Tuhrie could communicate across long distances and move metal with her mind, but she wasn’t all there in the head. She had tried to murder— Well, not just murder. Torture? Do something insane to a group of students for her own amusement.

Pijeru had the same magic, he was pretty sure, except she sucked at using it. She was also kind of wimpy and talked weird. Most of the other bird people had caught on to their grammar quick. Why hadn’t she?

The only feather in her cap was that she wasn’t insane … though if he remembered the way she’d doted on Tuhrie like she had a crush, he wasn’t so sure about that. She did get along with Cathy and her comrades treated her like she wasn’t supposed to be useless.

Rhul. He was good with a crossbow. Quick. He seemed like a decent pyromancer, though he had never seen him conjure fire, only shape it. A guy, for what that was worth. He had enjoyed his brief bout against Tuhrie. Then he’d tried to kill Micah.

Kerataraian reminded him of another guy he knew. She was a pissy leader who had a lot going on in her head but only expressed herself through anger. A geomancer …

Kyle furiously scratched his skull. Were they all insane? Was that it? He glanced around at the bodies moving on the hill, but there was nobody else who could give him answers.

Why was he even putting so much thought into this? “It doesn’t matter,” he sighed. “Just give me whichever one is left, or Pijeru’s if that’ll make you happy.”

“As you wish.” The Pretender smiled at him.

His skin crawled. Freaking creep.

His instincts had been dead-on when he’d first met them, a corpse under a tree above the purple fissle fields, Run for the hills!

Something had to be deeply wrong here, because none of them were doing that. They were cooking dinner with these ‘people.’

Only a few of his classmates still had to choose their boons, but they had dragged their feet coming down the hill and suddenly had a thousand questions about how this worked before they made their pick.

Kyle let them finish without him and watched the soldiers with oversized bird heads carrying sacks and crates of foodstuffs, boxes of dishware, and bottles of drinks out from a tunnel through space.

If he stared long enough, the world blurred as his thoughts wandered, and he could almost imagine these were regular soldiers in odd helmets and feathered cloaks coming out a tunnel in the hill. That he was in a ‘the road is stretching and I’m running out of time’ kind of nightmare just waiting to wake up.

The Pretender held a black and red feather out to him, stardust clouds drifting inside of it.

He stiffened, resisting the urge to jump, and looked at them. The only other feather that orbited their hand was Pijeru’s own.

Kyle snatched the feather with a huff, took three sideways steps away, a—somewhat—quicker step, then hurried to slip into the crowd, putting bodies between them.

Ajay tagged him when he walked by the chairs where bird nurses treated humans, and he gestured at one of them. “Hey, you need first aid?” The nurse held up a healing potion and chirruped something, staring with almost human eyes set within a feathered skull.

“Do I fucking look like I need healing?”

Ajay leaned back from the vitriol, eyes wide, but pushed forward again. “Yeah, kind of …?”

Kyle was standing, but he felt like a packet of mincemeat. His [Lifeline] was empty and he wasn’t even sure if the Skill had activated or not, but it must have? How else was he still alive? But then what had that pink glow around him been …?

He wanted to check on his mark but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel it. At all. And he couldn’t remember the last time either of those things had been true.

He’d scraped his knee tying up Rhul earlier and his skin stung whenever his pants brushed over the wound. It wasn’t healing. And it was fucking annoying.

He wasn’t even sure if he should be happy, or worried, or … “Look, all I need is some good food and a night’s rest,” he said, “but I won’t get either of those here so—”

“I heard that!” Brent called over to him. The giant stood over a slab of stone between the road and the bonfire, pointing a bloody carving knife at him.

Because of course, they’d built a bonfire.

Some of the soldiers had raised stone slabs from the hill, raised wooden tables from the Root to match the benches that had been built into its sides by travelers before them, had felled trees with the help of magic, and used their logs to build the oversized affront against camping etiquette.

Hatrak had bullied them into doing it.

It was the same with the supplies. Brent only had one large carcass, the leftover ingredients from the cart, a small hiker’s cooking kit, and a pouch filled with bags and bottles of herbs and spices he kept on him. Nowhere near enough to feed over forty people. So Hatrak had ordered the soldiers to bring more.

He supposed this was what happened when someone like Cathy, a person with a lot of opinions on how things should be done, reached a position of power. Introductions had been rough, but now she and Hatrak acted like twins separated at birth. And worlds.

