If you have never been run through before, I can’t say I recommend the experience. There is a shocking pressure, followed by an intense burning as every nerve in the path of the blade lights up at once. I stumbled back, my legs threatening to give out. I kept my footing, though; it wasn’t my first time. As trite as it might sound, Kiyo’s betrayal hurt more than the piece of steel sticking into me.

Kiyo looked nearly as bad as I felt, her hands flying over her mouth as the enormity of her actions struck her. “M-Magpie…”

At least Maggie was enjoying herself, judging by her gleeful cackling. “I underestimated you, Ms. Jones! I thought you’d run off crying.”

I think she might have, if Maggie hadn’t given her a more immediate target for her anger. Kiyo spun around, already casting her next spell. “Fireball!”

“Water Orb!” Maggie gathered moisture from the air into a ball large enough to snuff of Kiyo’s efforts. The superheated steam forced her back, but also obscured her form.

I took the chance to gently slide the blade out of my gut. It felt like I was running a burning hot poker through my innards, and stars danced before my eyes. Thank the Dark Lord she hadn’t nicked anything too important. The scarf came in handy again, giving me something to bite down on. I needed my tongue intact for when it came time to cast a healing spell, after all.

A commotion on the other side of the theater drew my attention. I felt a faint breeze emanating from the time-stopped Rose, and Mrs. Perera was wreathed in a familiar red aura.

I revised my earlier assessment. They were not truly frozen in time, but were simply moving extremely slowly. Perhaps Mrs. Perera could have stopped them entirely at full strength, but we had been overworking the ancient woman like a rented orc.

Mrs. Perera dropped to her knees, visibly quaking as Yukiko doubled and redoubled her weight. “Stop it! Let me go, I can’t breathe… I can’t…” Her hands still glowed with her own magic as she kept up the death grip on the girls, but I didn’t know how much longer she could last under the pressure. “You won’t break me! I survived the Horde, I can survive you brats! Humanity First!”

Kiyo and Rose gave no response. They probably couldn’t even tell she was speaking.

Meanwhile, Kiyo and Maggie continued their wizard’s duel. Kiyo had gone invisible, but Maggie had ways to compensate for that.

Maggie swept her arm in a wide arc. “Fireball Barrage!” Miniature burning projectiles flew every which way, one of them briefly reflecting off Kiyo’s glasslike body.

The world began to go double, and the blood-slicked sword in my hand was trembling. I couldn’t sit back and observe any longer, as much as I wanted to delay the inevitable.

I bit down harder, bracing myself for what was to come. All Heal was an effective spell, but it was painful even for shallow wounds. “Alheln!” I shouted, my voice muffled by the red and black wool.

I nearly bit clean through the scarf, and I turned the air blue with my muffled cursing, but the hole was plugged. I spat the wool out, ready to avenge myself on a certain redheaded teacher.

“She’s dead! Yukiko, she’s really dead!” Rose’s panicked cry drew my attention, though her voice was deeper than it should have been. She moved like she was in slow motion, too, though she sped up as the last magic left Mrs. Perera’s body. Rose shrieked again as the disguise fabricata failed. “Mrs. Perera! You killed a teacher!”

“Check to make sure she’s dead,” grunted Yukiko, barely able to stand, even using one of the remaining seats for support.

“How can you be so calm?” demanded Rose, the wind picking up. “We see her every day, and now she’s dead!”

Yukiko shrugged, her wince telling me she regretted the gesture. “It was her or us, Rose. Focus. The fight isn’t done yet.”

Rose looked down at the other girl like she had grown another head. “She was our teacher! Do you have ice water for blood?”

“You’ve never fought these monsters before,” she said. “They take people and twist them. The Mrs. Perera we knew was already dead, if she ever existed at all.”

Maggie stopped trying to locate Kiyo, her face falling. “Neci?”

“Thanks for the spell! Fireball Barrage!” I wasn’t about to give her a chance to talk her way out of things again.

Maggie yelped in surprise, barely throwing up a Svalinn’s Mercy in time to block my attack.

