A muddled blur of white, pink, and grey screams down from the flock overhead, its gleaming beak making it more javelin than bird. The flock follows in ones and twos, unspooling like a chain following its anchor into the sea.

  “They’re diving!” Helena calls out from somewhere behind me. Her voice has a shrill edge to it, but she keeps her tone even.

  “I can see that, Helena!” I shout back, pushing Wind into my arms and pulling a hand back for a punch. Something catches the corner of my eye, though, and I risk a moment to look. Oh, great, those driftwood rats are back. We’d spotted them scurrying along, I’d kicked a few off some buildings, and that was that.

  But now there were a lot of them, climbing up to us on a cluster of flowering vines. “You get the rats!”

  “But I can—”

  “Get the rats, Helena!” I snarl, looking back at the birds. The Wind is churning now, swirling like a storm around a clenched fist. My other hand reaches forwards, acting like the sights on a crossbow.

  The screaming of the birds turns to an overwhelming roar of sound, drowning out everything else— but I hold. They’re almost level with us, now.

  Helena says something I can’t hear, and a bst of greenish Wind ripples out beside me. Rat-shaped lumps of driftwood go sailing through the air, shattering against other buildings or falling out of sight. The birds draw ever closer, close enough for me to make out the individual seashells that form their bodies.

  I jab forward, and the Wind follows eagerly.

  It moves out as an almost-invisible ripple of turbulence, scything through the flock and tearing at their bodies. Some sm together, scattering as shattered shells; others falter and are dragged away by the swirling Wind.

  The flock parts before me, almost hesitating—

  Like a wolf’s jaw, they snap shut around me instead, screaming and cawing.

  My free arm pulls back to guard my face, and I grunt as several somethings sm into it. Gods, those will make for some strange bruises. They tear by me like knives, nipping at my exposed skin and scales, shrieking loud enough that I’m worried my ears might bleed.

  The jaw opens, and the flock rises into the sky, curling and tangling. I let out a low snarl, venting irritation and scraping my tail along the white pster as hard as I can. My hit had done nothing at all— worse, actually, since I wasted magic for it.

  “Don’t make me wait,” I bite out, flexing my fingers. Violet light flickers between them as I pour in the Lightning, tugging at my reserves of magic. “If that one didn’t work, I’ll just hit harder."

  It'd be an even bigger drain, a bigger risk, but I can't see Helena managing this. Plus, I've seen worse.

  “Bless me, Restoration.” Helena mutters, and I spare a second to gnce at her again. A flick of her hand sends another clump of rats flying, a motion with her fingers disassembles some of the shoddier looking ones. Her brow is furrowed, her feet pnted firmly, and her eyes spare only a heartbeat to meet my own.

  “Running low, Helena?” I ask, sparing the birds a gnce. They’re unspooling in the sky again, untangling as another dive begins. I feed the Lightning on my hands again, inhaling the sharp scent of storms. “Don’t overdo it.”

  “I know. Um. Sorry, concentrating.” She replies shortly, tilting her head. The greenish glow swirls outwards from her hands, and suddenly the piles of disassembled rats unch forward, crashing into yet more driftwood rats. “Too many rats.”

  Maybe I’d put a little too much trust in her, with how many monsters she had to deal with. But here Helena is, holding her own, and I recognize the spell structure as the one she’d been studying this morning. I’ve seen apprentices to Archmages crumble under even this light pressure, so I suppose I’m actually impressed.

  “Keep it up, then,” I say dryly, rather than give her a big head.

  The shrill whistle of the birds drags my attention back where it belongs. The flock has fully unwound, now, diving down for another pass. Well, at least they aren’t clever enough to learn anything, I suppose.

  I twist my body to the side, pnting my feet and sticking one hand out to aim. Wind joins Lightning, and the air turns electric. I can feel tiny hairs standing up all over my body, and I reel my other hand back until it’s in line with my side.

  Wind hadn’t done it. Lightning on its own would just melt the seashells or burn out Helena’s eyes.

  Together, though? It’ll be fun.

  The birds come closer, flying more like a swarm of arrows than a flock of monsters. They’re more spread out, this time; if I let them get in range, they’ll already be on Helena and she can’t defend against cuts like I can.

  Three, two—

  One. My fist snaps forward, my body follows. Hip and shoulder twist to let the motion carry just a little bit further. A sound like a cannon shot follows the howling Wind, rushing through the monsters as flickers of violet Lightning draw searing branches in the air.

  For a heartbeat, silence.

  Then the Lightning connects, a violent web of knotted branches that sets the monsters aglow. Sound roars back in as the flock crumbles, cracking into gssy fragments.

  Seashells scatter through the sky, the ringing of my strike barely registering over my thumping heartbeat. My arm aches, just a bit, and I can feel the dent I’d just made in my own magic. I close my eyes, exhaling sharply.

  "Gods," I groan, shaking my now completely scaled hand to get rid of the tingling sensation, "I love that trick. Helena, are you alright?"

  I turn around and open my eyes, inspecting the driftwood carnage littering the wall we were standing on. Helena looks a little scuffed up, but her eyes are gleaming all the same. Wind curls around her gently, flirting with the pages of the tome clutched in her hands. She looks back at me and swallows, nodding.

