Finding Sir Kenneth and Veda surrounded by a field of shattered crystalline corpses wasn’t exactly expected, but I couldn’t say that it was unthinkable. As my dragonfire continued to burn unchecked, it seemed to consume the raw substance that this space was made out of. What at first appeared to be solid stone beneath the spiders’ webs slowly lost its rigid structure and morphed into something like jelly.

  Ripping through that unsettlingly squishy substance with my claws allowed me to pass from the spider cave into a place ‘in between’. I was able to see the true nature of the place where we had been trapped at last. Its structure was akin to a mass of soap bubbles. Interior spaces of varying size and complexity were chaotically mashed together, but separated by impossibly thin barriers.

  Those barriers had been stronger than any metal until my rampaging fire touched upon them. The blaze was slowly infecting the entire system, spreading along the gaps between each ‘bubble’ and eating the entire complex from within. As it spread, the destruction increased in pace. That meant that we’d need to be quick.

  The bubble containing Sir Kenneth and Veda had been one of the larger ones. It had already been destabilized a great deal before I ever arrived, which was to their credit. Visk and Cassia had both told me that the seemingly useless knight had hidden depths before we attacked the Tower of Baedain. I’d seen glimpses of it as we climbed the Tower itself, when my attention wasn’t drawn elsewhere.

  Seeing the young man fight for his life and almost match Veda as they worked together raised my estimation of him considerably. Even though the Witch Hunter clearly outmatched him in experience, power, and the variety of tools at their disposal; the young knight grimly threw himself into the fray rather than rely on his companion to save him. The same desires that had led him to attack a black dragon armed only with a sword, now had him fighting back to back with someone who ought to be protecting him.

  Neither the elf or the knight seemed particularly surprised when I came barreling into the fight with Visk and Cassia on my back. My flames announced my presence well in advance. I took a moment to inspect one of the creatures they were fighting.

  There were two types. One seemed like a caricature of Sir Kenneth, which wielded wicked looking knives made from mirror shards. Privately, I thought that they matched my own initial impression of the man rather neatly. The others were barely recognizable. My best guess was that they were some kind of ravenous insect and human mashed together.

  Neither foe proved to be much of a danger to me. They fled in terror from my claws and flames. The floating mirrors that spawned the creatures shattered easily when I lashed out at them.

  When I checked on Veda, they seemed vaguely uncomfortable under my gaze. They were not merely exhausted, though that was also the case. Something about their present circumstances made them shy away from me. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to dig into that right now.

  “Thank you for your assistance, Lord Draconis,” Veda said with a dip of their head towards me. Their golden hair was ragged and frayed by many near misses. I could see that their ears were also drooping slightly from exhaustion rather than poor mood. “Have you seen my compatriot, Mamaet? I was not able to grab them in time when we entered the rift.”

  “I haven’t,” I rumbled back. “The means by which I found my people will not work for them. I only found you and the knight by spotting which of these… ‘bubbles’ seemed most disturbed.”

  Veda frowned deeply, which was about as much emotion as I’d ever seen on an elf’s face. Sir Kenneth seemed to consider patting them on the back, but lowered the hand he’d raised after a moment. No one else tried to interject. While it was possible that we could find Mamaet if we tried…

  There had been thousands of individual bubbles visible in the ‘between’ space. At the rate at which my dragonfire was growing, it was entirely possible that the entire structure would collapse before we found the other Witch Hunter. I didn’t know exactly what would happen when the collapse occurred, but I suspected it would be unpleasant.

  “I believe that I can find Magnus in this place,” I continued. “Like as not, the ‘Mistress’ of this place will be close to him. If we defeat her swiftly, that will give us the best chance of finding your compatriot, yes?”

  “You… you are correct,” Veda said hesitantly. “I am simply reluctant to leave yet another of my fellows to their fate. They entrusted me with command… and now they are all either missing or dead.”

  “I doubt anyone else could do better, given the shite state of things,” Sir Kenneth said grimly. “Can you imagine the other Wizards trying to break in here? They’d have cocked it up and been slaughtered.”

  That at least seemed to draw a dull chuckle from the Witch Hunter. “Perhaps. Do you think that you can carry me and Sir Kenneth to the place Magnus resides, Lord Draconis? I am quite ready to be done with this charade.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  It didn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to guess which bubble Magnus was in. As soon as I reached out to try and find him through the blood that we shared, my attention was drawn to the largest space in this artificial realm. From the outside it looked like an endless garden. Other spaces had been attached to it, but these were now breaking away and attempting to flee.

  Whoever was in charge of this realm was trying to fight the fire raging through its structure. In one of the oldest methods known to living creatures, it was sacrificing sections to preserve the whole. Bubbles which contained a mountain of magical resources were sacrificed without a thought. If any Wizard had been present to see it, they would have torn out their beard in anguish.

  As I carried my companions through the space between the bubbles, I kept an eye out for this ‘Mistress’. In spite of all the destruction I had wrought upon her realm, she still had not shown herself. It baffled me just a bit at how little she seemed to care for the things she collected. If some outsider had assaulted my den, slaughtered my people, and burned my possessions, it would have driven me into a blinding fury so intense that the world as a whole would have known the Consequences.

