Fire fell from the sky. The Missiles came as compressed orange spheres against the night, arcing from some unseen place on the campus below.

“Incoming!” Relia shouted.

The attacks struck the roof, expanding to ten times their size when they landed. Fire barreled into Relia’s shield like a freight train, and fragments of stone and bronze flew through the air.

Talek. This Fire Artist was far stronger than Nico. But of course he was. The closer they got to the end, the more dangerous the contestants would be.

Another attack closed in, and Akari cycled pure mana on instinct, forming a shield of her own.

“No.” Kalden grabbed her forearm. “We’ve got this. Focus on the portal.”

Right. They couldn’t escape this mess without her, and they definitely couldn’t play defense all night. Akari cycled spacetime mana and gathered the techniques in her open palms. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see much from this vantage. The stone parapet stood more than five feet tall, and the bronze dome was too steep to climb.

Think.

They couldn’t go south. The bulk of the enemy forces were that way. The Fire Artist’s attacks came from the east, and she couldn’t get a portal past her friends’ shields. That left the north.

“Cover me,” Akari said as she ran that way.

The others moved with her, following the trench between the dome and the wall. Kalden re-activated the camouflage unit when they stopped, and Akari hoisted herself onto the parapet.

The bombardment continued, but the attacks were almost random. Clearly, this person didn’t have the best view.

Kalden and Relia joined her on the parapet, forming new shields on either side. Akari shot her first spacetime Missile on the ground nearby, making the first half of the portal. Then she scanned the surrounding campus for the next spot.

Easier said than done. The Alchemy and Manatronics buildings sat directly north of the library, but those were crawling with Sun Army troops. That meant she’d have to go farther or risk an ambush.

She’d made one long-distance portal during midterms, but that was in broad daylight. Here, the surrounding city was almost pitch-black, and it didn’t help when this fire mana kept screwing with her vision.

Just then, a sound like thunder rumbled in the distance. It grew louder over the next few seconds until she heard the distinct buzzing of spinning rotors. The rhythmic beat traveled from her boots all the way to her chest.

“Machine gun!” Kalden hollered.

“What?” Akari spun to see a gray helicopter hovering over the library’s south side. No sooner had Kalden shouted the warning than the helicopter unleashed a storm of bullets. The bronze dome rang like a bell as they ricocheted off its surface. Her team would probably be dead right now if not for the camouflage unit.

“How’s that portal coming?” Relia yelled.

Damnit. You couldn’t rush these things. One wrong move and she could send them into a hundred-foot drop, or straight into a flat surface. What’s more, she still hadn’t mastered the skill of forming portals without proper anchor points. Sometimes, she got lucky. More often, they faded to mist part way through, wasting time and mana.

But they couldn’t stay here, either. So Akari stretched out a hand and hurled a spacetime Missile somewhere to the north. She relaxed her vision and watched the mana in her Silver Sight, gaging the distance and height. Then she flattened the Missile into a portal.

“Go!” Akari shouted as she leapt through the portal in the floor. Down became sideways as she passed through, followed by a swift drop into a dark street.

Akari Cloaked her muscles and rolled when she landed on the asphalt. She probably would have broken another leg if not for that.

Relia passed through the portal behind her, followed by Kalden. Kalden pressed a remote detonator as he fell, destroying the food crates they’d left behind. He’d already stashed what he could in his pack, so at least they wouldn’t starve.

The others got to their feet, and Akari glanced left and right, ready for someone to leap out from the darkness.

“We should find cover,” Kalden said. “Before—”

The helicopter rounded on them, shining its floodlights and unleashing another storm of bullets. An alarm echoed somewhere in the distance, but the sounds of battle drowned it out.

“This way.” Relia ducked into the nearest alley, and the others followed. They spent the next few minutes creeping through the shadows, putting more distance between their enemies.

Finally, they broke into an ice cream shop a few streets over. The front room had a red and white tiled floor, and tall glass windows wrapped along two walls. Kalden set up the camouflage unit behind the counter, and they all took a minute to catch their breaths.

Relia sank to the floor, looking nothing like her cheerful self. Akari couldn’t blame her. She’d been itching for some action, but she hadn’t planned to fight every contestant at once.

Kalden took a swig of water from his canteen and glanced around the dark shop. “Which way did you take us?”

