Under the cover of darkness, lit only by the starlight overhead, Scarlet and the other mages followed Jayden and Barek to a service entrance at the back of the castle. The only way to get to the mage prison was through tunnels underneath the castle.

Scarlet was impressed that Jayden and Barek had managed to escape this place. It seemed impossible that they had so neatly scuttered out of Riordan’s grasp. He hadn’t even sent anyone after them. Either he had underestimated them completely, or really didn’t care.

That was Riordan for you.

Getting into the castle itself went smoothly enough, they came across no resistance. Hopefully that meant Jarrett and the rest of the distraction party were doing their job.

Jayden, Barek, and Ange took the helm as they navigated the halls of Riordan’s castle, a single light that Ange had summoned brightened a small radius around them. Scarlet and Fae were close behind, followed up by Ophelia, Wilhelm, and Elden. Quietly as they could, they skulked through the castle.

Inside, it was an austere palace, its starkness a different flavor than Deianira’s. Death’s castle was undecorated, empty. Riordan’s home was decorated, but with such strict precision that it gave no real sense of warmth. Nondescript landscape paintings and carefully clipped floral arrangements lined the halls, somehow void of any personality.

Ange glanced back at Scarlet. “Pay attention,” she hissed, obviously noting Scarlet’s distraction.

Scarlet growled, but Ange was right. She needed to focus, completely.

Jayden stopped and turned to face a wall. She pointed to it. “Here. This is where the entrance is hidden.”

Ange put her hand to the stone, and it started to melt away beneath her fingers.

“An illusion?” Scarlet asked.

Ange gave her a sly grin as she finished dispelling the magic. “Just like when we first met.”

When she convinced her and Dante that she was an innocent child. Scarlet grimaced.

The barrier removed, a passageway was now open. A dark tunnel, foreboding, the illumination of the light mote barely penetrating a few feet into it. They started to descend, closely packed. The tunnel only allowed two of them to walk side by side. Scarlet found herself next to Jayden, which set her on edge. The younger girl’s threat to kill Scarlet lingered heavily between them. Scarlet was sure she could take her on, but she didn’t want to fight Dante’s sister. And if it came to that, it also meant she failed at reviving Dante.

I can’t fail. I have to be strong enough now to end this all. To end Riordan.

The darkness and the earth around them pressed in on Scarlet. She found herself lightheaded. It’s too much like Death’s dungeon. Worse, because who knows how long the mages have been down here, and what Riordan has been doing to them. Solitary confinement is bad enough, but who knows what they’ve been through.

Ange’s light suddenly snuffed out. Fae made a small noise of surprise. Scarlet reflexively summoned another light orb. It only lasted a moment before the energy was consumed and they were left in darkness again.

“He’s here,” Scarlet blurted. “Riordan.”

Ange swore. A cold blue light appeared behind them. The mages all turned to see Riordan. He grinned, the light reflecting off his teeth. “You’ve all saved me some trouble, taking yourselves most of the way into my prison.”

He found us too early. We’re doomed.

Suddenly, a domed barrier formed over Riordan. Fae made a sharp movement and the barrier shrunk, hitting him in the head and taking him to his knees. With a punch, Riordan shattered the barrier, but Fae quickly formed a new one, and then another, collapsing them together to create a thick layer.

Riordan banged on the barrier and it cracked, hit it a second time and it shattered. “What do you think you’re doing?” He began to call his energy forth, his vortex coming alive around him. “You really think you can fight me?”

Fae flashed an angry look at the rest of the mages. “Go! I’ll hold him off.”

Wilhelm’s eye were wide. “You can’t possibly—”

“Just”—another barrier formed around Riordan, then another—“go!”—and another. Riordan was encased in a thick shell of magic. Scarlet knew how much energy this was taking Fae. Riordan would keep breaking out, or absorb her power. Fae couldn’t last long.

They couldn’t leave more than one mage behind, not when they had to make the new magus weapon. Barek stepped forward, drawing his sword, but Fae shot him a death glare in between her outburst of barriers. He couldn’t stay either, he was meant to wield the magus sword, once forged.

