Temporary accommodation in the Great Library amounted to little more than a set of four privacy screens. With no structural concerns or need to defend from the elements, the relatively flimsy wood of bookshelves was more shelter than those with nowhere else to go could ask for.

  With Tony’s magic, security would never be an issue either. They had all simply pulled the short end of the stick, and even if a string of chance got them into their mess, another miracle wouldn’t get them out of it.

  Tony had cleared the surrounding area of civilian residences. He’d offered to wipe it clean and deny the suspects any cover, but Alis refused on the grounds that he’d have none either. Tony hadn’t the focus to keep up with combat—transforming the environment second-by-second to Alis’s advantage—without the rest of the Library collapsing. Alis and Crestana would have to make do with what cards were already on the table.

  He positioned himself outside the small box of a room, four bookshelf walls rising high into the ceiling. Separated by several degrees of cover, Tony had assured him the only way out for the prisoners was by force, and that would come with a substantial sound cue.

  His knuckle dusters had warmed up, slick with the sweat his adrenaline produced as his body simmered on low heat. One hand fell limp by his side while the other tapped against a gift from the librarians strapped to his waistline.

  A box, hand-carved from oak wood, with five detached pillars resting in circular slots. He tapped one of his five fingers against each one, memorising the distinct grooves along their heads and committing them to memory while he still had the time to do so.

  Vertical. Horizontal. Diagonal. Criss Cross. Circular. Over and over, until something finally interrupted the monotony.

  Alis opened his eyes, fingers still working the five patterns as he peered over his shoulder.

  Another thud came from the makeshift prison; a cloud of dust erupted from the shelves, along with books dislodged from their places.

  With the next thud, the wood gave way, audibly splintering under the pressure like a half-felled tree cracking under its own weight.

  One strike of the axe, two, a third for good measure, and the apparatus finally collapsed under the pressure. Alis stopped tapping, wrapping his fingers around his weapons as his eyes searched for something behind the cloud of sawdust and splinters.

  Tony compensated for the lost layer, reinforcing the hole with another set of bookshelves.

  But in the next moment, Alis realised the strikes of the axe were nothing more than a mercy as thunder instead tore his ears to shreds.

  Cannon rounds. An outsized bayonet pushed whatever was left of the shredded bookshelves.

  Its entirety shimmered golden, from the buttstock that had embodied the proverbial axe, to the gears and wires in its arms and the rivets holding together its plates.

  Where the Wishbearer’s gold carried warmth, the Higher Order Armour before him didn’t; as though made of gold bullion ground to dust as fine as desert sand. The apparition marched forward, its rifle barrel already raised in Alis’s direction.

  Intent to kill; those were his own words. There was no room for a slow escalation: Plan A already included the kitchen sink and Plan B didn’t exist.

  He pushed the first pillar in the line into the box, and the crystals along his brass knuckles glowed a vivid purple. A gift from Iris.

  Alis raised his arms, conjuring a barricade underneath the rifle that knocked the H.O.A.’s aim towards the roof. Another crack of thunder followed by more in quick succession: a rain of torn books and splinters showered the battlefield as Alis brought his hands together into a hammer fist. The motion took the matter from the barricade, reformed it above the H.O.A.’s cabin, and brought it down with unrelenting force.

  He drilled the golden machine into the ground, making a pancake out of it against the wooden floorboards.

  The dust settled: the few seconds combat lasted went as well as they could have until Alis’s eye blurred over, and the H.O.A. was standing upright again.

  Without a second’s hesitation, Alis fled. Another round of thunder echoed around the forest of bookshelves, but even they were drowned out by his confusion.

  It was a lapse in consciousness; that’s what it most felt like. A missing memory or a discrepancy in a dream. The mode and method didn’t matter. What was important was that it was a time waster: the few seconds he’d spent dealing with it had let his enemies escape.

  The bookshelves before him began shifting as he ran, blocking off pathways and shaping his trajectory towards the sound of more bookshelves being blown to smithereens. Rather than playing the library’s games, they were taking the route of force.

  Not long, and the paper eruptions were upon him. He turned a corner, depressing the fourth pillar in the box and aiming his fists towards the next turn.

  Nausea magic. That’s how Al described it.

  Alis blew past the bookshelves and into the corner. All he could make out through the blur was a pair of brown coattails, but that was a good as target as any.

  He let loose, the intangible shot firing with a flash of his knuckles’ crystals. The target collapsed, sliding across the floor, disappearing behind another wall books.

  Alis turned the corner, refusing to slow down in hopes of finishing them off, but a hail of gunfire convinced him to back off.

  They blind fired through the shelf; golden bullets whizzed over his head as he ducked for cover and continued running, depressing the first pillar and confirming his crystals turned purple once again.

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  Iris’s magic still had some charge left.

  He relinquished his cover, facing off with the gunfire as he created his own out of purple matter. The hail turned its attention to his shield, and he felt the pressure against it mounting. Dent after dent, repair after repair, and still the assailant’s wingman didn’t reveal themselves.

  Alis still retained enough situational awareness to beware the second possible variable: if they were waiting for the opportune moment to strike, it would be at a time where he could not do so.

  In a compromising situation, one where he was fully committed to one action and one action only. The hypothesis was worth testing.

  Alis sent a limb out from behind his shield, grabbing the progenitor of the bullets and flinging high into the air, hoping displacing it would be more effective than trying to destroy it.

  Either way, it gave him precious seconds and space to pursue. His opponent's goal was still to flee; all they needed to do was bog him down with obstacles. That put him under pressure.

  What he needed was a direct conflict.

  He lifted his heels, gathering purple matter underneath his feet as the bookshelves aligned themselves into another path: the liberal use of Iris’s magic would mean he’d have little left for the confrontation.

  But he needed speed, and speed he got.

