Holding Yern to her chest with one arm, Wirrin picked up the desiccated War mage with the other. Like the War mages they had fought in the desert, this one war armed with a rapier and a knife that was really more like a dagger. Wirrin took the knife.

  She couldn’t understand the words through the pounding in her head, but Wirrin could feel people talking outside. A gaggle of mages. Four of them talking to a pair standing either side of the blocked doorway into the cell.

  ‘We’re not done yet,’ Wirrin muttered, putting Yern down. ‘Please be as careful as you can.’

  Yern took a very deep breath, and nodded.

  Outside the door, the floor erupted into a forest of spikes. What must have been a War mage rode the spikes up to the ceiling, where they failed to be impaled. The bloody pillar blocking the door exploded into the cage of spikes. The War mage couldn’t move fast enough.

  The two Work mages outside the door were staring, wide eyed and unharmed.

  ‘You can just tunnel out,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘You don’t need to stay.’

  ‘Where’s my stuff?’ Wirrin asked the Work mage who had stuck his head into the cell yesterday afternoon.

  ‘You don’t need it, Wirrin,’ Mkaer thundered like an avalanche. ‘It is a mistake to stay.’

  The Work mage looked at Wirrin blearily. Wirrin grabbed him by the collar. ‘Where’s my stuff?’

  The Work mage stared vaguely. Nearby, that pool of silence that marked one of Vonaer’s mages winked out, revealing three mages. It was hard to be sure, but Wirrin thought only one of them was Vonaer’s. It felt like they were arguing.

  ‘Thank you, Vonaer.’ Wirrin let go of the mage and dragged Yern down the corridor at a near run.

  Wirrin skidded around the second right turn just as a War mage passed behind her at great speed. The corridor closed around him like the jaws of a great beast. There were, indeed, three mages standing outside a doorway, their argument interrupted by the rumbling and crashing of Wirrin’s power.

  One of them ducked behind the Work mage. The other started running at Wirrin. She ran very fast for an ordinary person, nowhere near the speed of a War mage.

  Thorny vines burst out of the thick stones of the floor and dried to brittle brown almost as soon as they arrived. Behind the Work mage, who was frowning severely, the wall grew more spikes into the Growth mage.

  A large chunk of the wall crushed the Flesh mage into the far wall at great speed.

  ‘So there’s a limit to how much they can reinforce themselves,’ Ulvaer cackled. ‘That’s useful information.’

  Wirrin dragged Yern around the chunk of wall and past the still-frowning Work mage.

  Here was another nostalgic room. Wirrin had been in rooms like this several times through her life. Rows of shelves with discrete piles of apparently arbitrary objects, clothes, equipment and the odd weapon.

  The shelves were largely bare, other than Wirrin’s stuff. Nothing piqued her interest enough to pause any longer before she grabbed her pack, knife, and swords off the shelf.

  A high, wavering voice sounded from the doorway. ‘We have one last question,’ the Work mage said, struggling valiantly to relax despite the blood on his back.

  ‘You have until we’re ready to go,’ Wirrin said, strapping on her sword belt.

  ‘How did you become a mage of multiple Outsiders?’ the Work mage asked. ‘There must be something to the question.’

  Before Wirrin could answer, more mages must have reached the sense range of the Work mage. Parts of the floor and wall made a feeble and unconvincing effort to attack Wirrin. She pushed them back into place.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ she said.

  Yern tensed.

  The Work mage tensed. He was launched out of the doorway by a slab of stone. He hit the far wall of the corridor with some force, where the stone bent and squished under him like a feather mattress.

  The slab sank back into the floor. The outer wall of the storeroom burst into another maze of spikes. Wirrin’s head pounded. Haloes lit up behind her eyes.

  ‘Just leave,’ Mkaer rumbled.

  Wirrin ignored it. She stepped out of the room, dagger still in hand. A War mage did their best to jump and slide and somersault through the maze of spikes. More spikes stopped them dead.