“I said, go.”

Scarlet and Ange were the first to obey Fae, the others close behind. Barek had looked so determined, she was almost surprised when he followed the mages as they barrelled into the tunnel, a swarm of newly summoned orbs lighting their path.

The twists and steep decline of the tunnel were perilous with how fast they ran down it. Each heavy beat of Scarlet’s heart counted down another second until Riordan caught up with them.

Crystals began to bespeckle the sides of the tunnel. Then, abruptly, the entire tunnel was formed of crystal instead of the rough earth. As Scarlet’s boot hit the crystal and slid, she almost lost her balance. The crystal had been formed into a perfectly smooth, glasslike surface. They were in an unnatural, rectangle tunnel, much different from the natural one they had first entered.

Ange signalled for them to stop. “There’s so much magus stone,” Ange said. “Good. Good. We should be able to start.”

“No,” Jayden said. “We have to go farther. Let some of the mages free.”

“That’s not the plan,” Ange said.

Jayden was visibly shaking. Barek took her arm. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Jayden’s face was pulled tight. “We have to get some of them out of their cells. They can help us fight Riordan.”

“No, they can’t,” Ange’s voice was slowly rising. “Their magic is being drained into the magus stone, just as yours was. They’ll be useless until they recover, and Riordan is going to be here any second. We have to begin.”

The other mages formed a circle, preparing to work the crystal as Ange had been attempting to teach them. Condensing the crystal was a difficult process, and their lessons had not been entirely successful.

Sweat dripped down Scarlet’s neck. They hadn’t even come across a cell yet. She too felt the pull to run further into the tunnel, to try to find her mother, but she knew it had to wait.

Jayden stayed a couple steps back from the circle, shifting her weight from foot to foot as if she would bolt away if not for Barek’s presence holding steady behind her. “No. I have to go.”

“Jayden!” Ange was clearly out of patience. “Stay. Make the weapon. Mages later.”

“I promise you,” Barek told her, “we will free the mages, as soon as we can. Okay?”

Jayden, silent, stepped into her place in the circle, in between Scarlet and Ophelia.

“Pull crystal from the ceiling,” Ange instructed.

Scarlet drew a deep breath in unison with the other mages. She reached out with her magic, trying to dig into the crystal above them. It was difficult to penetrate the surface, she could feel the other mages trying to pry at the crystal alongside her, though Ange was the only one doing so with any success, a small amount of the ceiling beginning to liquefy.

“Don’t try to break it,” Ange said, a phrase often uttered during their practices. “You’re all still trying to chip away at the crystal. Instead, mold it. Guide it, melt it.”

Melt it. Scarlet knew how to melt things. Suddenly, it clicked. Instead of prying uselessly at the crystal, Scarlet wrapped her energy around it, focusing tightly on it, imagining it boiling and melting into a pliable form.

Nothing happened.

Frustration smoldered in her chest. She clenched her fists, fingernails bit into her palms, and with another breath redoubled her efforts. Melt. She could feel the fire, it lived in her blood. Melt. Transfer into this crystal, so it can do her bidding. She spent so long under the control of Death, now it was her time to make something else obey her. Melt.

Liquid magus crystal pooled above, Ange and Scarlet controlling it as it gathered into a giant teardrop, dipping down into the centre of their circle. Connected to the magus crystal now, Scarlet could feel the magic coursing through it, connecting… connecting to pain. She could feel multiple sources of agony through it.

The mages. Her mother, maybe. Perhaps Bronwen, too, if he had stayed at Deianira with Death until the very end.

She wanted so badly to delve into the streams of magic to search, but that would spell disaster for them now. Scarlet recentered herself on the current task, and helped Ange draw more crystal down from the ceiling.

Ange nodded to Scarlet with approval. “Good. Hold that in place. I need to gather more.”