“North,” Akari replied.

He froze with the canteen halfway to his lips. “How far north?”

“A little past Chapel Street …” She trailed off, listening to the distant alarm. It sounded just like the alarms that warned people of approaching mana storms. It also had a secondary use in these games …

“Shit.” Akari left the safety of the camouflage dome and glanced out the northern window. Sure enough, a wall of dream mana closed in farther down the street.

The arena was shrinking.

“Damnit,” Kalden said over her shoulder. “Elise did this on purpose. She waited until midnight to send her message.”

Akari clenched her fists as the wall slid closer. Judging by its speed, they had about thirty seconds until it reached them. Then they’d all be a lot thinner. “Any smart ideas?”

Kalden ran a hand through his hair. “The others will be watching the streets, so running is suicide.” He turned to face her. “How many more portals can you make?”

“Four,” she said at once. “Two trips.”

“Okay. Windstrider Hall is southeast of here. We’ll see it when we reach Chapel Street.”

“That means running for two blocks,” Relia said as she retrieved the camouflage unit. She still didn’t sound happy, but at least she’d pulled herself together long enough to join their planning.

“No way around that,” Kalden said as the alarm blared louder.

“What happens at Windstrider Hall?” Akari asked.

“We loop around to the south side.”

“Next to Moon Army?

“They’ll be focused on the north. We’ll be behind them.”

Akari gave a brisk nod. “Then let’s do it.”

They burst out the door, just a few yards ahead of the approaching mana wall. The wall only moved a few miles per hour, so anyone could outrun it with a light jog.

Akari’s chest vibrated as the helicopter hovered over from another street. Whoever flew this thing was clearly a skilled pilot—probably one with military training. It rounded on them as they ran, and Kalden and Relia worked together to make a layered shield.

Talek. Machine guns were a lot less fun from the receiving end.

Fortunately for them, the gunner wasn’t half as skilled as the pilot, and most of the bullets struck the surrounding buildings and street. Still, Akari itched to raise a defensive portal. Unlike pure mana shields, that could send the bullets back rather than deflecting them. But no … she’d need every drop of her spacetime mana for their escape.

Kalden changed directions when they reached Chapel Street, and Akari and Relia moved with him like a flock of birds. Windstrider Hall came into view a second later, a six-story structure looming on a high ridge. Kalden had chosen their target well; not only was it visible from the street, but each room had its own balcony.

Kalden and Relia dropped their shields by some unspoken agreement. At the same time, Akari fired her Missiles and formed two portals. She and the others ran through the first one and emerged on a fifth-floor balcony in Windstrider Hall.

“Nice work.” Kalden placed the camouflage unit on the wooden floor, but that was just a precaution at this point. Elise Moonfire might have riled up the other contestants, but they weren’t a coordinated army. Even if a smaller group spotted them, they had no way of communicating that to the larger force, much less that stupid helicopter.

Then again, Elise had found them on the library’s roof, even with the camouflage unit. Talek only knew how she’d pulled that off.

“See that rooftop?” Kalden pointed somewhere to the southwest. “Between those maple trees?”

“Sure,” Akari said. It was nothing but a black blob in the distance—maybe a hundred feet wide.

“See if you can take us there.”

“No promises.” Akari exhaled as she got into position. Her long-range aim actually sucked, contrary to her few successes in these games. Most Mana Artists had no reason to train long-distance techniques. You’d be better off with a rifle at that point. But Akari did her best, lining up the shot and releasing the Missile from her outstretched hand. The initial shot flew too high, missing the roof by a few dozen feet. Akari lowered her center of gravity, and the mana moved with her, arcing back down toward its target.

She formed the second portal on the door behind them, then they climbed down the roof into a dark neighborhood on the south side of campus. The sounds of battle had finally faded, replaced with howling wind and chirping crickets.

“This way,” Kalden said as he jogged down the street. “I know a good hiding spot.” He led them to a wide house with gray siding and white trim. Akari couldn’t tell if it was a two-story, or if the attic just had a few tiny windows.

Kalden stepped through the front door as if he owned the place, then he brought them through the living room and toward the basement. Akari’s mana raced when she spotted the broken lock on the door.

“It’s okay,” Kalden said. “I broke it on my first trip here. This is my alchemy teacher’s house.”

