By the time we reach the gates, the city is in chaos. A voice warning people to seek shelter booms through the streets, and people are fleeing in every direction.


    “The city is under attack,” the voice says. I suspect it’s magically enhanced to carry. “Able bodied combatants report to the West Gate. Repeat. Seek shelter…”


    My stomach twists like I’ve eaten something sour. Watching those people run, listening to their desperate calls for family—Well, I don’t know that we’re on the wrong side, but it doesn’t feel like we’re on the right one, either.


    “Hold,” Constance says softly. The rest of us stop behind him.


    “Shit,” Darian mumbles.


    The gate is already down. We should have expected that; even if the troops haven’t reached the West Gate, the Moonfall soldiers would have closed off the city as soon as they saw the approaching army.


    “Here,” Earnest says, stepping up beside Constance. “We’ve got this.”


    Earnest and Xamireb take the lead, and we follow them to the gate. Earnest leans casually against the grated surface, craning his head to look inside. He gestures to Xamireb, who silently nods. The arachnoid crouches, brushing their hands over the sand.


    Almost a minute passes with nothing happening. Then, a startled cry echoes from inside the gate. A guard stumbles into view the next moment, smacking her arms and face and torso as she squirms.


    “Get them off! Get them off of me!”


    Letting out a strangled cry, she drops to the ground, rolls desperately, and then scrambles to her feet, stumbling into a wall as she breaks away from the gate and runs blindly into the streets.


    I look at Quell in horror. He appears equally disturbed.


    “Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Constance murmurs.


    Xamireb stands back up. “It was just snapping ants. Non-venomous. She’ll be fine.”


    “Once she gets over the nightmares,” Earnest teases. He uncaps a canteen, pooling the water over his hand in a liquid glove. He looks to his twin.


    “It was just her,” Xamireb confirms. “The others must have already been called away.”


    Earnest reaches his arm through the gate, and the water overlaying his fingers stretches like icicles until it’s out of sight. A moment later, something clunks within the gate, and it begins to lift. Earnest and Xamireb step back, beckoning the others forward.


    “Duck under now,” Xamireb urges. “Before someone notices and stops it.”


    We quickly follow their advice, scrambling under the portcullis.


    As it turns out, however, no one returns by the time we make it through, and Earnest activates the spell circle to drop the gate behind us once more.


    “You two seem oddly practiced with this trick,” Darian mutters to her soldiers.


    Earnest smiles guiltily. “Apologies, Captain. We may have snuck out of the barracks using similar tactics once or twice during basic.”


    “Reminisce later,” Liz hisses. Sweat is beading down her temples, her jaw clenched tight. “We need to hurry.”


    Constance takes up the lead again as we strike out into the city. I sure hope he knows where he’s going, because the streets are all a maze to me. We take so many winding turns, dodging pedestrians and soldiers alike, that I lose all sense of direction. By now the sun is nearing noon, so even the shadows don’t help me keep track of which way we’re going. Even beneath our sun cloaks, the heat and exhaustion are starting to get to me, and from the labored breaths and trickling sweat, I can tell the others aren’t doing much better. If Constance thought that making our move when most would be asleep would be to our advantage, I’m starting to have my doubts. I just focus on staying close to Quell and the others, huddling our party as tight as possible, and maintain my sanity by reminding myself that we’ll soon be inside.


    Even if that inside is some kind of ritualistic magic chamber.


    “Constance,” Liz pants. Darian’s arm is around her shoulder, keeping her steady. “How much longer? I can’t hold out for another hour.”


    “We’re almost there,” he assures her. “According to the directions of the Ambassador, just a few more minutes. Can you manage that?”


    She wearily nods. Heads bowed beneath the oppressive heat and the weight of our weariness, we press on.


    Thankfully, after only another handful of minutes, Constance stops. “Here.”


    I look up.


    The building is made of white stone, with a domed roof and decorative carvings in its face. It’s certainly well crafted—but smaller than I would have expected for something meant to guard the Source of the Lifespring’s water. I guess nondescript is better, if you don’t want people to know about it.


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    Constance strolls ahead, and we all jump to keep pace with him. He gestures for us to wait, however, placing a hand on his sword as he slowly pokes his head inside the door. He takes another step, halfway vanished into the building, and pauses there. After a moment, he steps back out.


    “Clear,” he reports. We all head in, and the building’s blissfully cool shade spills over us.


    Unlike the outside, the chamber within is breathtaking. There is indeed a pool at the center of the room, shimmering with white light, while the floor all around is carved with intricate lines and symbols of an enormous spell circle. Mosaics decorate the walls, depicting acts of great healing and evils being banished. While Quell and I pause, breathing heavily as we take in the sight, Darian helps Liz over to a bench against the wall where she gratefully collapses. The air shimmers a moment later, then the warped space around us shatters like a sheet of glass, and her spell dissolves into motes of light that snuff out as they drift to the floor.


    [Greater Invisibility spell ended,] Echo says.


    “I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this place before,” Quell murmurs, pausing by a mural to examine the art. “What stories do you think these depict? When was it built? It doesn’t seem recent. I should have stumbled upon it in history books somewhere.”


    “I imagine most cities don’t want their most valuable secret to be publicized,” Constance says, heading toward the spring.


    “I suppose,” Quell says, turning from the art to examine the spell circle next. He crouches just outside the ring, examining the circle. “Do you know how it operates?”


    “We shouldn’t have to do anything,” Constance says. “The Spring will do all the work.”