… Fuck me, Kyle thought.

A few of the soldiers were military cooks. Brent had been having an animated conversation with them about cooking in the Tower. The soldiers had their own stories to tell about learning to survive, about food poisoning, about the difficulties of hunting food that fought back rather than shopping at the ‘supermarket.’

They exchanged tips, recipes, anecdotes, and now Brent taught them how to flip him off.

Kyle stared at three people with bird heads, beaks, and claws as they flipped him the bird and laughed.

Some of them have Paths, he thought with growing despair. Levels.

The same thing was happening with the alchemists and the nurses: the workshoppers were teaching them the basics of alchemical theory, the differences between Tower potions and what they could brew using ingredients and mana.

He was pretty sure that was illegal, leaking secrets to foreigners, but what was he supposed to do? Be a goody-two-shoes and remind them of the law?

“Pretender,” that owlish man, ‘World Ender Klaras,’ called again. “Are you done?”

The Pretender perked up where they stood next to Pijeru, hands empty. They said something to her and raised their voice, “I have fulfilled my pact. Children! This has been a delight. I see so many dangling threads, Delilah.”

The crowd had frozen to listen. The spirit’s eyes swept over their anxious faces and hung on someone who sat far off from the crowd, alone on a wooden bench.

“I very much look forward to meeting you all again.”

In the distance, Micah raised an arm. For a moment, Kyle thought he might wave, but he pressed his bandaged thumb out sideways as if to … blot the Pretender out from his sight …? He added his index finger and made a squishing motion, mumbling a word.

Kyle didn’t need to wonder what it was. The Pretender agreed, “Someday. Show me the future.”

Half of the soldiers, the World Ender, and the Stonesinger left. Pijeru stayed behind, staring at Micah with her feather in her hand. The silence lingered as the portal trembled and the world healed itself, shards of glass falling in reverse to depict a hill and sky, the cracks in space sealing themselves shut. And for a beat, the only sounds were the crackling wood and roar of the flames.

Then their conversations started back up again. “Sheesh,” Brent said as he carved the carcass, “they’ve certainly got a lot of … personality. Are they like that around you, too?”

“Becomes never boring with one of them around,” one of the soldiers scoffed with a note of frustration. He briefly tossed his beak up at the sky like knocking back a drink.

Brent jerked. “‘One’ of them?” Kyle and a few others listening in on their conversation stumbled as well. There were more of them?

“Are you sure?” Ajay asked again. “They’ve got salves they found in treasure chests.”

“I’ll … I’ll be fine. I don’t need healing potions. I’d rather keep Rhul’s stuff instead.” He said it and patted his looted crossbow, but his classmates weren’t the only ones eavesdropping on conversations.

Where he was handing out orders, the sergeant-looking guy perked up. He excused himself and marched toward Kyle.

Oh, shit.

He reached for a knife, hesitated because of their stupid pact, and nearly paced in a circle looking for an escape when his time ran out. Krirk had caught up to him and pointed at the crossbow.

“You. I wanted to that … before we go … anyway address.” He gestured awkwardly and his eyes wandered as if he had trouble remembering the right words, which was bull, Kyle thought. Wasn’t their memory supposed to be perfect?

His body language was weird in any case because he had longer wing feathers than most and every time he moved his arm, they flapped like he was snuggled up in a blanket.

“Soldier Rhul said—”

One and a half sentences and Kyle ran out of patience. “Rhul ratted me out? I mean, he told you I took his stuff.”

Krirk inhaled in relief. “Yes. His ‘stuff’ is military property. You must them back give.”

“Not a chance in hell. I earned these, fair and square. They’re my compensation for the shit you people did.”

“I have you nothing done? And we have you money as compensation give.”

“So? I almost died trying to get your spirit lackey to back off after you let them slip their leash, and I don’t need healing because it broke my freaking— What? What, what— What is this? Where am I supposed to go?”

Krirk twisted his clawed hands at him like an orchestra conductor, as one might to tell someone to get a move on, and he glanced back, but there was nowhere to go. “You want to take this somewhere private? Are you mocking me? Telling me to shut up?”

Kyle copied the motion with more vigor and took a step at him.

Krirk took a bewildered step back. “Slower,” he said and did the motion again, slower this time. “This here means ‘slow down’?”