  "That was, um, loud," she manages, and the Wind around her fades. "I don't know if my spell would've been any better, though. I was hoping to dispce the air below them, and..."

  "Yeah, you're just fine," I crack a grin, waving my not-tingling hand at her casually.

  Resting my hands on my hips, I tilt my head back and look at what's left to climb. The houses are getting closer together now, but we can still weave through alleys and use the sides of them as ptforms to fight— as we'd just done.

  "Restoration bless me," Helena sighs, rubbing her arms and sidling up next to me. "How many more of those, do you think? The rats are, ah..." She shudders. "Surely there's a limit?"

  I reach out to pat her shoulder, but hesitate and pull it back completely. "Not really, no, but I don't think we'll see many more. If this Delve was deeper and older—"

  "—well, um, I've read—"

  Lashing my tail against the ground, I raise my voice to speak over Helena. "If this Delve was deeper, there'd be more monsters and they'd form faster. But this is shallow and new, so we're probably alright until the next yer. Maybe a few more, but nothing I can’t handle."

  Helena snaps her jaw shut with a click. She nods, takes a breath, and continues, "Can't you deepen Delves using Delve Hearts? For a young and deep Delve—"

  I shake my head, scattering a sudden burst of frustration to the winds. "That one has a long answer, Helena, and I'd like to close this Delve with enough time to prepare for a formal dinner."

  "Ah." Helena pouts in the corner of my eye. Gods, that's a dangerous expression on her.

  I do my best to ignore it, and point at the cliffroad in front of us, tracing a path around the building above that avoids all the vines. They're a lot more dense up here— practically clogging the windows in their quest for sunlight.

  Well, skylight, on account of there being no Sun in here. Celestial objects don’t always seem to py well with fake skies.

  I draw a few paths with my outstretched hand, some coming up from our position and some coming down from the chapel. After ten or twenty of them, I bring my hand back in to stroke my chin. “The vines haven’t done anything yet, but.”

  “Yet,” Helena repeats, humming thoughtfully. “They do carry the rats, and I haven’t seen them bend under the weight. Maybe we could climb them, or, or... hm.”

  “I could probably climb them.” I concede, dismissing the idea in my head. Not a chance Helena actually has the strength for that. I’d have to carry her on my back, no doubt, and... no thanks.

  “But we don’t know if the vines would react, and I don’t want to find out. So let’s take a path around here,” I say, sticking my hand out again to draw the path. “Up around that big house, then curving around the houses with vines until we hit the top. We can just walk across the top of the cliff, probably, and get to the chapel.”

  “Unless the top of the cliff has a different direction of gravity, or something else equally impossible?” Helena guesses, spreading her hands out and muttering under her breath. “I’ll need to prepare my climbing spell again. Um, one moment.”

  “You catch on quickly,” I nod approvingly, striding over to the cliffroad and scanning for good hand-holds. The cws’ll make it easier, and I decide that I’ll circute a bit of magic through my hands to make sure they stay as cws.

  “Um, thank you?” Helena says distractedly, eyes fixed on the greenish glow slowly wrapping around her hands. “I’ve read a lot about this. I’ve prepared for everything!”

  I hold my tongue on that one. Overconfidence has been the death of countless Delvers, but it’s a lesson not easily learned by most.

  I’m able to pull myself over the top of the cliffside without further incident, fortunately. A few stray birds and some rats, sure, but hardly anything notable. No need to punch hard enough to make my arm sore... yet. Maybe I’ll get something fun on the next yer, but I really shouldn’t hope for danger.

  The top of the cliff is an endless expanse of weathered stone and scrappy vegetation, forming a strange mirror of the infinite sea stretching across the opposite horizon. And, just like that ocean, it’s completely empty of anything interesting. Beyond, of course, the weathered chapel in the distance.

  Meanwhile, Helena seems to be having a bit of a tough time.

  She’s a puddle, specifically.

  A puddle I have to pull over the ledge, both her hands clinging to one of my own hard enough to bruise someone with less scales. A boneless, if adorable, apprentice mage that flops onto the ground with a groan, her hair fanned out around her.

  “You alright?” I crouch down and reach for the fsk Helena had in her bag, tugging it out to offer back to her.

  She makes a sound that is best written as “mrgl”, snatching the fsk from my hand and hastily uncapping it.

  “Try not to drink it all. Drinking too much after working hard can—”

  “Cause retching and stomach pains.” Helena gasps out, capping the fsk and propping herself up. “I. Um, yes, I know. Just thirsty. How aren’t you thirsty?”

  I grin wide enough to show off all my sharp teeth, hooking a finger under my colr and tugging it down slightly to expose the scales under my colrbone. “I’m a Mageblood. Well, a Drake Mageblood, if you want to be specific. We just feed off the magic of the Delve, at least in the short term, and over enough Delves we change to resist the pressure. That’s in your books, right?”

  She stares for a moment before shaking her head and looking away. After a few heavy breaths, she pulls herself back up to standing. “It is. I was just, um, grousing. I’m guessing the entryway to the next yer will be in the chapel? There’s...”