Ah, the place he’d looted for poisons and grenades. They could definitely use more of that stuff right now.

They continued down the wooden staircase and found tables covered with alchemy equipment. The tubes reflected their flashlights and cast shadows like ominous, black vines against the far wall. Kalden set up the camouflage unit in the center of the lab, and they collapsed on the chairs between workstations. Except for Relia, who plopped down on the floor and hugged her knees for the second time that night.

Kalden unzipped his backpack and passed Akari a pint-sized bottle of liquid mana. She took a long swig and began cycling it into the spacetime portion of her soul. Converting mana was a lengthy process, but at least they’d have more options if danger struck again.

The minutes dragged on as they waited for that exact thing to happen. No one spoke, and it felt like the smallest move could summon that angry helicopter, followed by a mob with torches and pitchforks.

When nothing came, Akari took a few good breaths, and it felt like uncoiling a clenched fist. A few more minutes passed, then Kalden busied himself with some alchemical tools. Meanwhile, Relia stayed uncharacteristically quiet on the ground. Akari couldn’t see much in the darkness, but she swore she heard the faint sound of sniffling.

Elise Moonfire’s speech must have really gotten to her. But why? Was it because of the footage from Creta? Or because her sister had been the one to reveal it?

Akari sat frozen in her chair for several seconds, wishing she could copy Kalden and make herself busy. In fact, that was probably why Kalden had gotten busy so quickly. He hadn’t known how to make Relia feel better, so he’d made a tactical retreat.

But Akari knew how Relia felt. After all, her own squad had betrayed her less than a day before. She also thought of the times Kalden held her close, and how she’d drawn strength from him.

A year ago, Akari would have scoffed at that idea. What sort of badass Mana Artist needed a hug? Now she understood. No matter how powerful you got, you could still go off the rails if you spent too much time trapped in your own head. Another person could ground you to reality—remind you that you weren’t alone.

So Akari slipped off her chair, settling on the stone floor beside her friend. She’d never been much of a hugger, but she forced herself to put her arms around the other girl’s shoulders. Relia leaned into her at once, sniffling louder than before.

They sat like that for several minutes, and Akari wondered how much force to apply in her squeezing. At least with Kalden, she had some primal urges guiding her movements, not so different from combat. Comforting someone was actually far more complicated.

Finally, Relia found her voice. “Can’t believe she did that …”

Akari could definitely believe it, but she kept that to herself. Honestly, she was more pissed off about the hypocrisy. Elise Moonfire won duels by showing people their worst memories. That was all sugar and rainbows, but Relia’s whole aspect was evil? All because the news said so? Were people seriously that stupid?

“What was the point?” Relia continued. “I only ever tried to be her friend.”

“Probably my fault,” Akari said. “Pissed off a bunch of people in Creta. Same thing when I got into the Artegium early.”