“How does that mean slow down? This means slow down.” He slowly laid his hands down in a calming motion.

“Why means that ‘slow down’?”

Kyle considered his hands. “Because— because it does. Soothing horses or something, I don’t know. Putting your hand on someone’s mouth to shut them up?”

Krirk touched the claws of his index and middle fingers to his thumb. “This?”

His mouth opened and closed for a moment, stammering the beginnings of words, but he had no idea what they were even talking about. “Your spirit,” he said loud and clearly, “the Pretender.”

Krirk chirruped in acknowledgment.

“Transformed into a giant fucking monkey—”

“‘Fucking’? Ah! You use that as an expletive?”

“Yeah, I’m pissed so I’m fucking swearing at you. Giant monkey. Garden Greatape?” Kyle hunched and scratched his right armpit, swaying left and right.

Krirk choked down a sound in his throat and slightly hunched his shoulders as his feathers puffed out, averting his eyes. Was he … was he trying not to laugh at him?

Kyle drew himself up and snarled, “They punched me.”

The bird man’s eyes went wide, the clear membranes of his third eyelids quickly snapping over them and back into their corners as he leaned back in surprise.

“Yeah. The only reason I am not dead right now is because I had items to defend me, and those broke.” He held up his shattered fire axe and let it drop again, reached into his chest pocket, and pulled out what remained of his broach of the ember beetle. It was a slag piece of molten and bent metal. “Broken.

“My classmates are getting money from you to make up for the potions that they used, not for treatment. You’re already giving them that. I don’t need treatment and the items your spirit broke are more valuable. And I’m only getting money? How does that balance?” He weighed his hands but this time, Krirk didn’t offer him an equivalent gesture.

He looked like he was fighting off a headache, some fusion of contemplation, annoyance, and confusion. And Kyle wondered if he could push this any further. Maybe not by making the headache worse …?

He sighed and eased up on his tone, “Come on, man. Ask Pijeru. I almost died.”

Krirk rolled his head and chirruped something under his breath. “Okay. Two for two.”

Huh?

Kyle stopped himself from pumping a fist. Throwing a tantrum had actually worked for once? He almost felt bad for the bird man, but then again, he was a bird man. It was weird to even be talking to him. Like rubbing shoulders with Northerners.

“Bolts, basket, crossbow, wristband, straps—” Krirk pointed and said, “Pick two.”

“Wait, they’re not a set?” He lifted the crossbow and quiver of bolts by their slings.

“No. All magical.”

“Fuck me.” Kyle checked the items, but all he had to go off of was their appearance.

A wine-red crossbow made of some wood and other materials, both of which he didn’t recognize on sight, but its design looked like it had come from a treasure chest. Its wood was smooth and inlaid with leaf patterns. Its staggered, forward-facing parts gave him the impression of a waterfall in a maple grove.

The quiver was a simple basket for a bow and arrow, but it was painted in night sky and moonlight colors with a faint cloud motif. He couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of enchantment that might hint at, but he had seen the bolts inside it work: they delivered elemental explosions.

Rhul had also had a wristband made of silver-gilt interlocking metal pieces, like an expensive wristwatch, except rather than a watch, twin lines of blue and white-mottled beads threaded through the piece like the tiles used to line a pool. It looked ridiculously expensive, because of both of those things, but he had no idea what it was supposed to do.

The final item was a simple strap frame for a knife holster, minus the actual holsters, to be worn like a vest. It was made of leather and Kyle wouldn’t have taken it had he not noticed the fine, wooden buckle pieces and Delilah telling him it was magical.

But again, no idea. “Can you at least tell me what they do?”

Krirk pointed impatiently. “The bolts explode. Magic. The crossbow … the bolts have a bigger explosion when you them with it fire.”

“Huh. Some sort of resonance effect, then?”

“What?”

“Magical— Resonance.” How was he supposed to explain that? “Where the sums are greater than their parts? One plus one equals three?” He smacked his index fingers together and popped his middle finger up to show three.

Krirk chirruped with interest. “‘Resonance?’ Good to know. The, kah— The basket has a wind that the bolts inside keeps and them tidy keeps. So when you jump, that they not fall out. When you one draw, it to your hand leaps. The wristband makes the world for you slow.”

“Slow? Like a haste— moving fast?” He jogged on the spot and wove left and right.