    Quell grunts at this, tipping his head. “Some of these runes are strange. Many of them, actually.”


    Constance sighs. “We don’t exactly have all day to decipher them. Nor do we have all day to stand around. Moonfall soldiers could find us any minute. Nye. Are you ready?”


    “Right.” I cautiously step over to him, dubiously eyeing the spring. I don’t feel anything from it like I did from the city’s central spring, which I suppose is a good thing, but I’m still warry. “I don’t have to stick the Aegis in that, do I? That didn’t go well last time.”


    “I don’t think so,” Constance says. “The spell circle will do the work. But you will have to bring the shield out.”


    I hesitate, glancing over at Quell. He’s still crouched on the edge of the spell circle, craning his head to try to read an upside-down rune. “You should probably not be there when it does whatever it’s supposed to do,” I tell him.


    “Right,” Quell says absently. “It’s just… I wish I had time to read all this first. I don’t understand how they fit together. This rune is typically used in light magic. What’s that got to do with Life arcana?”


    He’d sit there all day if we let him. With a grimace, I step away from Constance and hold out my arm. “Okay,” I say, nervously eyeing his Crimson Scimitar. I hope the shield doesn’t react negatively to its presence. “Here we go.”


    Quell runs a hand over one of the runes, then pauses. “Wait… Something’s wrong.” He looks up, his eyes unfocused. Then they go wide.


    I pull the Crimson Aegis from my Inventory.


    Constance mutters a curse.


    After that, everything happens too fast to keep track of.


    The Aegis appears on my arm, and it immediately hones in on the Scimitar. But not where I expected. Constance is standing before me, by the pedestal, but the Aegis’s attention is behind me. I start to turn.


    Quell tackles me in the side. It’s so sudden and unexpected, he actually manages to knock me off balance. As I’m falling, light flashes off a sword. Pain slices through my shoulder. Quell screams. We hit the ground, and there’s blood.


    Someone else screams—Liz, I think—though it’s more of a strangled gasp. Darian roars. Everyone is shouting, and weapons are drawn.


    My Role Requirement bursts into my mind, painful and urgent. I roll Quell and I to the side, throwing the Aegis above us right as something strikes the shield. Quell’s clutching his hand and shaking; the smell of his blood fills the air.


    “What’s happening?” My mind is racing, taking in every detail available. Looking through the Aegis, nothing appears to be above us. What’s going on? Who’s attacking us? I have to protect Quell. He’s hurt.


    The Aegis is only making it harder to focus, its mind eager and buzzing, latched onto the presence of the Scimitar. It can feel the sword’s bloodlust. It wants to fight, and so does the Aegis. It wants to defeat it! Then it can grow even stronger—


    Endure, I think as another invisible blow crashes down on us. Repel!


    The shield flashes red as the magic ripples into effect. I scramble back, one arm wrapped around Quell as I drag him along the floor.


    My shoulder burns from where I’ve been cut, which is making it hard to wield the shield efficiently. I quickly activate a Coagulate to scab over the wound, but my attention is elsewhere. People are fighting on the other side of the room, nowhere near us, but I don’t trust that it’s as empty as it seems.


    Even though I’ve only taken a couple hits, I desperately release Repel, concentrated and directly into the open air before me: I hear a pained grunt as it strikes something that shouldn’t be there.


    Using the opportunity to pull away, I back us into a corner, where I can deposit and easily guard Quell. I finally risk a glance down.


    His hand is dyed red. His whole arm is shaking, hand frozen in a clawed shape, as a deep gash across the back of his hand pours more blood from the wound. He’s lucky it’s not severed completely. And if his hand hadn’t been where it was, if he hadn’t tackled me, the blade would have struck me in the back instead. Maybe my neck.


    Quell’s teeth are clenched in pain, tears streaming down his face, but he manages to gasp in a breath. “Liz,” he says, trying to look around my shield. “They’re going to—”


    Another blow rains down on the Aegis, and I only block it because I can sense it moments before it strikes. Through the Aegis’s eyes, there’s nothing in front of us. No one attacking. But through the Aegis’s instincts, I know exactly who we’re facing. Using my free arm to brace the first, I launch myself to my feet, activating a Devour as I bash the shield forward.


    Contact. A stain of blood inks into the air before me. Someone cries out, and the floating blood stumbles backward.


    “Be careful,” Quell gasps. “It’s an illusion.”


    “Yeah, I’ve sort of figured that out,” I say.


    Hissing in pain, Quell lets go of his injured hand, holding it to his chest. He slaps the other one to the ground, smearing a bloody handprint over the stone. Gritting his teeth, Quell sucks in a breath, and exhales. As he does, light pulses from his hand.


    His magic ripples through the room, shifting reality like it’s a picture painted on a flapping piece of fabric. Then our surroundings crack, shatter, and disintegrate as the pieces collapse to the ground. What’s left behind is nothing like the scene I’d just been looking at.


    The room is no longer polished stone, but brown, dusty clay. The pool at the center of the room is gone, along with the spell circle and murals in the wall. Instead we find ourselves in an abandoned storage shed.


    Darian, Earnest, and Xamireb are arrayed around Liz, who’s crumbled to the ground, unmoving. The three extra guards face them, weapons drawn.


    And Constance stands before us, blood staining his free hand where Devour peeled some of his flesh away. The Crimson Scimitar is leveled at the Aegis. His face is hard and displeased.


    “Oh, Quell,” he says. “You shouldn’t have done that.”