Rallsburg was draped in eerie silence as they emerged from the forest onto one of the side roads.

They still had a few blocks to go until they reached Boris', but Rachel was glad they were finally in open ground, where she wouldn't be imagining terrible golems emerging from behind every tree trunk. The silence was almost comforting to her, in the logical cold parts of her brain. She could conclude that if they heard nothing, the mob must have already moved on out of the town. They should have a clear path all the way to the bookshop.

She said as much to Natalie, and the girl rode her wolf out of the shadows to lead the way into town. Rachel and Lily followed, while Josh brought up the rear. Ryan had left them at the edge of the forest, muttering about suicide missions. Rachel had asked him to go to Cinza's aid if he wasn't willing to face Omega, but she doubted he would be so magnanimous.

Ryan was typically uncooperative, stubborn and selfish. They'd only managed to work together in the past due to their shared connections with Rika, but with how frayed and broken that relationship had become, Rachel doubted they'd ever repair it.

Then again, Rachel hadn't expected him to take such an active role in the Summit. He'd been to all three of the brief meetings they'd held since the town hall, and even actively participated. Perhaps she judged him too harshly.

The wolf started growling as they approached the street of Boris' shop. "Something's wrong," Natalie said, glancing over her shoulder at them. "Gwen's afraid."

Rachel took a few steps forward around the corner, straining her eyes.

The door to Boris' shop had been smashed to splinters. The windows were shattered into tiny shards, and even the frame looked buckled in and broken. Rachel crept forward ahead of Natalie, trying to peer inside. She needn't have bothered.

The upstairs window blew outward in a shower of glass. A body was hurled out, tumbling through the air like a ragdoll. Rachel leapt back in fear and looked away. She didn't need to have another death burned into her memory forever—but to her surprise, there was no sickening impact on the pavement.

Grey-eyes appeared in the street below the falling body. Her arms and shoulders bulged out with thick-corded muscles, and she gracefully caught the falling boy before he hit pavement. She let him down gently, and to Rachel's further shock he was alive, albeit winded and dazed. He collapsed a moment later. Grey-eyes' body quickly returned to her normal proportions.

Omega appeared at the blasted out window, his dark complexion against the lit room and dark night sky making it impossible to see his face properly. Grey-eyes was glaring up at him with fury, which was enough to strike fear in Rachel's heart. Of the three, Grey-eyes had never involved herself in a real fight. If she stooped to their level, Rachel feared the entire town would be a pile of rubble in minutes.

Rachel stepped forward, against all rational thought. "Stop this immediately," she called.

Omega laughed bitterly. "I didn't start it."

"Who did, Jackson?" Grey-eyes cried, moving in front of Zack and raising her fists. "Because it wasn't me."

"We all did, and I'm ending it." He twisted a hand in a semi-circle, splaying his fingers wide. Another one of his terrifying golems grew out of the floorboards of the shop, like a plant on fast-forward bursting from the soil. It began to advance toward them, but after a few moments it halted—as if it were struggling against an invisible force.

Omega looked over at Rachel's group with surprise. At Lily, Rachel realized with a shock, turning to her fiery-haired companion at her side. Lily's eyes were screwed up in exertion. She was muttering rapidly under her breath. Her hand shot out and pointed up at Omega. The golem turned and began to move back into the shop, knocking piles of books over heedlessly as it went.

Rachel thought Omega might have mumbled something in return, and the golem turned around again. She imagined it would look very confused—if it had any sort of face. It began lumbering back toward them.

"Come on you old hag, give me more than that," Lily growled under her breath. She clenched her fists tight. Her complexion almost seemed to get brighter and more awake. She kept speaking, words Rachel couldn't make out despite only being a few steps away. Immediately, the golem turned back around again.

The curious mental duel between the two might have gone on longer, but Omega seemed to grow tired of the battle of wills. He waved his hand, and the golem crumbled into a pile of dirt and dust. Lily let out a deep sigh of relief.

A blur of motion and Lily was hurled sprawling into the street. Omega had somehow crossed the distance between them in a millisecond and slammed into her headlong, knocking her a dozen feet away in a painful roll across the pavement. Her leg was bent at an odd, unnatural angle, and she howled in pain. Rachel backed away, but he was in her face an instant later.