“Move— No, not. Looking fast. For the aiming?”

Kyle didn’t try to hide his disappointment. “Oh …”

“The straps let you faster move. When you them wear, have you less resistance against your movements.”

So accelerated perception and some kind of celerity enchantment, maybe …? He cursed. Now he wanted them all. He needed a new weapon to replace his fire axe anyway and … to follow up on a hunch, but he might have to experiment if he was off.

He could buy all the gimmicky first-floor weapons in the Bazaar that he wanted. They were cheap enough because you could resell their metal to the scrap haulers once they broke. He didn’t need the crossbow.

And a one-pump-chump effect might have saved his life, but he didn’t want to rely on the bolts to get him out of a bad spot if they were expendable. And if there was a chance they might explode in his face without the quiver to keep them steady.

He didn’t think his reasoning for preferring items that had more generalized, practical uses was wrong. Today had just been a freak ev—

The hill exploded. People ducked and panicked. Someone in the distance yelled a phrase in a foreign tongue and repeated it in a panic. Krirk screeched something, and Kyle found a smoking crater near a cliff where a soldier holding a wand was profusely calling out apologies. Of the monster they’d exploded, only a few colorful wisps remained.

Still in the Tower, Kyle reminded himself. He couldn’t let his guard down. With that in mind, he glanced back at the Root road where Micah sat alone, but no monster had tried to sneak up on him. Yet.

“Silver fucking stones.”

Krirk briefly chewed the soldier out in their foreign language, and it sounded like a promise to yell at him some more later, and turned back to their conversation. “Another expletive?”

“Yeah.” Kyle took a breath. “Are any of them limited in their use, the bolts aside? Like use them one, two, three times then—nothing.”

“No? Closer so a hundred uses …?”

So normal wear and tear. That tracked. Kyle considered.

If I take the crossbow, I need to get my hands on magical ammunition.

If I take the bolts, they’ll be gone after a few uses.

If I take the quiver, I’ll end up giving it to Ajay or Micah or someone else. I don’t need it.

He unslung the quiver and crossbow by their slings and handed them over to Rhul, keeping the wristband and the shoulder straps. Accelerated perception and celerity. Those should let him mimic a weak haste effect on himself.

He thanked Krirk and set off to join Micah when the boy perked up in the distance. He rose from his seat and stared to the east. Some of his classmates and a few soldiers did the same, and more and more people joined them as they noticed the stares.

Why …? What were they looking … for …?

Oh.

The bonfire blazed high, the clouds thundered with red lightning, and the colors of the world washed out as his shattered fire axe and the wine red crossbow lit up with a piercing vibrancy that almost seemed to bleed into everything it touched.

Four figures dropped out of the sky, led by a three-meter tall demon of blood-red ink and flames in a suit of full plate armor. Her visor was a blazing v-shaped wall of red light, two additional arms stuck out from her shoulders, and a multicolored ponytail of crystalline hair extended from the top of her helmet, leaving afterimages of geometric planes as they whipped in the wind, like a thin kaleidoscope dancing behind her head.

Something swept past him and a weight settled onto his shoulders. Kyle found the red sleeve of his school uniform dangling over his arm. Identical red jackets had draped themselves over the shoulders of each of his classmates, singling them out.

The jacket radiated warmth, comfort, and an odd strength. With every passing second, he felt more awake and alive.

Micah grabbed the hems of his jacket with his bandaged hands and pulled it tight around himself.

Principal Denner surveyed them with an imperious gaze from where she hung beneath the clouds. Her helmet slowly wandered up the hill and seemed to hang on the bonfire for a heartbeat before it moved on. Her amplified voice thundered down on the road.

“Anne-Katherine. I count twenty. I was told a group of twenty-eight had entered the Tower earlier today. Where are the others?”

Hatrak tried to say something in a cheerful voice, “Bright—”

Ameryth snapped a finger and he was silenced.

“Principal— Yes, of course!” Cathy shouted to be heard. “Uhm, six left to get our belongings, and two left to get help earlier—”

“Two first-year students. Alone on the tenth floor. They were quite insistent you were all about to die. I was told a Garden Greatape and a bird woman had attacked you near Morgana’s Root?”

One of the figures hovering in the air began to descend, but she held up a red gauntlet and they stopped.

“The Garden Greatape was a spirit in disguise. They and Tuhrie, the woman who attacked us, are both gone now. They were taken away?”