  Helena gestures at our surroundings, her hand eventually pointing toward the chapel.

  “Is that a common thing, for the entry point to be repeated? I know it can happen, I’ve read it and talked to some Delvers hired by Lord Winston, but I don’t know how well that matches with reality.”

  “Good question.” I nod along. Once it looks like Helena’s ready to start walking, we head out, and I pick up the conversation there.

  “Repeating entry points mostly happen on shallow yers of Delves. Statistics aren’t my thing, but if I were to go through every report I’ve made to the Delvers’ Guild I’d guess...”

  One Delve every two weeks, let’s say, since I became a proper Mageblood. Looping entry points happen, what, five times a year? Six? Five over twenty six. Nineteen percent and some change left over.

  I tap my chin. “Just about one in five, maybe.”

  “Why?” Helena says, fortunately mostly to herself. I can hear her scribbling in a notebook, muttering things under her breath. “I’ll have to... do you have any books on Delving in your library?”

  Yes, and I know them all by name. I didn’t just fall into this line of work, I fell in love with it. The thrill of battle, of pnning out an exploration, of finding something impossible. The dream of becoming a Mageblood, on top of it all.

  “A few,” I say instead, looking away.

  Conversation dies down, repced with the soft sound of waves on the cliff below. I let it wash over me, count it out as Helena turns pages in her book and murmurs about magic. It’s a comfortable variation on what’s normal, in my work; Delving is often very quiet, but Helena’s presence is making it a different sort of quiet.

  Maybe I’ll see about joining a group of Delvers, once I leave Craumont? It could be fun.

  … professional Delvers, preferably.

  Once Helena’s recovered enough from her puddle form to get going, we head straight for, and into, the chapel. Through the inadvisable inward-swinging doors, smashed open like the ones outside the Delve, and weathering all sorts of curious questions and rambling throughout.

  Well, it’s mostly me weathering those. I like to think my answers are succinct, most of the time.

  The inside of this chapel is somehow even more of a mess than the real one, even if it’s more well-lit. Shattered gss and kindling litter the cw-gouged floor, with piles of scrap and brass shoved up against the corners. Just trying to walk would shred most people’s feet, and while my scales are tough, I’d rather not test them here. As a precaution, I pull my tail up, letting it wrap upwards around my hip and waist.

  Helena seems to have the same thought. A gentle pulse of Wind rolls across the floor— too gentle, barely nudging the wood and gss. Another stronger pulse shoves past, drawing a clear path from one end of the chapel to the other.

  “That mural,” she starts, stepping around me, eyes focused firmly on the mural in back. “Huh.”

  “Huh?” I repeat quietly, flicking my eyes across everything before I even try to follow. Wind flows in front of me, helping push away the debris as I pace around the perimeter.

  “Is this sort of change normal? Does this... mean anything? Um.”

  The entry point for the next yer has to be somewhere, obviously. If I concentrate, I can feel the tug on my soul, a slight change in Delve pressure that indicates it’s close by. In the chapel, almost certainly. But where?

  I check back through the door. Looks to be the same, so we’re not dealing with that kind of World-bending.

  “Ivy?”

  “Found the entry point?” I call back, crouched down to prod at a few loose stones in the floor. Could be a basement situation.

  “This mural, Ivy. Um, could you take a look?”

  Catching the confusion in her tone, I stand up and look in her direction. She’s staring at the mural with a scrunched-up expression, like she’s trying to untangle a knot or unstick two pages in a book. And, now that I’m actually looking at the contents of the mural, I can’t say I bme her.

  The Hero, bleeding freely, reaching down to offer the Emperor a hand. The Emperor’s talons are outstretched, possibly in response, and their weapons y beside them. Mortal enemies helping one another, in defiance of every legend.

  “Oh, yeah.” I shrug. “That happens in Delves. Art gets weird.”

  Helena turns to look at me. She opens her mouth, closes it, throws her arms up in exasperation. “That’s not weird, Ivy. It’s, it’s. Impossible! Heretical! Implying the Hero would work with the cruelest tyrant in history!”

  A ugh bubbles out of my throat in response, and I fsh her a toothy grin. “We just climbed up a sideways town while fighting wood rats and seagulls made of seashells. Nothing is normal in Delves, Helena, that’s half the fun.”

  I get a stiff giggle out of Helena for that one. “This is fun for you?”

  I think about it, then shrug. “Not looking for the entry point, no. But no two Delves are exactly the same, and that can be pretty fun.” I pace back across the floor, uncurling my tail but keeping it well above the ground. Gss everywhere, after all, and I don’t want my tail to sweep any shards back towards me.

  “Oh! Well, you can get to the fun things soon, Ivy!” Helena says with a bit of cheer, and I turn back around to look at her. She’s pointing to a window, now, fidgeting with her hair with her free hand. “Um, I think I found the entry point!”

  I look, I pause, and then I look again. There’s definitely no rolling hills outside the chapel, and I think I would’ve noticed a forest that close to the walls. But here they are, through the window. Through all the windows, actually.

  Oh, that makes sense, I guess. At least I don’t have to break any walls this time, just hop through a broken window.