Rory and the others prepared to leave for the palace, but as they loaded themselves onto the truck and the van, the whole substation started acting up. Electricity flickered everywhere, arcing off the many deposits of Electrium that had cropped up all over the place. The charges buzzed through the air, leaving the smell of a storm behind as they coalesced in the middle into one large bolt that shot into the sky.

That couldn’t be good. The miniature lightning zipped across Rory’s skin everywhere it was exposed, minuscule stings popping up wherever they touched.

“We need to break this place down,” Dez said.

He stepped forward, his fists flaming with his Abyssal Inferno. Rory nodded. This had the makings of another spawn point.

“Everyone who can use ranged powers,” Rory said, stepping forward behind Dez with his Staff of Deadly Winter held out. “Use them to destroy the Electrium. They’re the metallic rocks spitting out electricity everywhere. Get to it.”

He didn’t wait to see who else had the powers to help. Most likely didn’t.

Of course, Dez made sure they didn’t even need to join in. His flames burned high and intense, exploding on the rocks everywhere and snuffing out their electricity. Rory took a moment to simply stare in appreciation. Dez’s Sigil of Abyssal Inferno had grown significantly stronger over the week. In seconds, he had half the substation swathed in destructive dark flames.

Enough gawking. Rory activated his Sigil of Harmonic Blizzard, selecting the ground under his feet as the target of preservation and the Electrium everywhere as the target of destruction. His blizzard attacked with incredible fervour, shattering hard rocks like they were little better than glass.

Some of the others joined in as well. Vern had manifested strange glowing strings. He lashed them out like a thousand tendrils, their whipping motions breaking the Electrium as easily as Rory’s blizzard did. Harlow seemed to point at rocks and make them crumble on their own. Sue was participating too. Apparently, she could now send her barricades slamming forwards, an ability she was now using to crush the Electrium around them.

Thanks to their combined efforts, it didn’t take long at all for them to break down the entire substation. When they were finally ready to step back into their vehicles and head out, they had left the substation a burning, half-frozen, unrecognizable mess.

“That takes care of that,” Dez said.

Rory nodded. There was no more electricity anywhere. They’d been as thorough as possible, not letting a single cubic inch of Electrium remain anywhere in sight. It would have to be enough.

“Let’s go,” Rory said. “We’ve used up enough time here already.”

They rushed back to the palace. The farther they drove, the more Rory felt anxious. For all their efforts at the substation, the overall storm had only grown stronger over time, flashes of lightning and booms of thunder filling the sky with greater frequency. Soon enough, it even started raining hard too, gusty wind wailing past them on all sides.

Rory wasn’t the only one who was getting more worried too. The way the pickup and the van sped up meant their designated drivers—Jesse and Dez—were hurrying as much as possible. Most of the rest had their Sigils active, their images glowing with soft silver—and in some cases, blue—radiances.

“Is it me, or is something weird going on up in the sky?” Sid asked at some point.

Rory followed his gaze out of the little windows on the van’s rear doors. He frowned. Sid was right. There was something strange going on. All the lightning seemed to be directed into one spot in the sky, forming a large, spoked-wheel pattern.

And the centre of the wheel was over right where the palace was.

“Can you guys speed it up some more?” Rory asked. He hated how worried his voice sounded but they couldn’t waste a single second longer than they had to.

“I’m going as fast as I can without tipping the whole thing over,” Jesse said. “This rain is making it hard.”

Rory understood that. He also understood that the longer they took, the worse things were likely going to get. But just as he was about to ask them to throw caution to the wind and ram the accelerator anyway, thunder erupted into being all too close.

They were nearing the palace, only a few miles away, when the Thundershells burst out of the nearby streets.

Several people shouted. Some cried out in surprise, dismay, and terror. Rory stared, head swivelling everywhere as he took in the extent of their precarious situation. The monsters were jumping off roofs, bursting out of windows and doorways, scuttling out of empty streets and alleys, and basically trying to surround the vehicles.

Sue cursed loudly. “They’re larger than before. This is insane.”

That was when Rory noticed it too. These version of the Thundershells were bigger than the ones they had fought before. Previous ones had been anywhere between the size of cows to small cars. These were big enough to crush the entire van with one leg.

“They’ve been hiding and getting stronger,” Rory said. “Not good.”

Dark fire burst on their right-hand side. Dez’s Abyssal Inferno rose up in a giant, flaming tidal wave of burning darkness, slamming into all the buildings and monsters on their right.

