before collapsing into a cloud of butterflies again that flitted off between the curtains of the world. I shrugged my bag back on, and rubbed my sleeves against my face to mop up any blood that’d yet to dry. Seeing how coated I was, or at least how coated Nahey made me think I was, had planted a seed of self-consciousness.

I turned back to Amber just in time to see the late secretary’s sorc-deck discorporate into fading spheres of light—just like how Secretary, my secretary, would handle documents and other items. Toby whistled at the impressiveness.

“Some kind of kill switch,” he said.

Amber said, “A kill switch would just brick it. This is more like a cord they’re yanking on to bring it back home. Shame, would’ve been nice to keep a backdoor into the Secretary’s files.”

“So, leader,” Ina said to me, “how are we getting out of here?”

“I’m not actually the leader, am I?”

“The other Baron here doesn’t want it, and neither do I. I’m basically tapped holding onto seals so I don’t bleed out from my missing limb, so your fiancee—”

“Ex,” Melissa said.

“Doesn’t die. I have to maintain yours, and the one on Shenshen. I’m done thinking.”

I run a hand through my hair as I look at Melissa—she’s standing but not transforming anytime soon. Then to Lupe—who was fixed on keeping a few notes floating my way to help keep my own Inviolate Star burning. Shenshen and Toby were obviously out. Which left me, the only person who knew the competencies of everyone here.

“Revelation oft shines a way, Nadia. So sparkle,” Sphinx said.

“Okay,” I said. “Um, Toby can you only make weapons?”

“I can make anything really long as it already exists or existed.”

“Great, Shenshen, any chance you can play your flute?”

“No,” he said, “but my dire wolf can still cast spells.”

“Putting together a plan, Temple?”

“Maybe. It’ll be dangerous, maybe lethal, and arguably it’s a horrible idea for a bunch of injured people to undertake.”

“What’s the plan?” Melissa asked.

“Well, it all comes down to you Toby,” I said. “Any chance you can drive?”

A smile spread on his face like butter on a skillet.

* * *

It was a horrible plan, I’ll say that immediately, but I was tired. We all were tired, and none of us had the energy—physical or mental—to make a literal run for it. It didn’t help that we were long past when the cable cars ceased operation for the night. Our only avenue remaining was by car. Normal wheelbound car. Which was why the plan was bad—Brightgate wasn’t a city made for wheeled cars, not since the Old World maybe. Even out here at its frayed municipal edge that truth held true. It was also true though that some things didn’t travel well by cable car, and only a truck or van would do. So there weren’t many roads to take, and thus not many that had to be blocked to keep us from escaping. The car could get us back to town in time, but we’d have to get through one last fight to escape.

To give us the best odds I’d laid our roles out like so: Toby would make the car and drive. It’d also be on him to do any on the fly maintenance. Ina was to apply some of her talismans to the vehicle to give it extra durability. While Sphinx would lay atop the roof to put the whole thing under the cover of an Inviolate Star. Next to her went the dire wolf, according to Shenshen it’d need the wind to blow through its holes to cast the Sleep spell so we could get extra cover. Melissa was laid up in the backseat as she needed to rest. While Lupe sat back there to keep an extra eye on Melissa, and be close enough to me so I could hear her playing. While Amber rode shotgun with Toby to help keep him from being killed thus losing us our ride.

“What about you?” Ina asked.

Everyone had already piled into the car—it was a thuggish bestial vehicle with a front face that looked ready to consume limb and life of the people we’d likely be running over soon. I stood on my toes to peek in through the windows. There wasn’t room.

“Toby, why isn’t there space for me?” I asked.

“Well…” he trailed off.

“The flames, Temple,” Amber said. “You’d burn through the car if we let you inside.”

“If you try to abandon me I’m killing all of you,” I said.

“I’d never,” Amber said. “You’re just going to have to ride with us rather than inside.”

“How?” I asked.

“Nahey,” Amber said.

Nahey emerged from behind the curtains and dropped a cord—similar to what we used to tie up Shenshen and Toby—alongside a pair of rollerblades. I looked back to everyone who were all failing to hide their amusement.

“I rescued you,” I said.

“And for that, this plan is possible,” Toby said. “Now, uh, hurry and hitch yourself to the back.”