A thin bubble of red and silver light burst out from the armored figure. It swept over the Root, the ruins, his skin, and the portal on the hill. Further. “Where?” she asked. One word that made it clear: all Cathy had to do was point.

“Through a— a portal. A ‘spatial tunnel’? They closed it again. Madam, if you could descend, it’s a long story and Hatrak here was just filling us in on their side of it.”

She pointed her flat hands at the bird man with a nervous, cheery smile. The silenced bird person gave a tiny wave.

Ameryth didn’t budge an inch. “I see. And you are well? You are not being … forced to remain here against your will or threatened in any way?”

“No. There were … some threats, but the people here all volunteered to help us and accepted our invitation to share a meal—”

Brent cleared his throat, but Cathy didn’t correct herself. In a smaller voice, she said, “They are our guests?”

Micah took a small step forward, huddled in his coat, and tried, “Ma’am—”

The visor turned. He shut up.

He almost looked like he was trembling. In fear? Of her? Still, he forced the words out, “The woman and the spirit who attacked us, as well as a man who attacked me later on, they were all taken away. The enemies are gone.”

Kyle frowned. He looked from Micah, who had stood his ground against the Pretender, to their principal, to the school uniforms she had clothed them all in, and suddenly remembered another time he’d thrown a tantrum. A spontaneous inferno and an office untouched by its flames.

Nothing of mine will ever burn. Not if I don’t want it to.

What did Micah see when he looked at her? Kyle suddenly imagined a volcano in the sky.

He stepped forward and called up past a cough in his throat, “And we sort of made a deal. We promised to protect each other.”

“Including from coercion through magic or threats,” Delilah added with more force, “so if you were to attempt anything of the like, ma’am, I would feel compelled to act against you.”

Kyle’s head whipped around to stare at the [Witch] with wide eyes.

Damn.

Her words, more than Micah’s or his own, finally got a reaction. Ameryth gave an amused chuckle and her amplified voice no longer thundered down on them when she spoke, “Would you now? I would love to hear more about that, and what precisely occurred here today, but first: [Simulacrum].”

A second Ameryth Denner in a dress suit stepped out of the surface of her armor, like a reflection out from a mirror, and stepped onto the air. “Find the six others. Protect them and bring them to me. No lethal force.”

“No duh.” The copy made a face and shot off toward the ruins. The figure who had tried to descend toward them earlier followed after it, in the direction of their classmates who had left to retrieve their scattered belongings and the items they’d left on the cart.

The remaining three figures lowered themselves, and her demonic armor disappeared like a fluid wiped from a surface. Ms. Denner touched down onto the edge of the Root road and hiked up to the cooking station.

“Nice bonfire. With a [Campfire Aura] attached, if I am not mistaken …?” She dusted off her sleeves and fixed her suit.

“Mine.” Brent smiled. “The feast was also my idea.”

“Good. The aura was hard to miss. Then again, it must have taken you time to build. Time you did not spend sending someone out of the Tower to inform others of your safety.”

“Uh—I’m just the cook?”

“Mm-hmm. Keep cooking. I’m starving.”

“You are a, uh—” Hatrak chirped nervously as they met. “A teacher?”

“This is Ameryth Denner,” Cathy explained, “our principal. She runs our school?”

The light of the bonfire blazed on their silhouettes as Ameryth offered a hand. “And who might you be, ‘person’ who is in my Tower?”

“Hatrak—” His voice did that odd thing that Kerataraian’s had when they introduced themselves. A second set of letters and noises overlapped his name. So when he said, “Hatrak,” it sounded like there should be a ‘ri’ sound somewhere in there and something that might have been rocks cracking in a gorge.

“Anne-Kathrine has already informed me your kind may have troubles pronouncing formal speech. You may call me simply ‘Hatrak.’” He enthusiastically shook her hand and winced a little when Ms. Denner squeezed his.

“Hatrak. You are the commander of the people here …?”

“Oh, no. That would be Krirk, for now. I’m not a soldier. I am— I was a historian in my past life and am a hopeful [Diplomat] in this one.” He continued to shake her hand with a sunny expression. “Although I have not yet earned the Class. I only recently discovered my [Cooperation Path] for myself.”

He finally tried to pull away, but Ms. Denner held his hand in a vice, her smile frozen. “Say that again?”