“Ah,” Damien said, drinking in the Ether around them. “And I don’t suppose you’ve got a good reason for that? We’re from the same school.”

“Don’t play games,” Aven said. Lightning crackled around her, forming into a rippling cloak. “You and Sylph took an artifact that I had my eye on.”

“Have you considered asking politely instead of destroying half the city?” Damien asked. “It might get you farther.”

“Would it have?”

“No,” Damien admitted. “But it would have been nice to at least try. There are dozens of artifacts scattered around the city. Go find another one. Weren’t you supposed to know the location of some super important one? Sylph and I didn’t know it, so I figure you and Cheese did.”

Her gaze lowered to the pocket where Damien had put the gem.

“You’re kidding me,” Damien said flatly. “This?”

“No,” Aven replied. “I simply took a fancy to this artifact. The main target has already been secured.”

“Then you should go find an anthill and kiss it,” Damien said, binding a Devour spell in the air before him with his mental energy. “This one is ours.”

A bolt of lightning ripped from Aven’s cloak and streaked toward Damien. He leapt back and his spell expanded, swallowing the bolt. Damien reversed its runes, casting Expunge and launching the bolt straight back at Aven.

She spun out of the way and stomped the ground, sending a wave of jagged stone rippling outward. Damien barely teleported out before getting impaled upon it. When he reappeared, a bolt of lightning was already streaking toward him.

He cursed, teleporting once more. Aven’s reaction speed was on par with Derrod’s, but she was using ranged attacks. Damien threw several gravity spheres at Aven, then took cover behind a building as a wave of fire scorched the streets.

It continued for several seconds before fading, leaving hazy scorch marks all over the block. Metal clashed against stone and there was another wave of flame. Damien stepped out as soon as it faded, hurling two gravity lances at Aven’s back.

Aven snapped her fingers and a wall of rock erupted in their path, blocking both spells. No sooner than she had moved did Sylph launch from within her camouflage, carving a dark line through the air.

A crackling fist of lightning shot from Aven’s cloak, striking Sylph from her spell and sending her tumbling across the cracked, smoking ground. She sprung into the air mid bounce, flinging a dagger at the other girl.

Aven flickered and collapsed into a puddle of shadow before reforming behind Sylph, a cold gleam in her eye. It was replaced by surprise as a silver blur shot from Sylph’s back.

The older student’s reaction speed was incredible. She spun, stone rushing up her body to block the blow, but Sylph had the advantage of surprise. Her scythe carved a deep cut along Aven’s midsection before the other girl could escape.

Aven spat a bullet of thick, green acid at Sylph as she retreated. The spell burned clean through her shoulder and shot out the other side, punching deep into the ground. Shadows traveled down Aven’s side, stitching her wound shut just enough to stop most of the bleeding.

Damien grabbed Aven’s shoe with a tendril of mental energy and yanked hard on it, but she responded almost instantly, blocking out his influence.

She retaliated with a whip of hissing blue energy. Damien vaulted back and it scored across the ground beneath him, warping and twisting the stone as it passed through. Aven yanked the whip back and dodged Sylph’s scythe, only for the second one to strike her in the shoulder as Sylph unsheathed it.

Aven melted into a puddle and shot back, bouncing off a building as Sylph lunged after her, just barely falling short as the older student repositioned herself on the other side of the clearing.

“How many of those do you have?” Aven snarled, patching the new wound. “And are you seriously Second Years? Or is this some test from Derrod?”

“You’re the one who attacked us,” Damien grunted, slinging a gravity sphere at her. He was tempted to use direct casting, but something told him to stop. Aven was supposed to be one of the most dangerous students on the Forsad trip, but she was barely holding her own.

She’s hiding something as well. Even Quinlan would do better than this, and she lost to Cheese, who’s supposedly weaker than Aven.

“None of her spells are very creative,” Henry observed. “You’ve got the right thought. She’s testing the water or trying to learn something about you. I doubt that artifact is her real goal, and I don’t want to show her more than we need to. I won’t be acting either unless we plan to do away with her for good.”

You’re sure we can handle her?

Henry snorted while Damien ducked out of the way of a screeching beam of wind that obliterated the building behind him. “Stop selling us short. I could crush her with minimal effort.”

And what about Derrod?

It took Henry longer to respond to that one. “I wouldn’t want to fight that if we can avoid it. Derrod is a very powerful mage. One I’d much rather have on our side when the Corruption comes knocking. If he’s really dead set against us, it would be very hard for me to keep you alive while we fight.”

Sylph and Aven clashed again. Sparks flew as scythes struck stone and Sylph whipped her leg around. A blade sprouted from the bottom of her foot and slammed into Aven’s collar bone, forcing her to retreat once more.

What if we have no choice?

Damien threw two gravity spheres at the girls. The first detonated directly behind Sylph, pulling back as Aven lunged to grab her. The second spell shot wide, detonating just above the two of them.

“Make sure it doesn’t happen,” Henry said, his tone flat. “We could probably win, but at a cost you aren’t willing to pay. Not yet. At the rate we’re improving, a year would be enough to let me fully take over and withstand Derrod. But now? You’d be lucky to keep your limbs.”

I see.

Sylph leapt up as it went off and it pulled her high into the air faster than Aven could turn. A dagger sprouted from Aven’s shoulder and she cursed, bringing her defenses up a moment too late.

How long is she going to hold back? There’s no way she’s actually this weak.

“Still selling yourself short,” Henry said irritably. “Not to mention Sylph. She’s a killing machine. But yes, the girl is still holding back. I wonder how much she’s willing to bleed before she really starts fighting.”

