Masked Reawakening members leapt at him as he ran through the halls of the Buried God. He did his best to avoid using magic, instead smashing their shields to pieces with his empowered arm whenever he could to conserve his canisters.

His ears had started to heal, but he’d racked up several thin cuts and a rather nasty slash across the forehead in the process. He didn’t dare try to return to the main hall. A few of the guards were annoying, but even he would stand no chance if hundreds swarmed him at once.

Angel lost track of time as he ran through the halls, swapping onto his board whenever they grew wide enough for him to safely ride it. Logically, he was pretty sure that it couldn’t have been more than half an hour. That didn’t change that it felt like it had been days.

He staggered up to a turn in the hall, filling a canister with shaking hands and slamming it into the cylinder in his arm before stepping out and raising his arm. Empty space stretched out before him.

It took Angel a moment to realize that he’d found one of the entrances to the Buried God’s central cavern. Reave sat on the edge of the ledge that he’d been on the first time Angel had seen him.

A brutal wound ran from just above his chin down to his hip. Blood dripped from it, staining the metal beneath him.

Lilian and Silver hung behind Reave, their arms pulled up above their heads and pinned to the wall by bands of metal. Lilian looked largely uninjured, but Silver was bleeding profusely from almost a dozen cuts that each bordered on being lethal.

At their feet sat Alison and Tilly. The girls had been tied up with metal cord and leashed like animals. Reave held the ends of their chains in his hand. Angel gritted his teeth and flicked his eyepiece down, keeping himself low and hopefully out of Reave’s eyesight.

Race: Human

Name: ‘Captain’ Silver

Level 95

Status: Severely Wounded

Information accuracy: 98%

Strength: 51

Intelligence: 24

Nimbleness: 99

Toughness: 20

Rating: Threat

Weak point(s): Heart, Neck, chest… (100/100)

Element(s): None

Angel turned his gaze to Lilian and then to the girls. All of them were healthy, although he suspected that Lilian’s apparent good health was due to her incredible healing capabilities rather than Reave going easy on her.

He suppressed the dull roar of rage and desperately tried to figure out a plan. Angel didn’t doubt for a second that Reave would kill everyone there if he needed to – and maybe even after he got what he wanted.

There was the possibility of just giving him the Key and making another, but Angel doubted it would be that easy. If recovering Old World Magic was just one little key, it would have been done long ago. The Reawakening would keep piling bodies onto their ever growing mountain of sins, and giving them the Key would just enable them.

“Come out, Angel,” Reave called, his voice calm and collected. “I know you’re out there. How many soldiers can you still fight? You must be starting to get tired.”

Angel gritted his teeth. None of his magic was nearly fast enough to hit Reave before he could react. If he attacked, Reave would almost certainly just block the spell with one of his friends’ bodies.

A few more moments passed as Angel desperately dug for a solution, but nothing arose. There was no clever trick or way he could cheat his way past Reave’s raw power and, while the Buried God seemed to still be powered down, it wouldn’t be long until it was back. Reave had time on his side, and they both knew it.

Angel stood from his hiding spot and stepped out.

“Resorting to kidnapping now, Reave? Are you so destitute that you couldn’t afford to hire a Tinkerer?”

“Ah, there you are,” Reave said. “No other Tinkerer will suffice, I’m afraid. Your students were rather useless in that regard, but that outcome was expected. I didn’t think you’d truly return this quickly for them. We’d only sent out the announcement through telegraph this morning.”

“I had an intuition you rat bastards would do something comically evil,” Angel spat. “Let’s cut to the chase. If I make you the key, you let them go.”

“Why would I do that?” Reave asked. “I don’t just have the better hand, Angel. I’ve got the whole deck. I could kill half of them and you’d still make me the Key.”

Angel’s hands tightened. He lifted his arm, turning it and placing it against his own head. “You kill any of them, I blow my own brains out. Good luck finding another Tinkerer that can replicate the Key before the Magistrates all gather their forces and attack you. You’ve only gotten this far because you’ve been in the shadows. After attacking Molten Ridges, you’ll have the whole Barren against you.”

Reave cocked his head. “Clever. Do you really have the gumption to kill yourself, though?”