  Yet there was not a whisper of the Mistress, even as I tore my way into the endless Garden that held Magnus.

  Only moments after I forced an entry, the guardians of this space responded to throw me out. Hedgerows and artfully sculpted vines came to life all around me and my companions. Pleasantly directed walking paths immediately turned into a treacherous maze. The entire garden, once beautiful, warped into a maddened collection of traps and vicious defenders.

  While I could have burned it all to cinders, I did not want to risk catching Magnus in the blaze. Until he was located, I would have to resist my desire to raze this place to the ground. That didn’t mean I could not tear everything I saw up by the roots, however.

  Having people fighting alongside me helped somewhat, though I had to protect them as much as they assisted me. My Cassia had let her last arrow fly somewhere in the mirror realm. She was now fighting with a knife borrowed from Visk. Visk had recovered somewhat from their ordeal with the spiders, but was sticking particularly close to my side nonetheless.

  While that was bothersome, I didn’t chide them for it. The spider cave had been unsettling, even for me. I’d never be able to look at a cobweb the same way again.

  Veda and Sir Kenneth resumed their partnership in battle after the short disruption. As I caught more glimpses of them working together, I began to suspect why Veda seemed suddenly uncomfortable in my presence. They had clearly sensed the synchronicity between themselves and the knight like I had.

  From a certain perspective, Veda was infringing on something that was ‘mine’.

  I didn’t think of the knight in that fashion. He was proving himself to be more useful than I had anticipated, but my main concern was that he fulfilled his promise to me and Edith, to help rescue Magnus. Once that was accomplished, so far as I was concerned, he was free to do what he wished.

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  Somehow, I became quite certain that what Kenneth wished didn’t involve going back to the ‘quiet’ Barony of Reimse.

  Cassia had got what she wanted, in a manner of speaking, and she wasn’t very happy about it.

  She was side by side with her dragon, just as she had wished. They were in a setting straight out of the story books she’d read as a little girl. An evil sorceress commanded a realm of ‘evil’. Someone needed to be rescued. A brave knight had sworn an oath to bring about justice. There were even elves and magic!

  All of those ingredients together didn’t make a fairy tale. They were in a waking nightmare.

  As she stabbed her borrowed knife through a carnivorous orchid, Cassia decided that she was fed up with fairy tales and magic. Neither were anything like what she’d read. Wizards weren’t wise old men who contemplated the mysteries of life. They were closer to a pack of vultures feasting on the dead.

  An entire city of Wizards ought to have been a place of splendor and fantasy, but it mostly seemed to consist of forgotten ruins and people robbing each other in dark alleys.

  Cassia knew that her dragon would have greatly preferred that she stay in his Den so that he could sit on top of her like a mother hen and snap at anyone who dared come too close. When they had set out on this ‘adventure’, she’d chafed somewhat against the overly protective feelings that sometimes flared up across their connection. She’d had a lot of time to reconsider that opinion, with everything that had happened.

  She’d flown through the sky on a dragon’s back. She’d gotten to see the many wares sold in Osteriath’s market. She’d been captured by bandits and escaped. She’d even gotten a glimpse of what it was like to be treated as nobility, complete with fancy tea services and soft dresses.

  And yet…

  Visk, Sir Kenneth, and even the new elf Veda, all seemed to share her new opinion. Osteriath and its Wizards were awful. All she wanted to do was go home and let her dragon be exactly as protective as he wanted to be.

  But first they had to rescue Magnus.

  Whoever had designed the Garden had a vicious streak that made Cassia’s veins run cold. Just about every plant in the place was hiding deadly attributes. Vines lashed out from nooks and crannies to try and wrap around ankles or necks. Being entangled and strangled was the least painful way to die, from what was available.

  Flowers with rows of serrated teeth, hedgerows that exploded into showers of deadly shrapnel, paving stones that functioned as land mines, all of these and more crowded around from all sides. Only her dragon’s relentless efforts to rip and tear his way through their surroundings left Cassia with any margin for safety. He was heading straight for something that only he seemed able to sense. Cassia and the others mostly served to clear out anything that Sanguine happened to miss as he forced his way forward.

  As they travelled deeper into the Garden, Cassia took a moment to glance backwards. To her great displeasure, she could see that the horrid plant life of the space was already growing back a few dozen paces behind them. If they waited around too long, all the damage that they’d done would vanish like it had never occurred.

  Cassia pulled her knife out of the dead orchid’s maw and hurried after her dragon, determined not to be left behind.

  Visk flicked a small knife from their fingers at a bulb that was sailing through the air at Cassia’s head. The knife pierced the flying tuber and sent it careening off into the undergrowth of the deadly garden, where it exploded into a cloud of deadly poison. The hunter-girl hadn’t noticed the threat, nor how Visk had saved her.

  The young woman only had eyes for her dragon. Visk couldn’t exactly judge her for that, but they were annoyed that it extended into combat situations. Sanguine at least seemed to notice. A quick flick of his amber eyes back in Visk’s direction was all the dragon had time for. He was too busy bludgeoning his way through the multitude of enchanted garden plants to give any further acknowledgement.