“Think of it as a chariot,” Sphinx said.

Her encouragement broke the social seal on their laughter. I rolled my eyes unwilling to kill the mood. We had enemies outside ready to do that for us. Once the rollerblades were strapped on and the cable secured around the back of the conjured car and my waist, it was time.

“Dropping the talismans,” Ina called out.

Snapped her fingers triggering the self-destruction of the talismans attached to the door. The pane of shimmering force dissipated in one last downward flow before it was gone.

“You in the ready position?” Toby asked.

I said, “Alls below, shut up and drive Toby!”

“You’re the boss.”

I could hear his foot stomp the pedal. Then the car, because its purpose was to go, went. Fast as an entity freed from a binding trap it surged forward slamming its vehicular bulk into the front doors. They never had a chance at holding back the beast Toby had designed. The doors tore from their frame and crashed down atop an unlucky summoner who’d stepped forward to examine the doors. His voice was a wet squeal before the wheels churned it into the sound of a thick stew ladled into a bowl.

The cord attaching me to the cord snapped taut with a twang to rival Lupe’s strings. I knelt low to firm up my balance as my rollerblades skipped to the fastest rotational speed possible. Skimming me across the wood of the lobby and over one of the collapsed doors. My first view of things since we’d rescued Shenshen and Toby, I wasn’t surprised to see the field-spell had fallen. There’d been no need to blind their own forces without an enemy for them to ambush. On one hand, a victory for us, but on the other it meant that their forces could see us perfectly and there were a lot of them.

Beyond the bodies strewn across the lawn courtesy me and my glaive, there were at least thirty summoners waiting for us. Behind them was a motley assortment of entities humanoid, bestial, and altogether strange. Unlike the ones that dared the dark, these were hardened professionals who knew patience and whose Sorcery leaped to hand with a quickness.

Spells splashed against the Inviolate Star’s light before diverting across the surface into auroras of their component Principles. Those stronger than a soldier still skimmed the edge before blasting into the distance. While a non-negligible amount speared straight toward the car.

“We’re down four plates on the face,” Ina said.

“How many deep?” I asked.

“Two.”

Despite the warning of our depreciating defenses, Toby drove the car straight as a battering ram. The summoners arrayed against us fled to the sides to escape being run over. A few were too slow and forced me to leap over their popped carcasses. With a hop I turned backward, faced the summoners to our rear and formed the sign of a Fivefold Atomic Glory. Held it.

“Lupe,” I yelled.

Her response was the fanning of my flames. They flared high leaving a long tail before me, and I let the strength her magic afforded me seep into the spell I’d held at the edge of release. My hands glowed the hot pale color of chalcedony—and then I let go birthing the star of my vengeance for what they’d done to Melissa.

I arced it up through the air. Watched as my blazing fledgling star grew and grew like the conflagratory snowball it was. Before it passed its apex and descended hard as a judge’s gavel. When it landed it bloomed into a flaming camellia that consumed most of the survivors of our great escape. I watched as my spell brought day to night until night returned again.

Another hop and I was back to facing the car. We raced down the small hill into a valley between two larger ones. Immediately we were beset upon by thick beams of Cathartic lightning. Unwilling to chance our defenses, Toby swerved around them the best he could which meant I swerved all over the road in great sweeping arcs.

Ina cried out, “Passenger and driver side plates are down two deep. One layer left for each.”

Amber leaned out of the window. Sat herself inside of it as she formed a hand-sign I’d not seen before. Immediately phantasmal mimics of the car and myself peeled away from the central body like notes on a stack.

“Shenshen, tell your wolf he’s up,” I said.

Acting in accordance to his bondmate’s unspoken command, the dire wolf leaned up into a sitting position and let the wind slip through the holes in its body. Chilling aeolian tones streamed behind us becoming a localized blizzard obscuring the car. Our mimics acted in accordance at the same time. We were a rapid cold front that raced through the valley.

Amber then reached into her storage-spell and pulled out a matte black device long as a desk. It was rectangular, and Amber fed what looked like a dark metal rod into the top of it. She closed the device up, grabbed a bar on the side of the thing, and yanked it back with a click before resetting its position two-thirds up on its length. It was with that bar she held it in one hand while the other held normal grip and trigger.