“I doubt it’s your fault,” Relia said. “People hated me long before you showed up.”

~~~

While the girls talked about their feelings, Kalden started brainstorming new plans. Growing up, his own family had been more emotionally reserved, so he’d never gotten comfortable with these sorts of displays. Understanding Akari was one thing—she erupted like a volcano and then subsided. But Relia could go on like this for hours, and it almost felt like they spoke different languages.

Kalden left the camouflage radius, pulling a set of vials from an aluminum drawer. There, he noticed the drawer of numbat dust sat part way open, and several more vials were missing. Had someone else been through here?

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised. Kalden had several other first-year Combat students in his alchemy class, including Arturo Kazalla. Any of them could have found this secret lab.

Kalden returned to the dome just as quickly, keeping his footsteps quiet on the concrete floor.

If Elise Moonfire had found them once, she could do it again. In hindsight, she’d probably tracked them through the HAC’s security cameras, but those weren’t her only options. Her army also controlled the Manatronics and Sigilcraft Buildings. Kalden was no expert in either technology, but he understood basic game mechanics. The designers wouldn’t have passed out these advanced camouflage units without ways to counter them.

Akari and Relia climbed to their feet a few minutes later. Relia rubbed at her eyes, but he wasn’t worried about her holding her own in combat. Only Zukan Kortez was her equal, and Elise’s projection had shown the dragon getting eliminated.

“I have an idea,” Kalden said. He lined up a row of vials on the table, and their teal liquid glowed in the light of his flashlight.. Akari leaned forward with interest while Relia’s frown deepened.

“This is sarenseed oil,” he said. “One or two drops is enough to make a person sick. Five drops is enough to kill them.”

“Your teacher keeps that in his basement?” Akari asked.

Kalden shook his head with a light chuckle. “This lab doesn’t match the one in real life. They probably added these vials for the game.”

“Okay. But what do we do with it? Bake Elise a cake?”

“There’s a water tower on this side of campus,” Kalden said. "If we—“

“You can’t poison a water tower,” Relia cut in. “The rules specifically say we can’t use food or water as weapons.”

“The water won’t be the weapon,” Kalden said. “That’s the oil.” He flicked one of the vials. “And this is dream mana, so it won’t hurt anyone for real. It’s no different from me poisoning those potions yesterday.”

Relia stared at him, her eyes hard in the faint light. “You seriously wanna poison your entire class?”

“It will work,” Kalden said. “We might not kill everyone, but we don’t have to. This will thin the enemy ranks and give us the points we need to pass.”

“I dunno much about alchemy,” Akari said, “but those towers hold like a million gallons of water.” She gestured back at the vials. “Won’t this stuff get diluted?”

“I thought about that,” Kalden said, “but if we—”

“That’s not the point!” Relia interrupted again. “You’re talking about a war crime here.”

“Some people call your aspect a war crime,” Kalden said. “Does that make it wrong to use it in a game? Or even self-defense?”

“This might be a game,” she said, “but we’re playing it with real people.”

Kalden let out a slow breath. After everything they’d been through, she was still too much of an idealist. In all honesty, he often wondered whether she was cut out for their long-term plans.

“If you don’t want to help,” he said, “then you don’t have to. We only need Akari’s portals to pull this off.”

“Typical,” Relia muttered. “Everyone’s either with you, or against you, right?” Then she rounded on Akari. “You’re okay with this?”

Akari shrugged. “I mean, I’d rather get points in combat, but Elise screwed us over. She made us look like the bad guys.”

“Exactly,” Kalden said. “They’ve already made up their minds about us. We can’t change that now.”

Relia crossed her arms. “Elise didn’t make you look like the bad guys. You did that all by yourselves.”

“Bullshit,” Akari blurted out. “My team turned on me first!”

“And you acted like a good teammate before that? I watched the midterm replay, you know. How many times did you threaten to go off and do your own thing?”

Akari winced at that.

“Nico looked ready to trust you and be allies,” she continued. "And why wouldn’t he? He knew he was better off with you than against you.”

“Hindsight’s clear as glass,” Kalden said. “But battle happens quickly. Akari made a hard choice, but it kept her alive.”

“And you.” Relia spun to face him. “You’re supposed to be Mr. Strategy with your fancy new aspect. But you just use it to beat people.”

“Beating people is the whole point of this game.”

“Wrong,” she said. “This game prepares us for the interschool battlegrounds, and every challenge after that.”

Kalden furrowed his brow. “You’re losing me here.”

“It’s not just about beating people,” she said. “It’s about finding your long-term allies and learning who you can trust. Maybe Raizen didn’t teach you that, but it literally says so on page one of the Artegium student handbook.”

Kalden sank back in his chair, feeling the weight of the day’s battles in his bones. “Tori Raizen forced me to choose between Blood Army and you.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “I chose you, and you’re lecturing me for it?”

“And what if you used that brain of yours for something besides killing? What if you were honest with Tori and Lyra from the beginning? What if you’d actually tried to be their friend instead of plotting to betray them?”

