Samir wasn’t sure that was the truth, but it was good to say the words out loud. To commit to them.

He stepped into the clearing, heard the rustling of Varajas and Ruan behind him. Peyter was still by the fire, just has he had been when Samir had projected to talk to him. He didn’t look any different. In person, he didn’t look any better.

“So here you all are.” Peyter looked up, his one eye glinting in the firelight. “Here we all are.”

“Yes. Here we are. And it’s time to go home, Peyter.”

Peyter cackled a laugh and pushed up off the log he’d been sitting on. Behind Samir, both Ruan and Varajas shifted. He didn’t want to look away from Peyter, but he guessed they were reaching for their swords. A reflex they both had. Even if swords weren’t going to be worth a lot here.

Peyter approached Samir. Now came the definite sound of sliding steel. Peyter ignored it. He came up inches from Samir, staring into Samir’s face. “Can you feel the power of this place?”

Samir shook his head. Peyter, of all people, should understand. “It isn’t real. It’s shadows and echoes. Chasing power in here is like chasing your own tail.”

“No. Look around you, Samir. Ulek is the maze. This—” Peyter swept his hand wide. “I didn’t make this. I didn’t call it. This was crafted by power, and if I can just find my way to the heart of it—”

“It’s empty,” Varajas interjected. “There is no heart.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Peyter swept his hand again and the branches from above lashed down. Samir jumped aside, but they weren’t aimed at him. Varajas tried to dodge, but the roots at his feet reached up to trip him.

Ruan, sword in hand, rushed at Peyter, but more vines and branches snaked up and out to grab his wrist, his legs, his neck.

Bolt growled and snapped at Peyter, who pointed at the dog, but Samir grabbed his hand. “No,” he said to both of them. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Afraid?” Peyter sneered. “I’ve had plenty of time here. I know this forest. It’s different, you know. The power is all different. But I’m learning my way around.”

It just made Samir tired. “No, I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to fight with you. We were friends, Peyter. Can’t you remember?”

“I’m not the one who ran away and never came back.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Varajas muttered. “He wasn’t running away from you. Although maybe he should have been. You seem to be something of an asshole.”

“Shut up!” The branches whipped again, drawing blood as they sliced across Varajas’s face. He simply wiped it away, spreading his hands wide to say that Peyter was only proving his point.

Meanwhile, Samir was reaching into the world. This place had a different feel from Ulek, but it wasn’t completely alien. He could feel the familiar power of the knife here. The familiar power of death. Peyter had found his way to control it, but Samir didn’t think it was far out of reach.

“Why are you even doing this?” Samir asked. “You know better. Girald isn’t your friend. He’s using you.”

“You don’t get to talk about who is and isn’t my friend.”

“What Girald is doing is wrong.” That was Ruan’s voice, strong and certain. “This magic is wrong. When we go to the High Father—”

Peyter laughed, cutting Ruan off. “Donatien? You honestly think he doesn’t know about this?”

“What does he know?” Varajas asked flatly.

“Everything. All the way back to Sidaine.” Another wild laugh from Peyter. “He’s known all along. He supports it. A way to keep wizards sedate and quiet. You think that isn’t what he’s wanted from the start?”

“You’re lying,” Ruan said, but the accusation lacked force.

Still, Peyter squeezed his hand into a fist, and the vines around Ruan tightened. “Be still,” he ordered.

That was enough. Samir reached for the familiar power. Grabbed on to it. Held it. He willed the vines to release Ruan. They obeyed.

Peyter turned on him. “No! You can’t have this. It doesn’t belong to you.” The ground itself reached up and wrapped around Samir, flattening his arms against his body, wrapping his legs tight, and then swallowing him completely in a rotting cocoon.

It was dark and quiet, almost peaceful. It would have been easy to just sink down…

Like drowning.

Sidaine had done this to him. She’d been a powerful wizard taking advantage of the fact Samir had been young and inexperienced. Peyter didn’t get to treat Samir this way. Especially he didn’t get to do it with the power that had been Samir’s own salvation.

Samir broke free, saw Varajas and Ruan both struggling with the vines. Peyter was watching them. He didn’t notice, didn’t feel it when Samir sent his own command to the trees.

Tiny roots at first, barely noticeable, like cobwebs reaching up over Peyter’s boots, tracing up his legs. They thickened, suddenly, and he looked down. “What?” As branches shot up from the ground to wrap around him, holding him tight, growing to encase him in a trunk of bark.

“Let me go!” Peyter yelled, but it was no good. Samir had control.

He set Ruan and Varajas free, helped them to their feet. Varajas was frowning at him. “I guess I can’t complain too much, but may I say I’m a little uncomfortable at how easily you’re doing that?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m a little uncomfortable with it myself.” But that was a problem for later. If there was one lesson he had taken to heart, it was that you used whatever tools were available. “I think we’ll all feel better once we’re out.”

Samir turned to Peyter, still struggling against his cage. “You’re coming with us. We’re going to collapse this place behind us. No one needs—”

Peyter’s eyes burned fiercely and a sudden, unexpected burst of power made Samir stagger back. Peyter’s eyes and hands glowed with a black fire which he shot towards Samir.

Ruan and Varajas moved as one. They each raised a hand, and the fire struck an invisible wall.

Then Varajas, seemingly as part of the same motion, stabbed forward with his other hand. The fire turned, flew back at Peyter.

It consumed him.

Samir stood frozen, staring at the empty space where Peyter had stood only a second before. “What did you do?” he asked once he remembered how to breathe.

“I simply sent his magic back at him,” Varajas answered. There was no regret in his voice. “That was what he was trying to do to you.”

There had been no reason for it. No need. Just another drip of Sidaine’s poison. When would it end?

Except it wasn’t just Sidaine’s. It was Girald. And possibly Donatien. Who knew who else. And Samir was tired.

“Let’s go home,” he said.