Frances suddenly felt too warm, and yet, chills ran up her spine. She closed and opened her eyes, hoping that she was just seeing things. But no, Timur was in front of her, shaking his head, black eyes blinking blearily. He grabbed the barrel to pull himself up, but as he looked up at Frances, he froze.

“Wait, Frances?” the trogre gasped.

Frances lowered her sword. “Yes. Are you h—”

Something with claws and wings leapt out of the barrel, screeching. Frances managed to block with her arms, and she screamed as sharp claws cut through her gambeson. She was suddenly staring at a screeching child with wings, whilst trying to fend off her six-fingered hands from squeezing around her throat.

“Morgan, stop!”

The child—Morgan—turned away, distracted just long enough for Timur to grab her and hoist her away. The girl didn’t turn away from Frances, but she relaxed as she was returned to Timur’s side.

Martin observed this with wide eyes and decided to let his sword’s tip lower, but he still watched the Alavari warily. “Frances, why did you spare him? How do you know him?”

Massaging her throat, Frances turned to Martin and swallowed. “Martin, this is Prince Timur of the Kingdom of Alavaria. We have met before.” She glanced back at Timur and Morgan, and managed a weak smile. “Is this your niece, Timur? Because if she is, then you weren’t lying about her being cute.”

Timur looked mock-offended. “I would never lie about Morgan’s cuteness! Also, did you jinx us? I thought you said you wanted us to meet under better circumstances.”

The trogre’s teasing tone had Frances groaning, but she couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, you are incorrigible.”

Morgan’s eyes flicked back and forth between Timur and Frances. “Uncle… you know this mage?”

“Frances, you know one of the sons of the Demon King?” Elizabeth stammered, staggering up from where she had fallen, one hand clutching her arm.

Timur and Frances glanced at each other and back toward their respective questioners and simultaneously started to stammer helplessly.

“We um, met in the woods of Leipmont,” said Frances in a quiet voice.

“Nothing suspicious. I just ran into her when I was on my trip of self-reflection and we talked,” Timur said airily, his tail settling on the floor.

Frances turned to Timur, her gaze flat and voice deadpan, “You were going to die, courtesy of your father.”

“You didn't have to just up and say it like that!” Timur exclaimed. When Frances winced and averted her gaze, Timur was quick to add: “But yes, Frances was on a training mission and she saved my life.”

“I… just provided some help,” she mumbled.

Timur shook his head, and in a much softer voice, said, “You wrote a magical contract to provide me with magic without even thinking about what you could ask for. It was probably the kindest thing anybody has done for me. I still cannot believe you just did it without me asking.”

Frances finally looked back up, meeting Timur’s gaze and managed a smile. As she smiled, so did he, though, his smile was far more toothy.

“To be honest, I still can’t believe I did it,” Frances said.

“Oh, so you regret it?” Timur asked.

A bit of colour reddened Frances’s cheek. “No! But my Master was very surprised.”

Timur puffed his chest up. “Glad that I didn’t come to kill her?”

Biting back a chuckle, Frances pressed one hand to her lips. “More because she didn’t want to incinerate someone who hadn’t turned fifteen.”

“Well now that I’m fifteen and I’d like to see her try!” Timur proclaimed.

Arching an eyebrow, Frances crossed her arms.

“Really.”

Timur met Frances’s gaze and his smirk faded, “On second thought, you’re right. That’s a terrible idea.”

Martin and Elizabeth glanced at one another and found themselves glancing at Morgan, who was also in similar disbelief.

“Aren’t we supposed to be fighting a war?” Morgan asked.

“What the little harpy—are you a harpy? What she said,” Elizabeth blurted.

“My name is Morgan! M. O. R. G. A. N the Countess of Kwent! I am a harpy-troll!”

“Maybe we can catch up after we set this gatehouse on fire,” Martin growled.

Timur glared at the knight. “Oh, so that’s what you were doing.”

“Yes, now get out, or—” Martin raised his sword back to a guard position “—we’ll have to remove you.”

Frances felt her blood run cold, and she froze, but only for a moment. Hands shaking, she stepped in front of her friend, “Wait, Martin—”

“If he resists, we won’t have a choice, Frances. Now get out of the way,” Martin hissed.

She nearly backed away, but Frances couldn’t get the sight of her friend’s blade out of her mind and she froze. To her relief, Martin seemed just as paralyzed when he realized she wasn’t moving. Elizabeth had her hands over her visored helm, horror spreading through her veins.