“What is that?” I asked even as the rushing wind stole my words as they left my mouth.

“Sight me, Temple,” Amber said.

There was no joke or follow-up from her. Just the command of one warrior to another. I had to wait for another beam of lightning to crash into a nearby mimic—Catharsis was brief in all aspects even the remnants of fate left behind were quick to dissolve. As it burst apart I used the Omensight to trace the spell back to the source. It stretched up and up into the sky toward a solitary black cloud that hid nothing from me. There, atop a bird with luminescent wings still fading from their last blast was our target—a fellow dog, a traitor. I pointed him out cheerfully.

She pulled the trigger. Electricity cracked near the mouth of the gun—if you could call it that—as the rod propelled up toward the sky. Blew apart the cloud. Turned the traitor and his entity into rings of flesh that quickly dispersed into raining clumps of corpse. Amber slid the weapon back into her storage-spell with all the pomp and circumstance you’d have when returning a broom back to a supply closet.

“Why do you have that?” I asked with a fragile reverence.

“I’m a bit of a hoarder, Temple,” Amber said. “Never know what you’ll need until you need it. Besides, who doesn’t like to have a deep toybox?”

Amber pushed herself back into her seat leaving me alone to still consider the donutified cloud that her “toy” had made. I knew I hadn’t seen everything the world held—I was eighteen from a moderate sized town, how could I—but there was something in me that said I wouldn’t see anything like it again. At least, not on this side of the Changeover.

We soon cleared the valley. Cheered as the city’s skyline swallowed the horizon denoting just how close we were to safety. There were no more attacks. No more hidden traps. We were clear, and so I had us activate the last part of the plan.

“Hit it, Toby,” I said.

I hopped, twisted, to watch. Far beyond the valley, up the hill we’d descended, and through those broken doors we’d left a present. All because Melissa asked a question.

* * *

“What happens to the test for us? It’s technically our job to protect everything in this place.”

I’d said, “Technically the test was for us to keep these guys from retrieving anything. We passed.”

“Is it that simple?” she asked.

No one had an answer for that.

“What if we make it so no one can take anything?” Lupe asked.

Amber answered by producing a bomb from her storage-spell—a deep toybox indeed.

* * *

It wasn’t instant—the button press to the explosion. Whatever process it took left us on the edge of anticipation. Ina was the first to give up.

“Are you sure that bomb was a dud—”

The pressure wave from the bomb caught up to her before she could finish airing doubts to its magnificence. It violently tore at my hair, swung from rib to rib disturbing my organs as if I was struck by Toby’s maul ten times by ten times. Blood forced its way out my mouth into a beautiful spray. Then we saw it—that glorious tower of fiery blossoms that billowed up like so many baking muffins. Fwoomsh, fwoomsh, fwoomsh, they went. Crowned atop it all with a black smoke regalia that dispersed into the sky. I was sure we’d passed the test.

From there the rest of the way into the city was nothing but stretched out silence. Despite our commotion, Brightgate was sleeping and surrounded by numerous temples stretching potent wards across the city to keep it safe. Though put another way, the fight we’d had—the fight all the examinees were likely going through nearby and elsewhere—were the very fights that allowed for those wards to go largely unstrained.

Amber read the map instructions off my sorc-deck, and it wasn’t long before we’d pulled into a Lodge sponsored hospital on the edge of town. The nurses at the frontdesk were quick to pull us inside as they’d been notified by the proctor that Lodge members would likely be showing up. Each of us was strapped to a gurney, but I had to wait as they pushed tubes and placed electrodes against my skin. Ina had let them know my situation, so it was only after all life support tech was inserted that I could finally relinquish the Inviolate Star which blazed within me. While I wouldn’t tell Amber this, I was happy for the rollerblades. The darkness that descended on me was sudden and I’d lost the ability to walk miles back up the road.

I don’t know how long I was out for, but I do remember what I woke up to. Bright sun that dappled across my skin due to the tree near my window. Sphinx, shrunken to the size of a child’s plushie—or a small dog really—with a soft slightly-pudgy face to match. While in a chair at the side of my bed was a suit-and-skirt wearing secretary with a large sorc-deck in hand.

“First, let me congratulate you on reaching Baron,” they said. “Now, you have forms to sign.”