"Hello again, Rachel."

"Jackson, stop!" Grey-eyes called, but he ignored her.

"Help us!" Rachel shouted at her, but Grey-eyes only shook her head and buried her face in her hands.

Rachel looked into his eyes and felt real terror. She was utterly frozen in place. There was death in his deep black eyes. Not the insane rage or crazed lunacy she'd seen in the past. No, this was cold righteous determination, from a man who believed himself just. This was a man on a mission, and there was no negotiating with someone so wholly committed.

"Rachel, I want you to know I admire what you tried to achieve," Omega said earnestly. His deep voice, so close to her, rumbled through her entire body like an earthquake about to shatter the world. "Maybe if you'd been a little more successful, things could have gone differently. I'm sorry it had to end this way… but you shouldn't have tried to stop me."

Rachel summoned the fire from the two rubies in her palm, singing him. He cursed, and she scrambled backward. Omega moved to follow.

A huge grey mass slammed into him, knocking him sideways and rolling him across the street. Gwen bit deep into his shoulder. He screamed in pain and shot electricity at the wolf, blasting it away. Blood was dripping from his torso as he got back on his feet.

An instant later, the mountain lion leapt in as well, scratching at Omega's face with extended claws. Natalie rushed forward, shouting and egging her pets on. Omega was in pain, and he no longer had the same mask of absolute confidence he'd worn initially. He sent a wave of force at the two animals, and because they weren't protected by Mason's Law, they were tossed away as if by an explosion.

Rachel briefly wondered why he hadn't just killed them outright, but she had no time to think about it. Omega was growing five golems all around them at a rapid pace. The magical strain was finally visible on him, but a brief view of the connections showed he still maintained strong control of all his charges—and they didn't have Lily to interrupt his control again.

Natalie hurled massive jets of flame at the golems. The sheer power and size of them coming from her small hands was absurd, but she only managed to set them alight. It was the same as it had been for Cinza and her people. Fire did nothing to whatever material Omega made them out of. If anything, it made them more terrifying and potent. They needed a new tactic.

"Natalie, can you cast any other elements?" Rachel asked over the rushing, crackling sound of the fire.

"I never learned any!" the girl shouted back.

Rachel cursed her luck. Josh had apparently fled, Zack was unconscious and Grey-eyes seemed unwilling to intervene. Lily was incapacitated from the pain. Her only weapons were Natalie's two pets, who were vulnerable to anything Omega could throw at them, and Rachel's own meager spellcasting. They'd managed to hurt him and force him into expending far more energy than she'd ever seen, but it wasn't enough. The quintet of golems was taxing him considerably, and their movements were slow and rough as a result, but they still continued to close the circle. Rachel doubted they could break out.

Rachel and Natalie began to back up toward the door to the bookshop. It had been left as an avenue of retreat, but Rachel knew it was only another death-trap. The building had no rear exit and once they were in an enclosed space, the golems would have no trouble catching them.

They extended their hands and launched their fire, and Natalie only just managed to dissipate it in time. The flames winked out of existence as they approached, and a few moments later she extinguished the golems as well, choking out the flames somehow in a way Rachel didn't understand. If only I had her power…

Natalie tried hurling fire around one of the golems to strike at Omega himself, but he dodged it easily. The burst of flame dissipated into the air like smoke, striking nothing at all.

Rachel opened her mind and cast about desperately, trying to spot any clue in the connections around her that could give them a way out. All she saw were the thick lines webbing between Omega and his minions, Natalie's bonds with her two pets that were prowling about Omega but seemed reluctant to attack again, and as always her bond trailing into the distance with Will.

Rachel pushed harder as the golems continued to close, trying to spot the more obscure connections—anything that could help them. It was her only real move, since she had no weapons and no other real magical skills.

She saw the massive, uncountable web of bonds between Grey-eyes and the world. As she looked closer, she saw that two of those bonds were suddenly bi-directional, unlike the endless strands that seemed to be forever severed. One was with the boy she was standing over, protecting at all costs against Omega. It was still so faint that Rachel doubted it could even be seen by anyone else. Will certainly would never have spotted it. The other was a line tracing up into the upper floor of the shop behind them. Someone was still upstairs.