Timur coughed, “Actually, I don’t want to resist.”

“Wait, you don’t?” Martin asked.

“Nope. I want to get out of here with my niece as much as you do,” Timur pointed at the stairwell. “But here’s the thing, you set fire to the lower floors.”

“Wait, what? But we haven’t even been to the lower floors on the other side!” Elizabeth protested.

Frances ran over to the stairwell, opened the door and slammed it back shut as smoke blasted her face. Coughing, she backed away.

“Oh shit. How—the portcullis. When we set fire to it, it must have spread to the other side and set the room under us on fire. What do we do now?” Elizabeth asked.

Martin stomped over to the windows in the room, but they were too small for even Morgan to fit through. He checked the other side facing the river and found only arrow slits. Gritting his teeth, Martin wracked his mind.

“Elizabeth, calm down. We have an exit plan. What was it—yes. Frances, you said you can teleport us out in an emergency, right?” The knight asked.

Frances hesitated. “Three people at a short distance, yes, but five, even four, people at the same time? Not safely.”

“What do you mean by not safely? Frances, it can’t be worse than burning alive,” Elizabeth yelled. She didn’t want to burn. She knew she wasn’t going to die, but burning alive would be horrible.

“Well, it has been known that failed group teleports end up with the teleported quite literally scrambled together,” Timur said.

Wide-eyed Elizabeth promptly decided at that moment that burning alive might be better than finding someone's arm literally inside her.

Frances examined the room, walking around it. She needed to think like this was like one of Earl Forowena’s tactics’ exercises—a complicated puzzle that could be solved.

Several solutions came to her at once, but they all required a particular condition.

“Everybody, stand back from that wall,” Frances said, pointing to the wall facing the river.

Timur, catching on, asked, “Do you need anybody to reinforce the ceiling planks? In case they cave in?”

Frances looked up, quickly grabbed a chair and used it to step onto the table. She gave the ceiling a tap with her wand, listening to how the wood echoed. She knew it wasn’t a perfect method, but it would give her a better idea of how stiff the planks were.

“No, but be ready. I think the planks are strong enough. Morgan, can you get under the table please?” Frances asked.

“Why should I—”

Martin, grumbling strode up the harpy orc, picked her up by the back of her shirt and gently slid her under the table. He sent an apologetic glance in Timur’s way, but the trogre only snorted. “Thank you.”

“Uncle!” Morgan whined.

“Whine at me after we get out of a burning building,” Timur shot back.

Elizabeth instinctively raised her hand, and abashed, lowered it. “Wait, Frances, before we break the wall, and possibly send this crashing down on us, how do we get out? There’s a two-storey drop.”

Frances’s brow pursed in thought. Her friend has a point. She considered levitating everybody down slowly, but that would take too much time and would be quite magically taxing.

“Can you make like a cushion of air or something? A slide?” Elizabeth suggested.

Frances immediately discarded the cushion idea, but the slide seemed promising.

“I’ll need something to make a slide,” she told Elizabeth.

“Maybe the river water?” Elizabeth suggested.

The pieces clicked in place and Frances nodded. “Yes, I can do that. Everybody stand back!”

She raised her wand and started to sing. She didn’t try to move the wall all at once, instead, she focused on yanking out looser, smaller stones. The slow, almost dramatic song she sang was something a Lapanterian mage had composed and was known as simply, “The Rock March.”

After a minute, there was a small hole in the wall that grew larger as stones were ripped from mortar and flung outside. When the hole was as big as a person, Frances stopped and peaked cautiously through.

Which was when Frances realized there was a slight complication to their plan. The gatehouse may have guarded the bridge, but the two towers that formed it weren’t connected to the bridge. If she was to make a slide, it would have to be curved.

“Frances? Can you do it?” Martin asked.

“Yeah. I just need a moment to catch my breath,” Frances gasped reaching for her water flask. As she did, Timur stepped past her and examined the hole.

“I’ll get started then. Join me when you’re ready,”

“Just hurry!” Elizabeth stammered. She was rummaging through their packs and pulling out spare clothing they’d brought. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to borrow these.” Before Martin and Frances could ask what she was up to, Elizabeth had started to stuff them into the gap between the door and the floor, blocking the smoke that was rushing in.

“All’s forgiven,” Martin said, joining her as Timur leaned out of the impromptu hole and began to cry out words of power.