How about we find out? Help me with my mental energy for a moment. I’m going to press her.

Damien teleported, not needing a response from Henry to know that his companion would do his part. He appeared before Aven as Sylph slashed at her back. Aven’s eyes narrowed and the stone erupted around her, encasing her in a cocoon.

Ether flickered along Damien’s arms and he fired several tears straight through Aven’s spell. A cry rang out, followed by furious cursing. Damien teleported just before rock flew everywhere as Aven detonated her defenses, peppering their surroundings with shrapnel.

“Now I know something is wrong,” Aven hissed, clutching her side, where a deep wound was seeping blood despite the stitching holding it shut. “That was not a Year Two spell.”

“Then I hope you’ve got a lot more to offer,” Damien said, drawing Ether into him at an alarming rate. He raised his hands into the air, channeling as much as he dared to. Dozens of huge tears formed around him, popping and hissing with purple light.

Damien let the first one fire. Aven teleported back and he sent the next one while forming another above his hand. Every time Aven tried to gain back momentum, he attacked again. The attacks got closer to hitting every time.

“Enough!” Aven snarled, dodging the last spell and taking shelter atop a crumbling rooftop. “How much blasted Ether do you have?”

Reaching out with his mental energy, Damien formed a gravity sphere in the building beneath her and pumped Ether into it through his connection. It went off and the house imploded with a loud blast, sending a huge plume of dust into the sky.

“Enough,” Damien growled in reply, launching two gravity spears into the building. Sylph stepped up beside him and squinted at the rising cloud.

“Damn. What did she do to you?” Sylph asked. “That was a lot.”

“She’s holding back, trying to find something,” Damien replied with a shrug. “I figured we might as well try to see what she’s really capable of if she wants to fight with us. Maybe she’ll drop an artifact if we beat her up hard enough.”

“What do you think I am, a walking goodie bag?” Aven snarled, emerging from the ruined building atop a platform of moving stone. She was covered with small lacerations and breathing heavily.

“More like a poor excuse for a Year Four,” Damien said. “I’ve had better competition from mindless monsters. Last chance. What do you want from us?”

“I already told you. The artifact.”

Damien teleported directly in front of Aven. Then he cast Storm.

The ground cracked, large chunks tearing away and lifting into the air around them as micro tears whipped around Damien, shredding everything into a hurricane of jagged shards. The speed of the spell caught Aven off guard and a stone carved a line across her forehead before she could react.

She nearly lost an ear to a stray tear, only managing to save it by throwing herself out of the way at the last moment.

“What’s wrong?” Damien asked. “It looks like you’re running out of Ether. Spend a little too much teleporting around?”

“You’re inhuman,” Aven said, her form liquifying. She splashed onto the ground and slipped through the cracks, gathering back together on the other side of the clearing. “There’s now way you’re a Year Two.”

Sylph’s scythe punched through the center Aven’s chest. She materialized behind the older girl and ripped the blade free, stepping to the side.

“No,” Sylph said. “You’re just incredibly unimpressive. I’m pretty sure Mark is a better fighter than you, even without his demon.”

Aven glanced down at the wound in her chest, then let out a heavy sigh. “Damn, you really did a number on me. I honestly thought it was all talk.”

“What was?” Damien asked. All the malice had left Aven’s voice, replaced by calm detachment.

“I’m not going to answer that,” Aven replied, rubbing her chin. A thin crack split her finger and raced down her arm. “I’ve given you information. I won’t risk any more. Honestly, I really am impressed. I’d love to keep this going, but I’m all out of energy. What artifact were you looking for?”

“Something to gather energy,” Damien replied. “I don’t suppose you’re in so much awe of our talent that you’re willing to give us one?”

Aven snorted. “Hardly. But I’ll tell you that Quinlan is about to come into possession of one. Should she survive Cheese, you can get it off her. I trust that’s sufficient reward.”

The cracks spread, running up along Aven’s neck and down through her feet. She shattered, crumbling apart like a brittle cookie in milk. Within instants, all that remained of her was a small pile of smoldering ash.

“Shit,” Damien muttered. “That was just some form of spell, not her?”

“Looks like a body replication technique,” Henry provided, forming a mouth so Sylph could hear him as well. “A very good one. I would have noticed, but we’ve gone over that bit. Human spark, stinky, yadda yadda. Her real body is off somewhere else. She was just puppeteering that one. Man, I’d love to see her at full strength. I wonder what other magic she knows. Maybe there are some new techniques that I haven’t seen.”

“We can get her autograph later,” Damien said. Sylph’s scythes retracted into her back and she wiped her forehead, sitting down on a large stone and digging through her bag to find some jerky.

“I wonder what she was doing, though,” Sylph said after swallowing. “Do you think…?”

“Derrod?” Damien finished. “Almost certainly. Asshole. Probably gave her something to test me, but I guess Aven couldn’t be bothered to do it normally so she sent a clone.”

“Lucky us,” Sylph said. “A clone would only have a portion of her power. We took care of it pretty handily, but imagine if it was just twenty or thirty percent. She’d be a serious menace in a real fight.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Damien decided. “I’m going to have to figure out something to do with him before we’re done here. I’m done with all his damn tests.”

“Can we really stop him?” Sylph asked. “Even together?”

“I’ll figure something out,” Damien said darkly. “Until then, do you have any idea how we can find Quinlan? If Aven wasn’t lying, she’s got the artifact I need.”

Sylph scratched her head. “Follow the explosions, probably. If she’s about to fight Cheese, I’d bet it won’t be long before we hear something.”

“Fair enough,” Damien said. He sat down next to her, and they settled in to wait.