  The library truly became a blur; all that remained visible was the vague area in the centre of his vision that remained clear of any shelves. Turn after turn, he felt the magic weakening, but with it the sound of bookshelves being blown apart once again strengthened.

  The last stretch. Familiar territory. The last of Iris’s magic faded, and Alis instead upped the ante, releasing it all in one go and gaining a final surge of momentum.

  Several feet off the air, the bookshelves parted, and he came face-to-face with his prey.

  Buzz cut. Scars along his cheek. Brown eyes. Male, late twenties. He committed the rough details to memory as he depressed the third pillar in the sequence.

  His opponent was ready for him with an orchestra of golden firearms. Alis swiped a hand across them all.

  Air pressure. That was all Al could say.

  An instantaneous wind robbed sound of air to travel through as it coalesced into a wall before him. The bullets, losing all their momentum, fell to the ground.

  The hail continued, but the wall could only hold for so long. Alis had to play his buff, wait for the enemy to lose hope in their own maelstrom.

  The moment came; the only moment Alis would get.

  Fifth pillar. Crushing magic.

  He levied his fist, knowing he only had one last card up his sleeve. Crestana’s shadow magic, and that would only do good to flee.

  Last chance. He was betting it all.

  And the enemy’s wingman seemed to agree.

  “Checkmate!”

  Everything after his command happened simultaneously. His magic connected with the enemy’s arm, partially crushing it into a stringy mess. The glow of the Aether crystals he had sensed behind him fizzled away as Crestana choked the air of its fuel, but not before it could let off one half-decent blow.

  His vision went black, the last image in his mind was of the bookshelves racing towards him.

  The lock on the last door was cracked. Having already suffered two strikes, one by the command of the Queen, another by her own, the hallway’s last stand stood vulnerable. Still, the bloody rendition of her mother kept it upright and on its hinges.

  Although it had never looked so weak, and Iris had never felt so confident in the face of it.

  She glanced over her shoulder; despite all the open doors, her progress was still somewhat unbelievable. Her feet began moving on a whim, retracing her steps down the hall until she stood at the far end, her starting point.

  The hallway had always looked like a farce, a tacky fakeness to it that hid something sinister between the seams.

  Now it was a hallway: the ever-present malice forever lurked at the edge of her vision, but only at the edges. Understanding defeated fear, and, whether intentional or not, whether by her own mental fortitude or her other half’s pity, the former had gradually outweighed the latter.

  She stepped forward, walking through the years, fingers brushing up against the doors she could pluck off their hinges with her bare hands. The carpet was as bristly as ever, but never did their hooks feel like they would dig past the soles of her shoes.

  She returned to the present, to where understanding had gotten her, and sat down before the suffering image of her mother.

  Still shaking, still drawing fresh blood with every second.

  “Do you know where dad went?” she asked. “He was here too once.”

  The apparition didn’t answer, nor did it show it was listening. That was fine with Iris; she was talking to herself either way.

  “Was it because I stopped being scared of him? Maybe. I think that’s the reason. Because it’s different with mum. I love her, but she’s…so much. I can’t be that, but she keeps telling me I need to be.”

  Iris smiled at herself, her eyes slowly crawling across the figure before her. “You find her scary too, don’t you? I don’t know why…but it’s obvious. The more I live, the more…the more I realise she’s right. About everything. About people, about Spirits…and the more I wish she wasn’t.”

  If she could jump to Crestana’s aid, teach her everything she knew, because what she wanted to fight for was right and only right, then what a brilliant world that would be.

  If she could point to something and label it pure evil, without seeing herself reflected right back; a mirror image revealing the small part of her that would stoop to the same level; what a fantastic life she would lead.

  But there was no end in sight, and all she could do was weather the storm until the day she died. Just that was infinitely harder than it sounded. Just that required her all; every resource she could afford and every effort she could spare.

  Instinct rejected her next action, but conscious overruled its better judgement. Sheepishly, still wary of any sudden movements, she reached out towards the mangled hand of her other half’s best intentions. Her hand hesitated more than once, hovering in mid-air, gathering enough strength to make the next leg of the journey.

  Iris closed her eyes. The flayed flesh had long since lost its moisture, withering away until all that was left was a thin coating of blackened skin around bone.

  She exhaled, her hand sinking in time with her chest.

  For a moment, the sensation in her hand trumped all else.

  That was what her fear felt like. That was the feeble, fragile state her past life had ended in. Broken, afraid, wrung dry of any trust.

  The rotten hand she felt might as well have been hers.

  Iris opened her eyes, and the apparition was gone.

  Her hand curled back into itself, and she sat there as though in mourning. Perfect silence. Now, she truly felt nothing sitting in the hallway.

  Her Beast brushed up against her shoulder; its lifeless eyes locked on the last door. It asked her a question, one that she did not have a reply to.

  “When you said you looked into my mind. What did you see?”

  The Queen’s disembodied voice spoke from outside the flimsy walls of her hallway; nothing more than a distant echo from the real world.

  “I saw nothing.”

  “…you lied?”

  “It convinced you of my power, did it not? It was a bluff, because I’m afraid that whatever lurks in your mind, I am no match for.”

  Iris’s mouth curled into a smile. She chuckled, retreating further into the foetal position. “You’re cruel, your majesty.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay. Well…what should I do now?”

  “In regards to what?”

  Iris didn’t answer. There wasn’t an answer to receive; not one that would be useful to her anyhow. In the end, it would all come full circle, the final decision falling onto her.

  “I cannot speak on your behalf. I cannot decide for you, Iris. But as I tell your mother, as I tell anyone, I will tell you to do what is necessary. Not what is easy, not what is hard, not what is good or bad, but what is necessary.”

  Iris glanced at the shattered lock through her eyelashes.

  For now, it would stay intact.