Frances, after having wet her throat, joined him and soon, the pair had built a slide of ice water that reached the bridge. It clung to the stone walls of the gatehouse and had railings that guided the slide toward the bridge, hopefully, keeping the occupants in.

“Not too bad for our second joint casting,” Timur quipped.

“There was a first?” Morgan squeaked, voicing the thought on Martin and Elizabeth’s minds.

“We’ll have to tell you about it later,” said Frances to Morgan, in a strained, but warm voice. “Morgan, you go first.”

The harpy-troll nodded and clambered to the edge of the hole, but the moment her fingers touched the start of the ice slide, she stopped.

“Morgan? Why don’t I join you for the trip?” Elizabeth offered on the spur of the moment, crouching down beside the young girl. She had done some babysitting for members of her parish, she knew what to do.

“I’m…scared,” whispered Morgan.

“I am too, but don’t worry, I’m pretty tough. I’ll protect you,” said Elizabeth, smiling brightly.

Morgan paused, but nodded and as Elizabeth sat down on the slide, Morgan clambered onto her lap.

“Right. Here we go!” Without giving her charge another moment to reconsider, Elizabeth pushed off.

The three still in the gatehouse held their breath as the pair slid down, Morgan screaming as they tore down the two stories. But while it looked for a second like Elizabeth might go over the side, her boots hit the rocky bridge and she nimbly stepped upright, carrying Morgan to safety. Putting the breathless harpy-troll down, Elizabeth turned to her friends and her eyes widened.

Smoke and flames were pouring from the gatehouse. The wooden gates and portcullis themselves could barely be seen with all the fire. Flames danced on the rooftop of the side they’d first set the fires in. The tower from which they’d slid down upon wasn’t any better. She could see tongues of orange flames licking through the first storey arrow holes. The roof was fully engulfed by a cloud of black smoke.

“We’re fine! Go! Hurry!” Elizabeth screamed.

Timur ran and grabbed Martin’s shoulder. “You— Martin right? GO!” The trogre practically tossed the knight down the slide, though, Martin’s feet weren’t too far behind. That left Frances with Timur.

“I’ll go,” Frances said. Timur nodded, and before Frances knew it, she was sliding down the slide and clambering to her feet. Timur joined her shortly afterward and was hauled up by Frances and Martin.

The party then made haste to get clear of the burning gatehouse, and its wind-swept embers. The ice slide they made was melting already, droplets of water falling back into the river below.

“Well, we are going to have to surrender after this,” Timur sighed and crossed his arms. “Father isn’t going to be happy.”

At the mention of his father, Frances turned to the trogre, her worries returning. “Timur… is your father going to blame you?”

“No. The garrison isn’t under my command. I was just visiting Morgan.” The trogre regarded the three humans with a wary look. “All that being said, I won’t be taken prisoner without a fight.”

The three humans exchanged glances. Elizabeth stepped away from Morgan and Timur, but not towards Martin. She’d already made her decision not to intervene. Frances, seeing this, stepped in between Martin and Timur, but the knight was backing away, hands up.

“There are boats under the bridge. Take them.”

“Didn’t you… want to kill me earlier?” Timur asked.

“You’re not in the way of our mission now and you helped us just then—” Martin smiled weakly “—would be rather unchivalrous.”

Timur smiled and inclined his head to the night. “Thank you. Morgan, come along. Elizabeth, Martin, it’s been a pleasure.” He grinned roguishly at Frances. “As for you, Lady Frances, may our next meeting not be on another battlefield.”

“I hope so,” Frances said, smiling, her cheeks feeling slightly warm. With that, Timur took Morgan’s hand and they raced down the staircase. Turning back towards the gatehouse, Frances exhaled slowly and looked at her friends.

“We… we did it.”

Elizabeth blinked, and a relieved smile broke over her face. “Yeah, we did.”

Martin shook his head and began to chuckle. “That was one insane plan, and it very nearly went so wrong.”

“You forget, you had the idea behind this plan,” Elizabeth pointed out.

“Oh yes. And you, Frances, are going to have to tell us about Timur,” Martin said, raising his eyebrows, a look of evident curiosity in his eyes.

Frances nodded in agreement and smiled.

It had been tense, it had been very dangerous, but she and her friends had done what they set out to do, together. She wished she knew some magic that could let her bottle what she felt right now. There wasn’t, but at least for now, she felt rather proud of herself, and her friends.