"Natalie, try to push them away. I'll be right back." Rachel rushed inside and upstairs. She felt a brief shock at the interior of the upper floor, but she had no time to ponder the implications.

Rika and Hailey were both laid out on the floor, battered and mostly unmoving. Rika was awake, while Hailey groaned and rolled away from the new face in the room. Rachel assumed the only reason they weren't dead was thanks to Grey-eyes' intervention. She rushed to Rika's side.

"Rasshel? Wha-'re you doin' 'ere?" Rika mumbled.

"Nevermind that," Rachel replied, picking up Rika's bag.

She didn't have time to raise old grudges. Rika could supply something they needed to fight back. They needed destructive power to handle the golems, but Rika didn't have the energy and Rachel didn't have the talent, and neither of them had the time to teach Natalie how to use it. There was another option.

"Rika, I need your Scrap, right now."

"Huh?"

"If I don't give it to Natalie, we're going to die." Rachel didn't wait for a reply, but started digging through her bag for the compartment where it was held. She knew Rika always kept it on hand, as she'd never trust it anywhere else than within a few feet of her.

"'s not in there. In my pocke'," Rika muttered. Rachel reached over and plucked the battered parchment out of Rika's front pocket. "Closes' you'll ever ge' to ge'ing in my pan's," Rika added, before doubling over in a round of hacking coughs.

"Shut up and let me save you," Rachel snapped.

She glanced over it briefly. Knowledge began to flow into her mind, visions of electricity dancing and forking through the air and the lightning of storm clouds sparkling in the sky. It felt like hours, though only a moment had passed before her mind was drawn back to earth. Without another glance at the two on the floor, Rachel hurried back down to Natalie at the front door.

The girl was leaning forward with arms outstretched as if she were trying to push a massive invisible box in front of her, at such an angle that she should have fallen on her face. The golems had stopped advancing, and even the dust in the air was halted at the edge of the bubble of force she'd projected. It wouldn't have stopped Omega had he decided to walk up, but he looked strained just from maintaining the golems, in addition to being wary of Natalie's power. It gave Rachel all the breathing room she needed.

She thrust the Scrap in front of Natalie's face. The girl's light brown eyes darted across the page rapidly, then rolled back into her skull leaving just the whites. A moment later, her irises snapped back into place. The golems were able to advance a few feet in the brief lapse before she threw the wall back up again.

"What was that?" she asked breathlessly.

"A new weapon," Rachel answered.

There were two ways to learn how to use magic. The usual way was how everyone learned it, by shared experience and experimentation. Someone would try something out, find the mental and physical path to the energy and manipulations needed to cast a spell, and they'd share it or not share it as they saw fit. It could be reverse-engineered by someone else clever enough, and sooner or later everyone would know the basics and be able to cast similar spells. Given enough time and experimentation, there didn't seem to be any limit to what they could achieve—and when one threw rituals and permanent magic into the mix, the possibilities absolutely exploded in scope—but they were always limited to whatever one could imagine and discover themselves.

The book had no such limitations, and it removed the process of learning entirely. Each Scrap they discovered was a portion of magic from that tome containing all the secrets of the universe. Though the first to read such a page seemed to gain some inherent talent and power from it, in truth anyone who read from a Scrap would be near-instantly proficient in the magic it described. In that way, every member of the Council had become capable in telekinesis and basic fire magic. There were no apparent drawbacks, though it was often impossible to describe the method that the book taught. It was as though it instilled new instincts into the reader, base behaviors that couldn't easily be explained but simply came naturally.

Natalie absorbed the knowledge, and suddenly her fingers crackled with light. Tiny flecks of electricity danced across her fingertips, in a brilliant pink instead of the cool blue that Rachel was used to seeing from Rika. Natalie let the force wall fall away, and spun around to face the nearest golem. She dropped to one knee and thrust out her hand.

With a thunderous snap that shook Rachel's bones and had her covering her ears, a massive fuschia-colored bolt arced away from Natalie's palm and punched a hole through the golem, cutting it in two. The overwhelming heat and energy was enough to disintegrate the material entirely.