“Diamond Shower!” Kiyo’s wave of icy needles bounced harmlessly off of Maggie’s armor, though minute flashes of yellow across her torso told me she expended a good deal of magic reinforcing the cloth bits. Low-penetration spells were almost more dangerous to armored wizards, since they could bleed off precious combat reserves in an extended fight.

A red aura surrounded Maggie and she stumbled under her increased weight.

“You seem to be the leader,” said Yukiko. “Where will you break? Mrs. Perera only took three times Earth’s gravity!”

“To Me!” I wasn’t sure what Maggie was targeting, until Yukiko’s jacket twisted, as though grabbed by an unseen hand. It wasn’t enough to tear her clothing, but the Sato heir tipped forward at the unexpected yank. She slammed chest-first into the back of the hard, plastic chair, prompting another pained hiss as her broken ribs were jostled again.

Free from Yukiko’s grasp, Maggie fired off a Magic Bolt right at me, forcing me to roll out of the way. With the way to the door cleared, Maggie darted out, plugging the exit with a Slow Barrier.

Rose gently took Yukiko by the shoulders. “Yukiko?”

Yukiko sank to her knees, letting Rose gently guide her down. She couldn’t help but chuckle, which caused another hiss. “Glad this happened now; a couple of months back, you’d have let me fall.”

Rose’s eyes flew open. “No, I… well, maybe right after the War Game.”

I sniffed the air, searching for the telltale vanilla scent of Kiyo’s magic. All I got was lavender, either from the mass of Rose-powered batteries on the roof, or from the continuing breeze from Rose’s Stormbringer affinity. I focused for a moment. My Mimic Sight showed me Maggie rushing towards the mall proper, and a familiar, slender form rushing out of the emergency exit at the back of the theater.

I was about to run after Kiyo when Rose stepped in, blocking my path. “Stop right there! You had better have a good explanation for this!”

“There isn’t time for this,” I protested. “She’s getting away!”

“Did I hear you calling her Maggie?” Rose must have thought I meant Maggie, when my instinct was to find Kiyo. “Was that really Ms. Edwards?”

I weighed my words. My carefully constructed escape plan was dashed, but I wasn’t sure how much truth to share with Rose or Yukiko. Rose might have flipped out and made a storm in the small theater and Yukiko she had just killed a little old woman without an apparent pang of conscience.

Speaking of Ms. Sato, she had forced herself upright and had walked over, visibly regretting every step. “She asked you a question, Marlowe.”

“I…” With Yukiko in easy Gravity Shift range, I decided to come clean. “That was Maggie, yes. She’s been manipulating us all for months. The attack on the Serving Wizard’s House was her doing, too. That’s why it’s so important that we track her down!” If Yukiko and Rose were going to force me on a Shrike hunt, that would at least give Kiyo a chance to calm down.

“Don’t be so modest, Marlowe,” said Yukiko. How a woman who barely broke five feet could look so imposing was beyond me. “She can’t take all the credit. She had your help.”

“Yes,” I said, reluctantly. “Not at the Serving Wizard’s House, but I was involved in this attack. I tried to make sure you all would be safe.”

“The safest thing would have been to report her to the authorities,” said Yukiko.

“If I could have, I’d have dealt with her ages ago.”

“Why didn’t you?” demanded Rose, jabbing a finger into her chest. “She tried to kill you all back in the city! Why would you work for her?”

I let out a slow breath, killing as much time as I could before I was forced to make the deadly confession. “She had dirt on me that would have seen me in a jail cell, if I were lucky.”

Rose’s expression softened a tad. Just a tad, though. “It couldn’t be so bad, could it?” I noticed Yukiko’s labored breathing. Despite her bluster, it was plain as day all of the jolts had been murder on her ribs. It was time to take a calculated risk. “Let me kill two birds with one stone. Just promise you’ll let me explain.”

Yukiko took a step back as my hands got close to her chest. She turned away, modestly covering herself with her hands. “Watch your hands, you lecher!”

I barked a harsh laugh. “I’m not about to repeat that mistake. Don’t bite your tongue.”