More? By volume, the large drop of liquified crystal looked like enough to forge dozens of swords. Even if they condensed it significantly, it seemed like a lot. Then again, Scarlet supposed there was a very good reason they needed to come here, of all places, to have enough crystal to create the weapon.

Scarlet used her energy to hold the crystal drop in balance, with the small amount of help the other mages could provide, as Ange brought down more crystal. And more, and more. By the end, Scarlet strained to keep the crystal in place, and was grateful for the weight her compatriots were able to hold. Her whole body was slick with sweat now.

“Okay,” Ange said, finally. “It’s enough.”

The blob of crystal, no longer dripping down from the ceiling of the tunnel—because there was now a cavity where they have pulled the magus crystal down from—held independently by the mages. Luminescent energy flowed in circles inside, trapped but beautiful.

Their next step would be to pull the energy out, so the crystal would have room to absorb a soul instead. Then, Ange would do the delicate part of artificing, calibrating their soon-to-be artifact to serve the purpose she meant it to. After that, they would condense the crystal, and then shape it into a sword.

“What’s wrong?” Deep in concentration as she reached into the crystal to draw energy out, it took Scarlet a moment to register the voice as Barek’s. “Jayden, what’s wrong?”

Scarlet glanced at the girl beside her, just as Jayden withdrew her magic from helping hold the crystal aloft. Scarlet clenched her teeth as she struggled to keep the crystal from slipping down onto the ground.

From next to Scarlet, Ange glared at Jayden. “What are you doing?” Ange asked.

“I can’t do this,” Jayden said, so quiet Scarlet barely heard, though she was a couple feet away.

Scarlet felt like she was being crushed by the crystal, she was being so quickly drained by the effort of keeping it steady. After her and Ange, Jayden had been holding most of the weight. Elden’s grip on the crystal slipped, and he sank to his knees, drained. The burden on Scarlet and the remaining mages increased.

“You can do this,” Scarlet said, as she strained. “You have to help us.”

“No,” Jayden said, a bit louder this time. Barek tried to put a hand on her shoulder but she swatted him away. “I’m not—I can’t—I’m not helping you.”

With a precise motion, Jayden infused her leg with magic, and then kicked Scarlet in the shin, hard. The enhanced blow took Scarlet both off-balance and by surprise, and she landed on her back, the air forced out of her lungs. Her grip on the crystal was lost, and without her, it crashed onto the floor of the tunnel, solidifying mid-splash.

Barek snatched Jayden into a restraint. “Jayden, what the—” She bit him through a weak point in his leather armor, making him flinch away and set her free.

Jayden’s voice was raised and raw. “My brother is dead. And it’s because of you.” Her angry green eyes bore into Scarlet from above. With a punch she launched a bolt of magic at Scarlet’s face. Scarlet rolled over and up onto her knees in time to avoid it.

“Riordan killed him,” Scarlet said, standing back up. “You just destroyed our chance at repaying the favor.”

“It’s too late,” Jayden said. “He’s coming, and he’s going to kill all of you.” She laughed a little. “He might not kill me, not if I help him.” Everyone stared at her in horror, but Barek most of all looked shocked to the core. “And if someone is going to kill you today, I’m going to be the one to do it.”

Before Jayden could make another move, Barek lunged at her again. He tackled her to the floor, pinning her effectively. Jayden infused her arms with magic and threw him off of her, despite him being twice her size. She giggled again, verging on maniacally. “Join me, Barek. He’ll spare you too. It was his plan for us all along.”

“Riordan’s controlling her,” Ange said. “He has too much power, especially here with all of his captured mages to draw energy from.” She muttered a string of swears under her breath. “He let Jayden and Barek escape, so they would tell us about the mage prison. So we would come here. There’s a seed of manipulation magic in both of them.”

“I’ll never join Riordan,” Barek said, but Scarlet could see a glazed look in his eyes. He was fighting something, and that something was a power-hungry, controlling god, whose magic was thick in the air.

“Join me, the prisoners, or the dead,” Riordan said, pacing toward them, his vortex of energy picking up more force with each step. “It matters little. One way or another: you are mine.”