“Don’t let them corral you,” He shouted from the other car at the top of his voice. “They’ll try to cut us off. Just keep driving and attacking.”

They got to work. Despite their greater size, the monsters still began their assault with a barrage of lightning bolts. Thankfully, they’d had some good practice dealing with Thundershell tactics.

Sue raised a large barrier. Her Sigil had grown tremendously as well. The barrier filled with Electrium was even taller than Dez’s wash of dark flames, completely shutting off the Thundershells on their left. With both sides mostly covered, they were free to charge down the street and make their way out of the monstrous ambush.

Of course, they hadn’t managed to block off everything. Rory shouted at the others as several Thundershells rounded the ends of Sue’s barricade and Dez’s flames, then charged into the street before anyone could do anything.

Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to bring in a bunch of rookies.

“I’ve got this,” Rory said, expelling the pointless thoughts. “Keep driving.”

As the Thundershells ahead of them attempted to blast them with their lightning, Rory got his staff out through the window and somehow managed to recreate the complicated motion needed to summon his blizzard once more. If driving had been difficult in the rain, it was about to get even more precarious in the freezing blizzard the froze everything.

Rory picked Sue’s summoned barricade, which many of the Thundershells were trying to destroy, as the target of preservation. In return, he picked the Thundershells themselves as the target of destruction. It worked. The monsters were stopped before they could shoot lightning.

Unfortunately, they had already gotten into position. At least Rory’s blizzard meant they were frozen, but it also meant the van and the pickup had to squeeze between the Thundershells. The creatures tried to attack them, and the space was tiny, so the vehicles still collided, scratched, and dented themselves against the monsters’ rocky bodies.

But they were safe. Rory had to hold onto the front seat to keep himself from falling over. He was glad he didn’t lose his grip on his staff. That would have been disastrous.

“How much farther?” Raj asked.

“Not far now,” Jesse said. “I think I can… yes, there it is. We’re almost there.”

She was right. The buildings gave way to more wooded areas as they neared the palace, soon passing by the gas station where Rory had met Miles and Truck.

But his eyes were only for the palace up ahead, and his heart hammered in his chest. Things looked dire there. Lightning was flashing down from the sky at regular intervals, striking everywhere to leave little fires. Several areas of the woods had gone up in flames too. Worst of all, Rory had been right. All the lightning in the sky were uniting over the palace, onto a single, strange point.

Rory frowned. Very strange indeed. When he peered closer as the van neared the front gates, he couldn’t help but gasp loudly. All the lightning in the sky was joining together, fusing to form a familiar figure.

The Thunderclaw Knight was being reborn.

“Hurry,” Rory said once more. “We need to get inside. Something’s terribly wrong over there.”

“What do you mean?” Sue asked, sounding as panicked as Rory felt.

He didn’t have the mental space to make her, or any of them worry less. Not after what he had just seen. “The Thunderclaw Knight is back. Up in the sky, that’s it. It’s attacking the palace.”

Sue looked like she wanted to say that was insane again, but her eyes travelled up to the sky. She gasped. Apparently, the shape of the Thunderclaw Knight was recognizable even a couple of hundred feet in the air.

Rory reached between the seats and tapped on the Sigil of Calling to see if anything went through. The Sigil’s image blinked with a white light, but no one picked up. Rory grimaced. He couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of monstrous situation they were all suffering within the palace grounds.

Just as Rory was about to give up, the Sigil connected.

“Hello,” Allen said. “Rory? Dez? Are you guys there?”

“Allen.” Rory said, breathing out a huge sigh of relief at hearing a voice that was simply alive. “We’ve almost reached the palace. How are you guys holding up there?”

“We’re overwhelmed! The monsters have use surrounded and they’re pushing us back. There are too many of them, and they’re bigger and stronger now too. You guys need to be careful when you come in. It’s a disaster out here.”

Rory swallowed. He wanted to ask if everyone was all right, but he didn’t want to risk knowing the extent of the damage that had been dealt to them by the attack. That would just demoralize everyone there. “Just hold on. We’re almost there.”

“We’re lucky we saw them coming thanks to keeping watch. They overran the traps like they were nothing. It was nuts.”

There was a sudden shout through the Sigil, then a burst of thunder. Then the line cut off.

“You think they’re okay?” Sid asked tentatively, voicing the concern on everyone’s lips.

“They have to be,” Rory said. “They’re our comrades. We need to have more faith in them than in a bunch of monsters.”