  A Flesh mage moved like water, very nearly keeping up a full-speed sprint the whole way through as his body deformed and shifted around the spikes, flowing away from new ones.

  When a chunk of the floor tried to press him into the ceiling, he slithered like a snake, flowed like water out of the way before he could meet the ceiling.

  ‘Wirrin, you need to get out of here,’ Naertral burbled.

  Behind Wirrin, the corridor closed like a drop hammer on another group of mages. She could feel the Flesh mage with them pulse and slide out of the way, thankfully going back the way they’d come.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  As Wirrin’s vision went black around the edges, more and more spikes burst out of the walls in front of her. Some, the Flesh mage slid out of the way of, flesh opening and flowing around the points. Some hit him and simply made it no further.

  He got more confident, quicker. More spikes, stone shards, entire bricks out of the heavy building, simply failed to piece his flesh or do him any harm. Wirrin wanted to do an experiment.

  ‘Wirrin, you should leave,’ Ulvaer rattled.

  ‘It has been some five hundred and forty years since Flesh fought one of your mages, Ulvaer,’ Wirrin managed to think though the near-blinding haloes.

  The Flesh mage made it through the maze of spikes. He lunged at Wirrin. Wirrin lunged at him. His chest opened right over his heart and accepted the dagger without contact.

  It had been some five hundred and forty years since a Flesh mage had fought one of Ulvaer’s mages. Despite the solidity of his flesh, despite his impermeability. Wirrin’s teeth cut through the side of his neck and came away with a chunk of flesh in her teeth.

  Three things happened in rapid succession. First, the bite that had taken most of the mage’s neck from his body started to fill in with bright red strands of new flesh. Second, Wirrin’s lips grew into a solid shield over her mouth. Third, the Flesh mage dried solid, let go of Wirrin, and collapsed to the ground.

  Her lips stayed fused shut. She chewed and swallowed.

  ‘Gross,’ Yern said.

  The haloes receded.

  Wirrin grabbed Yern in a big hug, took a deep breath through her nose, and crashed down through the floor and foundations of the Church. As she sank, she reached above to pull at the walls and ceiling.

  With the amount of Work mages in the Church, she doubted she could destroy the building, but there was no harm in trying. Except for her pounding headache and the blackness on the edges of her vision.

  She sank only as far as she needed to to reach the looser soil below the Church’s massive foundations. It felt less populated to her left, so she burrowed her way in that direction, haloes reigniting behind her eyes.

  Wirrin and Yern burst from the floor of a furnished house. All Wirrin knew for sure about the building before bursting out of the floor was that it was empty and so were all of its neighbours. As she collapsed onto her back on the floor, she got a glimpse of a nicely furnished living room in a wooden house with a stone block foundation.

  Yern rolled off Wirrin, panting. ‘Ekog… vog… kot…’

  Wirrin couldn’t put together enough words to say anything. Except that her lips were sealed shut anyway, so it didn’t matter.

  Yern sat up, staring down at Wirrin. ‘Wirrin, you…’ She stopped, took several deep breaths and did her best to push the wide-eyed shock off her face. ‘You have a first aid kit of some sort in your pack?’

  Wirrin nodded. She tried to roll over, but only just managed to lift her left shoulder slightly off the ground.

  Yern took several more deep breaths. ‘Deep breaths through your nose. I’m going to roll you over.’ Her arms shook, but she wedged her hands under Wirrin and managed to roll her onto her side.

  Wirrin could feel the tugging on the straps of her pack, could feel Yern digging around.

  ‘Vek ekt vesh,’ Yern muttered, dragging a few things out of Wirrin’s pack. ‘Ovt ovt.’

  As gently as she could, arms still shaking, Yern rolled Wirrin back. The blackness at the edges of Wirrin’s vision was receding slowly, the haloes were just about blinding.

  ‘Gol…’ Yern stopped and huffed. She held up the razor from Wirrin’s first-aid kit. ‘Ekt gol?’

  Wirrin nodded blearily.