Natalie muttered something under her breath, retracted her hand and threw it out once more. Another bolt burst outward with a sharp crack. The electricity annihilated the golem as it crackled through the air, whipping around violently on the other side before striking a piece of metal on the ground. Rachel was prepared for it this time, but even so the sheer power behind the girl was simply something she couldn't prepare for. The golem vanished entirely in the flash of light, so dazzling that Rachel was blinded for seconds afterward. She closed her eyes while she listened to the whip-crack of Natalie's lightning bolts continue, blasting through each golem one by one.

As the final blast faded into the wind, she opened her eyes again. Omega seemed to be long gone, and Lily was finally coming to. Natalie was heaving and looking like she might throw up. She doubled over and sprawled out on the pavement, completely exhausted. Rachel thought about trying to comfort her, but before she could move, Natalie's wolf was already at her side. It stood over her like a guard, while the mountain lion padded over and laid down by her side, nuzzling close to her and mewling.

"I've never seen anything like that," Grey-eyes said quietly. Rachel looked up startled. She'd almost forgotten Grey-eyes was even there.

"Why didn't you help us?" she asked, throwing caution to the wind. Grey-eyes no longer seemed like the all-powerful god she'd once been; now Rachel only saw a scared girl about the same age as herself, who happened to have some magical powers on par with the infinitely braver and more heroic Natalie at her feet.

"I… I couldn'—"

"We were going to die right in front of you," Rachel shot back. "You didn't do anything. You just stood there and watched." She walked over right up into the girl's face and towered over her. "Josh ran away from the fight and I still think he's better than you. You coward."

"Stop fighting," Natalie said from the pavement, having risen to a sitting position. She still looked too weak to move, but she was resting more comfortably leaning against the wolf. "We're all okay."

"Are we?" Rachel asked. "Rika and Hailey are seriously hurt up there, and I think Lily's leg is broken."

"Maybe?" Lily said, gingerly putting weight on it. She let out a yelp of pain and a string of eloquent curses.

"It's a miracle none of us died," Rachel continued, turning back to Grey-eyes. "And we're not even done. Omega's still out there, and it's not like he's just going to drop this crusade. So I think we're owed some explanation here."

"What kind of explanation?" Grey-eyes asked in a whisper. She briefly glanced down at Zack, unconscious at her feet, and Rachel decided that was as good a prompt as any.

"Who is he? Who are you? Where did all of this come from? And how can we stop him?"

Grey-eyes sighed. She looked down at Zack, then back at Rachel. "Not here."

"Yes, here," Rachel snapped. She was tired of the run-around, and she trusted Natalie and Lily implicitly after what they'd been through.

"No. He can't hear this," Grey-eyes looked down again, where Zack lay unconscious a few feet away.

"What?"

Her voice dropped to a pained whisper. It was so quiet that even with her senses, Rachel nearly missed it. "He's my little brother, and if he's ever going to be safe, he can't know that. Ever."

Rachel looked between the two again, and she could barely see the family resemblance. It was vague, and a brief shift in her vision showed none of the telltale traces of a family connection between the two. Barely a connection at all, in fact. Still, Rachel couldn't see any reason why Grey-eyes would make such a thing up. The shock wore off as she tried to redirect the conversation to more productive territory. "The doctor's dead. What can we do for everyone here?"

"I took some first aid classes," she said awkwardly. "I don't know what else we can do."

"Perhaps I can help?" called a voice. They both turned to see Boris Morozov, approaching with an old wooden rifle under his arm.

"Where have you been?" Grey-eyes cried, rushing to hug him.

He smiled and patted her on the back. "I received full combat medical instruction. I hadn't the necessity to use it in years, thank the Lord, but I believe it should be sufficient."

Boris immediately began directing them to gather everyone up into a back room in his shop—one curiously hidden behind a rotating bookshelf. It was surprisingly well-stocked with medical supplies as well as a good deal many other things, including wireless antennas, recording devices, and other materials and tools Rachel could guess as to their purpose. She suddenly had a much greater understanding of Boris and his presence in the town, but she didn't ask for the time being.

She had someone far more important to interrogate.