  That was enough for Visk right now. They pulled on their magic and disappeared into the air. A set of vines which had been trying to sneak up on the elf paused as their quarry vanished. The next moment, Visk popped back into visibility with their knives flashing. Each vine wriggled like an earthworm as it was cut loose.

  Visk had to step quickly to catch up after that. It was a little too easy to get distracted by their new powers. Being able to vanish and reappear at will was an ability that would make even the most veteran Hunter Clades turn green with envy. Visk had Sanguine to thank for that.

  They couldn’t help but feel a little upset at the dragon in spite of that. While Visk wasn’t any kind of mage or scholar, they knew that what Sanguine had done had changed them irrevocably. Beyond the obvious and semi-transient physical changes to their body, the elf simply felt different.

  Even after they had been separated from their own people, Visk had still been able to feel the connection to the place of their birth. The song of the World Tree called out to them in their most private moments. That song had been silenced when Visk chose to cleave the connection.

  When Sanguine’s magic had touched Visk’s own, the Will of the Dareen had risen up like a sleeping beast. It hungered for the dragon’s power. If it hadn’t been so long since Visk had last felt the Will’s touch, they would have succumbed to it instantly. Instead, the Will was just frayed enough that Visk had been able to sever themself from it, like they were a trapped animal biting off its own leg caught in a trap.

  It had been a moment of monumental stupidity and desperation. Visk had chosen Sanguine over the Dareen. Their mind had not been able to reconcile that choice.

  That single moment of simultaneous loss and freedom had nearly broken Visk. The only reason that they had held together at all was because Sanguine was right there alongside them. Rather than being comforted, Visk had been terrified of being abandoned if the dragon saw just how broken they really were.

  So they had held it together, gritting their teeth as Sanguine continued to sweep Visk along in his wake.

  During the chase through the rooftops, Visk had been sure that they were going to die. The amount of raw chaos going on around them was simply too much for any mortal to survive. Magic that defied both logic and imagination had been thrown around freely. When it ended with both them and Sanguine being launched into a building so fast that sound itself lagged behind, there was no more room in Visk’s mind for terror. Only a cold acceptance that they were soon to draw their final breath remained.

  Then the dragon had defied their expectations yet again. Sanguine had gone to excessive lengths to ensure that Visk lived. He’d even used one of the potions which were the price for another dragon’s truce to heal Visk. When that healing magic had failed to act as it ought to have, Sanguine had believed it was due to the interference of the enchanted tattoos embedded into Visk’s skin.

  That was only partly true. In reality, Visk had not wanted to be healed. Even if you were not a Sorcerer, magic was always affected by intent. If Visk had desperately clung to life, it was entirely possible that Sanguine would never have needed to interfere.

  Visk didn’t blame the dragon for not noticing just how poorly they were holding things together. Osteriath was full of new experiences and dangers. Concern for Cassia and Magnus dominated Sanguine’s thoughts. It didn’t take a mind reader to guess that.

  Between the time Visk had severed their connection to the World Tree in the Dusk Quarter and the moment they had drank the healing potion in Osteriath’s depths, Visk had been crumbling apart on the inside. Even with Sanguine right there beside them, they had never felt so alone. While the dragon seemed to understand that Visk had sacrificed something on his behalf, the true extent of the loss was likely beyond his comprehension.

  The simplest truth was that by severing themself from the World Tree, Visk was no longer an elf. No longer a Dok’aellen. A leaf could not be a part of a tree, once it had fallen. The only thing left for it to do, was to shrivel up and die.

  Then, for a single glorious moment, Sanguine had offered Visk a new connection, one that would let them continue on. Visk had latched onto it with a desperation that could not be fully described. They had not cared about the Consequences or the cost. If Sanguine had chosen to consume them utterly in that moment, they would have jumped into his maw gladly.

  But he’d not done so. He’d separated himself from Visk once his work was done. A little piece of himself was left behind in the process. The golden stitching that bound Visk’s soul together was a gift, rather than a binding.

  It was driving Visk up a wall in the best and the worst ways possible.

  The elf had had a ‘talk’ with Cassia about it when they reunited. While Visk had detested the woman’s probings about their intentions before, they could not lie about the degree of change they had undergone. Cassia had recognized the mania in Visk’s eyes and rightly been concerned. Sanguine wasn’t equipped to handle Visk’s new ‘feelings’.

  Oddly enough, Visk actually agreed. They suddenly had a new lease on life, but absolutely no idea what to do with it. Cassia hadn’t even broached more than the most surface level topics with Sanguine. The dragon himself always had more immediate concerns on his mind.

  So Visk had agreed to wait. Wait for years, decades if necessary. As confusing as Sanguine tended to be, Visk had finally met someone who they could afford to wait for. He wouldn’t get old and die like a human. The elf could quietly serve in his shadow for as long as it took for him to be ready.

  If that also meant keeping Cassia from getting herself killed in the meantime… Well, that was a small price to pay.