  Yern leaned in very close, taking deep breaths as her arms and hands shook. With two fingers, she spread Wirrin’s lips to look at the problem. Wirrin could feel the connection pulling at her lips. It seemed like they were fused together by a tiny line of skin. It felt oddly similar to having dry lips.

  ‘Gol ekt,’ Yern said. She took another very deep breath and held it. Her hands stopped shaking as the razor disappeared from Wirrin’s vision.

  Wirrin barely felt anything. It was very like having your dry lips stick together, and pulling them apart without drinking anything. A touch uncomfortable, but in no way painful. Barely a drop of warm blood dripped into Wirrin’s mouth.

  ‘Vos yav,’ Yern muttered.

  Wirrin hadn’t realised she’d moved. It was hard to focus on anything, but she did her best not to move.

  Yern leaned back, barely a spot of blood on the razor, and sighed out a massive breath. Her hands trembled, she was breathing fast. Moving as purposefully as she could, she put the razor down and picked up one of Wirrin’s waterskins.

  ‘Drink, move your lips as little as possible.’

  Wirrin felt like her arms were made of water as she took the waterskin and gently tipped it into her mouth. Her lips stung a little, but it was still only as bad as slightly dry lips.

  Yern took the waterskin back and handed Wirrin a scrap of bandage. ‘Press that between your lips for a minute. I’ve seen worse cuts from shaving.’

  Before she did as instructed, Wirrin asked. ‘Are you alright, Yern? I’m sure that was a lot. I’m sorry to…’

  Yern interrupted her. ‘Bandage.’

  Wirrin followed instructions.

  ‘I…’ Yern sighed and picked up a wrapped piece of dried gazelle. She chewed it idly as she spoke. ‘I knew something like that would happen, didn’t I?’ She sighed again. ‘I shot one of the arrows that killed those mages. I don’t think I hit, but… I saw what you did to the War mages. What you did to those mages by the river. I…’ She took a deep breath. ‘That was much closer than I would have liked.’

  Wirrin nodded.

  ‘Much closer than it needed to be,’ Mkaer grumbled.

  ‘I needed by first aid kit,’ Wirrin thought.

  ‘It’s a…’ Yern sighed and took another bite of the gazelle. ‘On one hand, if you hadn’t gone for your stuff, you wouldn’t have the first aid kit. On the other, if you hadn’t gone for your stuff, you wouldn’t have needed it.’

  Wirrin frowned. ‘Yern, can you read my mind?’ she thought.

  Yern sighed and shook her head. ‘You should carry more sweets around. I want something sweet, not just dried meat.’

  ‘She’s still alive,’ Ulvaer cackled. ‘It’s hardly that bad.’

  ‘We’re both still alive,’ Wirrin said. ‘And since I got my stuff, I have my money. So we can go and buy you some sweets.’

  ‘If you could get up,’ Yern said. ‘Did… why did you bite that mage?’

  ‘Why did I eat that mage?’ Wirrin asked, gently peeling the bandage off her lips. ‘I wanted to see if it would do something.’

  ‘Did it?’

  Wirrin groaned and her head swam as she sat up. ‘It did,’ she said. She picked up the other pieces of dried meat Yern had already pulled from her pack. ‘It… refreshed me slightly, I suppose. Alleviated some of the pains that doing so much magic causes.’

  Yern nodded. ‘You should buy yourself some food, too, then.’

  Wirrin unwrapped three pieces of dried gazelle and shoved them into her mouth. She chewed as briefly as she could manage and swallowed a whole clump of dry meat. She followed it up with a big swig from the water skin.

  Yern nodded again. ‘You have sharp teeth sometimes.’

  ‘I’m not the only one,’ Wirrin said.

  Yern kept on nodding. ‘Did that help at all?’

  Wirrin was feeling a touch better, slightly less like her limbs were made of water. ‘A little. Not as much.’

  Yern kept on nodding. ‘Time for some experiments.’

  ‘Ekog… vog… kot…’ means 'what... was that... why...'

  ‘Vek ekt vesh, ovt ovt’ means 'it will do, good good'