“We’re almost at the gate,” Jesse said as they entered the tree-lined driveway. “Things aren’t good here.”

The car stopped without warning, the hard jerk making Rory slam his head forward into the back of the seat.

“What’s happening?” he asked groggily.

He got laughter as a reply. Loud, inhuman laughter, from a kind of voice he’d heard before not long ago.

“Ah, you have arrived!” Molten Aglas just inside the driveway, his pointed tail whipping about and his fanned wings webbed with the design of cracks glowing like they had lava. “Just in time to enjoy the destruction of your home.”

Dez was trying to aim his fist at the Volcanic Imp, but Aglas simply floated higher, well out of Dez’s range. “You did this, didn’t you?”

“Oh, I was simply a catalyst. One of you started this. Never forget!”

With that, the Imp flapped his fiery wings and flew away, laughing all the while. He didn’t leave the area. Instead, he circled around the wooded area, probably looking for a different spot to watch the spectacle.

“Forget about him.” Rory said, wishing he believed his own words. The Imp’s parting message was trying to throw his thoughts into chaos. But now wasn’t the time for that. “Let’s go, we’ve got a palace to rescue.”

They charged through the driveway as fast as they could. The burning trees were throwing up smoke as a meagre counter to the sky raining down intermittent lightning, but the smoke got in through the van’s windows and made Rory choke a little. At least there were no Thundershells trying to ambush them out of the trees. The space was too small.

Farther ahead, Rory swallowed when he saw the gate had been blown right off its hinges. Jesse drove the van through the opening, the tires stumbling over the broken metal bits of the gate, before pulling the vehicle to a screeching halt.

They had finally reached the main palace courtyard with the garden and things were certainly looking rather awful.

The van had come to a halt at the very front of the courtyard, just a few yards away from where the gate used to stand. Even then, they were all too close to the army of massive Thundershells that had overtaken the area. Most were assaulting the entrance to the main hall, throwing lightning bolts at it and ramming it with their larger, heavier bodies. It was buckling under the assault.

That wasn’t all. While most were gathered at the front entrance, many had ranged out all over the sides. Several Thundershells had started climbing the walls like monstrous spiders, trying to attack through the windows on higher floors. One had nearly reached all the way to the top of the tower on the left.

Sue was right. This was insane.

“Everyone,” Dez shouted as the Thundershells at the rear of the army. “Out of the car. Now!”

He was the first to exit, fists already bursting with dark fire. As the others quickly followed his lead, he started flinging massive black fireballs at the Thundershells. The nearer monsters erupted in flames before they could fling their lightning.

But there were too many of them. Almost every single Thundershell that was unable to find a way inside the palace had turned to face Rory’s group, and they all launched themselves at the new people. Rory wasted no time summoning his Harmonic Blizzard, attacking the monsters and preserving the walls of the palace. He was drenched by the rain, and the freezing cold soon had him petrified in his spot. Not great.

Even that wasn’t enough, however. Sue had to erect her barricade to prevent several other monsters from swarming them, while the others stepped forward with their Sigils, wading through the press of Rory’s blizzard to attack the Thundershells.

Rory switched the focus of the preservation from the walls to the people around him. The fierce wind and snow made it hard to tell if it was working but since no one was dying or being electrocuted, he assumed it was fine.

For now.

There were still too many monsters, and every surprising lightning bolt that flashed down seemed to strengthen the Thundershells. Rory needed a different plan. A new tactic to protect the palace.

“Clear a path for me,” Rory shouted, reducing the intensity of his blizzard. That wasn’t a problem. Several of the Thundershells had frozen solid. “I need to get inside the palace.”

They started doing so. Dez and the others shifted their focus to attacking the Thundershells around the centre, forcing them to fall back. Rory assisted as well. He threw icy bolts at them, much as he had done at Wither Elm street against the Wraiths. They had help too. Now that the pressure against the front of the palace had lifted, Viv had led a sortie to attack the frontline of the Thundershells.

Rory smiled. They were going to make it. He was going to get through and Ward the Sigil of Energy into the—

Blistering thunder shook the world. Rory stared up, along with everyone else.

The Thunderclaw Knight had assumed its regular form again. It had its curved sword held high, a new Sigil glowing a bright mauve on its left shoulder. There was so much lightning cavorting across its body, he glowed almost like a star.

Another earth-shattering crack of thunder rolled off him. Then he attacked.