Yukiko tilted her head. “What do you mean-”

“Alheln.” The demonic magic grabbed hold of her magical reserves, sending waves of magic roiling through her body, fixing flaws and defects. I couldn’t see her ribs, but bruises the size of Frettchen’s fingers on her cheek also faded away. I was mildly worried about negative aftereffects, but I figured a little bit of healing magic wouldn’t be the worst thing.

Yukiko grit her teeth through it all, falling back to her knees.

Rose wasn’t there to catch her that time. She looked on me with dawning shock. “Demonkin,” she whispered.

“Guilty,” I said. Bloody Hell, Fera was right, nobody ever considered that I could be a proper demon.

Yukiko stood back up, stretching her arms. “I’m good as new. Demonic magic is even more effective than I had thought.”

“You don’t conquer most of the world with shoddy tools,” I replied, mostly keeping the patriot’s pride from my voice.

“Yes, but why do you have them?” demanded Rose. She didn’t seem sure how to respond to the revelation. I would have almost rather she lay into me, but the fear and confusion on her face made me want to tell her the full truth.

“Svalinn’s Wrath,” said Yukiko, producing an energy dagger. It floated passively over her shoulder, its business end trained right at me.

“That’s my spell,” I protested.

“It wasn’t hard to reverse engineer,” she replied. “Please answer Ms. Cooper’s question.” She was awfully formal for somebody holding me at knifepoint! She was damn lucky I was there to save her, or I might have returned the favor.

“I came by it honestly; my family was no friend of the League or the Wizard Corps. Ms. Edwards always knew, somehow, and held it over me. It didn’t used to be so bad. She tortured me constantly at the Merlin school, before the fall. I didn’t dare speak up; I had left my parent’s ways behind, but I’d be tried as a traitor regardless.” Trying the story on, I realized it accounted for a lot of the facts the girls knew. I doubted it would stand up to deep scrutiny, but I could at least keep them from attacking me then and there. “She left me behind in England when the Horde invaded. Told me to go throw myself on the mercy of my kind. It turns out, demons have none.”

“Your scars,” said Rose, the fear giving way to undeserved sympathy.

I nodded, regretting the deceit as soon as it left my lips. “I barely got out of England. I thought I was free again, but wouldn’t you know it, I was dropped right into her clutches again. Worse, being close to you all gave her more ammo. It wasn’t just my neck on the line anymore. Her agents were able to kill Haru Obe in a military hospital.” I left out that agent was named Soren. “Imagine what she could do to any of you during a tutoring session.”

I felt the breeze pick up. “I spent all of that time alone with her,” said Rose. “She was tormenting you and I never knew.”

“You still should have told the authorities,” said Yukiko. “They could have prevented a lot of this mess.”

“I did what I could,” I said. “I tried to keep you all out of it. I thought you would all be safely outside of the Tower when we struck.” I felt a grin spreading across my face. “Then you had to come looking for me.”

“Of course,” said Rose, gripping my shoulder. “Soren, Yukiko’s right.”

“I usually am,” said Yukiko, with the same surety one would say water is wet.

“That’s up for debate,” said Rose. “You could have told somebody! There’s always another way.”

“You make it sound so easy,” I said. “Nobody would have accepted me.”

“They certainly won’t now,” said Yukiko. “Now what are our next steps? We have to go find Mariko, and Kiyo’s gone AWOL.”

“And Hiro. Paul too.” I said.

Yukiko’s eyes went wide. “W-wait, Hiro’s in the Tower?”

“Yes, he was in a pitched fight with Brother Ratte the last time I…” I trailed off as Yukiko rushed past me. “Don’t get yourself caught in that Slow Barrier! We need to go the way Kiyo did.”

“Magic Bludgeon!” Yukiko’s variant of the Magic Bolt smashed a circular hole in the wall. She wasted no time in clambering through it and rushing out of sight.

“That girl’s got a one-track mind,” I said as Rose and I followed. We had to duck, since Yukiko had sized it for her short stature.

Rose didn’t say anything right away as we ran after Yukiko.

She spoke up as we left the theater. “Magpie?” asked Rose.

“Yes?”

“Whatever happens, you did the right thing in the end. That has to count for something.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her how wrong she was. She couldn’t help it, after all. She didn’t know she was running with a devil.