Kalden drew a breath to respond, then closed his mouth. She might actually be right about Tori and Lyra. Kalden had kept so many people at arm's length this semester. And while he’d finally gotten closer to Akari after midterms, he’d still neglected the rest of their class. He’d seen them all as enemies, just as Relia said. Him and his friends against the world.

“We need a team of six for the interschool battlegrounds,” Relia continued. “Six! Ever notice how there’s only three of us here? How do you expect to fix that if you alienate everyone?”

Akari furrowed her brow. “You’re bringing up this up now?”

“I tried telling you before! You guys practically rolled your eyes at me. ‘Oh, silly Relia. She’s too soft and kind-hearted for this cruel world.’” She gave Kalden a look, daring him to disagree.

Yes … Relia had brought these issues up earlier, but they’d been too busy—too focused on the current challenges to worry about the future. Elend probably would have told them the same thing if he could. But as an arena designer with inside knowledge, he wasn’t allowed to give them any advice.

A brief silence filled the space between them, and Akari reached into her pocket and pulled out a single coin. She flipped the coin, caught it, and pressed it to the back of her left hand.

Kalden leaned forward to examine the coin’s face. It looked like an ordinary esper coin, with an embossed image of Espiria in the center, surrounded by a ring of twenty-five stars.

Akari frowned at the coin for several heartbeats, as if she expected to find the answers on its metal surface.

“This plan feels wrong,” she finally said.

Kalden still wasn’t convinced. This was still just a game, after all. Yes, Relia had made a few good points; he could have worked on building a better connection with Blood Army and its leaders. But it was too late for that now. They’d already betrayed each other, and you couldn’t undo that. They could only move forward.

“If we’re eliminated now,” Kalden began, “we’ll never get another chance to compete together.” But even as the words left his mouth, Kalden heard them for what they were—a classic case of the ends justifying the means.

He half expected Relia to call him out on it. Instead, her face softened and she rested her elbows on the workstation. “Sometimes, when I’m struggling to do what’s right, I sit down and ask myself one question. What sort of Mana Artist do I want to be?”

A leader, Kalden thought at once. That was why he’d worked so hard for his new aspect—to accomplish things he couldn’t with ordinary Blade Mana. But Relia was right. Making peace was an important part of warfare. If you couldn’t make peace, then …

Well, you ended up in the exact spot where he was now. Backed into a corner, with no choice but to dig in your heels and fight even harder than before.

Good leaders had integrity and empathy. They inspired loyalty and brought people together rather than pushing them apart. But Kalden had done none of that this semester. In all honesty, he hadn’t even considered it until this moment.

“You’re right.” Kalden let out a long breath and met each of their eyes. “So what are—”

“Wait.” Relia held up a hand, then her gaze darted up toward the ceiling. “That was the front door.”

He strained his ears to listen. Sure enough, footsteps echoed from beyond the basement’s thick ceiling.

“Sounds like two people,” Akari whispered. “We can take them.”

Kalden nodded. Under the circumstances, they couldn’t ask for better odds.

“Alright,” he said as he began cycling his mana. “Then let’s—”

A pulse rippled through the air, and the force of it struck Kalden like a truck. But rather than striking him head-on, this attack hit him from the inside out. The mana vanished from his channels, leaving his body hollow and empty. It felt like a rush of blood to the head, or a sudden drop from a dream. The world swam as his senses failed him, and his knees buckled as he fell to the concrete floor.

Akari and Relia each fell to their knees as well. Even their camouflage unit flickered out.

“What the hell was that?” Akari asked through gritted teeth.

“AMP …” Relia had to force out the syllables as she spoke.

She was right. Kalden had never felt an anti-mana pulse before, but this fit all the descriptions he’d read. Sure enough, the mana returned to his channels as if it had never left. AMPs didn’t destroy mana, they only neutralized it for a short time.

Kalden’s senses returned in a rush. Nausea in his stomach, ringing in his ears, and a stiffening of his muscles. A door opened at the top of the staircase, followed by a burst of blinding light. Something metallic struck the concrete floor, and a second object tumbled down the staircase. Time slowed as Kalden’s mind raced to comprehend this second attack.

“Grenades!” Kalden forced himself to his feet, scrambling for cover behind a distant workstation.

Relia followed him, but Akari stayed put, forming a portal straight on the ground where the grenades had landed. Then she stretched out her arm and formed a second portal. Kalden couldn’t see much from this vantage, but it must have been somewhere upstairs.

The grenades exploded with a series of deafening roars. The house’s foundation shook, and part of the staircase collapsed like matchsticks.

“Go!” Kalden shouted to Relia as he charged across the basement. Whoever their attackers were, they preferred long-range weapons over Mana Arts techniques. Better to seize this advantage.

But when Kalden reached the bottom of the staircase, he saw a half-dragon silhouetted against the light. Almost seven feet tall, the figure filled the doorway. One hand held a golden shield, while the other held a flaming spear.

Zukan Kortez.