“Your eyesight is good enough to get a good look at my face,” Angel snarled. “Why don’t you try me and find out?”

Reave examined him for a moment, then let out a short bark of laughter. He cocked his head to the side, then spat on the ground. “As tempted as I am to take you up on your offer, I have been instructed to refuse. I suspect you already have the Key made. You will give it to us. In exchange, I will only kill one of your companions. The rest may go freely. You may choose which.”

Angel’s fingernails bit into his palm, drawing blood. “You’ll kill none of them.”

A crackling plasma sword formed in Reave’s hand. He held it out to Lilian’s neck, pulling her head up. “Perhaps this one? She’s already proven herself a traitor. It would be no loss to either of us.”

“Why don’t you ask Body her opinion?” Angel asked. Provoking the man probably wasn’t the best idea, but he was completely out of options.

Reave jerked his head back to look at Angel. He cocked his head and muttered something under his breath.

“What did you do?” Reave asked, hints of fury breaking through his calm façade. “Why isn’t she answering Mind?”

Angel fired his grappling hook, swinging as soon as it latched into the wall. He swung across the room, firing twice more to get all the way over to the ledge before landing on the ground several body lengths away from Reave with a grunt. He rose to his feet, meeting the bandaged man’s insanity-touched glare.

“What. Did. You. Do?”

Reave pulled the blade closer to Lilian’s neck. It hissed against her skin, burning it. Alison and Tilly pressed their backs against the wall of the Buried God, their eyes wide in terror. Angel did his best to ignore them. He couldn’t afford any distractions.

“She’s just unconscious,” Angel lied. “For now. Since you actually seem to have some degree for care for the other Reawakening members, maybe we can come to an agreement.”

“There will be no agreement,” Reave snarled, jerking Lilian’s head back and pushing the knife deeper into her skin. She found Angel’s eyes and gave him a slow, understanding blink. Angel jerked his gaze back to Reave. “Give me the Key now or I’ll kill this one and then choose another.”

At their current distance, Reave could slit Lilian’s throat before Angel could even raise his arm. Angel gritted his teeth and unbuckled his travel bag. He pulled the Key out of the bag and threw it over to him, hoping the other man would move to grab it.

Reave made no such move. It clattered to the ground at his feet. One of Reave’s eyes flicked down to glance at it and a thin smile stretched across his lips. “Good. Now, choose. Which one, Angel? You can’t save them all. It’s about time you learned that.”

Alison let out a whimper.

“Shut up,” Reave snarled, yanking on the chain and throwing Alison to the ground. He didn’t even glance back in their direction. “Or I’ll make the decision for him.”

Alison looked up made eye contact with Angel, then sent a pointed glance at Reave. Her pointer finger started tracing a line through the air.

“Choose,” Reave demanded. A rumble ran through the Buried God and some of the lights started to blink back on as power started trickling back into it.

“Fine,” Angel hissed. “I’ve chosen. Not her, though. Silver.”

“Amusing. Sparing the women and children?” Reave asked. “Unfortunately, I lied. There was no choice.”

A ball of fire leapt from Alison’s hand. Angel swung his arm up as Reave started to pull the knife across Lilian’s throat. He got halfway through before the fireball struck him, knocking the man forward and right into the trajectory of Angel’s empowered lightning bolt.

Reave lost his grip on the chains and flew back, slamming into the wall with enough force to dent it. Lilian slumped, blood pouring from her throat around her at a terrifying rate.

Angel rushed up to them, the blade attachment flipping out on his arm. He cut Lilian and Silver down and yanked his students to their feet.

Reave let out a furious howl, ripping himself free of the wall as his wings exploded out from his back. One of them was still severely damaged, but the plasma crackling across them was as dangerous as ever.

A beam of churning red magic fired toward them. Angel raised his hand, the Star Fragment’s energy flaring into a maw and meeting Reave’s attack midway between them. It absorbed the energy but sent Angel skidding back several feet.

He backed against the wall and fired another empowered lightning bolt, ignoring the scalding steam as it scorched his back. The bolt knocked Reave from the sky and sent him hurtling down to the base of the cavern.

Silver staggered to his feet. “Bastard took my hat.”

“We’ll get a new one!” Angel screamed. “Run to the hangar!”