Ahio huffed. ‘Didn’t know anyone is a witch here.’

‘No, I’m serious.’ Daisuke said, glaring at the other boy. ‘Tahro and I have been studying witches and their spells for a while. I remember one about raising the ground. It had the runes for link, earth, and flight. Do you remember, Tahro?’ He looked at me.

Did I? A vague memory of reading about such a spell flashed before me. It was to…escape from something. Pits made by earth elementalists during the war to trap witches? I must've read it only a few weeks ago, but with everything going on, it felt like years. What were the symbols, the array in which we should draw them? Not to mention, how on earth were we supposed to perform a spell without a witch?

‘I think I read about it, but I’m sorry, I don’t remember how to do it,’ I said. ‘How...um...how are we supposed to do it though? Without a witch, I mean?’

Before Daisuke got a word out, Maya chirped in. ‘Tsubasa.’ She wrung her hands at our stares.

‘H-huh?’ Tsubasa backed away, hitting the wall of the pit. He pushed up his glasses with a trembling hand. ‘Wh-what do you m-mean?’

Just then, I put two and two together.

‘A witch can let their inner spirit out of their bodies and into the runes they draw. That’s why they can perform spells while we can’t,’ I said, glancing between Maya and Daisuke to see if I was on the same page. They nodded. ‘But if there was a way for us to release our inner spirit, then theoretically, we could perform them.’ Tsubasa gulped. ‘Like when you tried to track us in the maze...you could make our inner spirit come out.’

I’m not volunteering this time though. My skin crawled at the thought of a nature whisperer taking control of my inner spirit again. What if Tsubasa figures out that something is weird too? But what was I doing, worrying about such a petty problem in the middle of a situation like this?

Hands still shaking, Tsubasa clutched his face. ‘I c-can’t! T-that day, it was j-just for a moment, a-and even t-that was so h-hard. D-do you know h-how d-diffic-cult it was to r-release your inner sp-spirit without k-killing you?’

‘But you didn’t kill him.’ Dr Chiasa placed a hand over his shoulder. ‘You can do it, Tsubasa. Nature whisperers are told to be much more powerful than we think.’

‘N-no, I really c-can’t.’ He took a few deep breaths and lowered his hands, gazing up at her with bloodshot eyes. ‘If M-Mr Cesar was here, he c-could d-do it. I’m not that g-good. You’ll d-die.’

Dr Chiasa tightened the grip around his shoulder and frowned. ‘When the swordsmen come back and we fight them, I don’t know if we will all make it out alive, or even win. No, I know I will fight to the death to get my child back.’ She sighed. ‘So please, Tsubasa. You can do this. You must.’

‘N-no.’ He glared at her.

‘Do it only on me. I’ve had a lot of training in controlling my inner spirit. I’ll make sure you don’t accidentally push out too much.’ Her voice, usually commanding and calm like her daughter’s, had a pleading tone.

I let out a relieved breath at her words, then bit my lips in disgust with myself. Not the right time to be thinking about who was going to volunteer!

‘I…’ Tsubasa scrunched his eyes shut and curled his hands into fists. ‘I might k-kill you.’

‘No, you won’t.’ She sighed, gazing at the top edges of the pit. ‘But when they come back, they might. And it could be for vain, the rest of you might not even be able to escape.’

For a few moments, no one said a word. Was this really the best plan we’ve got? There must be another way, a perfect way where no one got hurt. Something we were overlooking. But as much as I dug through my brain for an idea, any idea, I came up with none.

‘Al-alright’ Tsubasa took in a deep breath. ‘I’ll d-do it.’ His words sounded cold, as though he was already ready for the worst.

Daisuke cleared his throat. ‘I’ll draw the array in my notebook. Then we can paint it on the ground--I have some ink in my bag. Ahio, measure the circumference of the pit, and Tahro, can you oversee the symbols, at least those you remember?’

With a nod, I strode to his side as he took out a pen and book from his backpack. The little torch in hand, we whispered to each other while Daisuke drew on the lined paper. First was the shape of the array, in this case a circle or an oval which must be drawn along the edges of the ground we want lifted. Then the symbols, each one designed to shape the inner spirit into doing what we wanted as it flowed through the circle. There were a total of twenty.

I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the spell might be wrong. What if Daisuke forgot something and it blew up in our face. But he seemed sure, never doubting what he remembered or erasing any symbol to replace it with another. I hoped he knew what he was doing.

Daisuke sighed. ‘It’s done. I’ll paint it myself actually, the distance between each symbol and their sizes should be the same, so it’s better if one person does it.’

Using Ahio’s measurement, Daisuke walked around the pit, crouching every now and then to push away the fake grass and draw a new symbol. The rest of us moved to the centre away from the runes.

Fifteen more to go.

What was the special swordsman doing now? Is she already on her way back or was her carriage parked further away?

Ten more to go.

What if she finds us awake, drawing witch’s runes on the ground? There’s nowhere to hide, she’d shoot us down like last time. Did Dr Chiasa have more of the antidote?

Five more to go.

I shook my head. No, no, we’d hear her footsteps if she approached, especially if she came here with more swordsmen like Dr Chiasa suspected. Could we erase the symbols in time to pretend as though we were still sedated? My heart drummed with fury. What was taking Daisuke so long?

‘Done.’ he said, standing up and pocketing the brush and ink. ‘It’s your turn now, Dr Chiasa, Tsubasa.’

Tsubasa took in a deep breath and nodded, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses, while Dr Chiasa clenched her jaw with resolution. ‘What should I do?’ she asked.

‘Come over here to the first rune, to absorb.’ Daisuke said, pointing to his right. ‘The one that looks like a circle.’

She stepped forward and looked at Daisuke, an eyebrow raised.

‘Just hold your palm out, like you’re going to shoot something out of it into the circle-- That’s it.’ He turned to Tsubasa. ‘You just have to push her inner spirit through her palms and into the circle.’

Tsubasa nodded and closed his eyes, perspiration dotting his forehead. His face scrunched up as the seconds flew by.

‘Ah!’ Dr Chiasa said, as a blue light broke through the darkness. It swirled around her palm, vanishing a few centimetres away.

‘Open your eyes, Tsubasa, you’re not directing it to the circle!’ Daisuke snapped.

The older boy sighed and did what he was told, clenching his fists as sweat rolled down his nose and cheeks.

This time, the light shot down to the ground instead of wandering around aimlessly. The symbols lit up one by one, each a vivid electric blue.

‘Urgh.’ Dr Chiasa clutched the arm with her other hand, her face scrunching up with pain. The veins on that limb were bulging, and her skin broke out with red bruises.

The light coming from the palm flickered to a stop. Tsubasa gazed at her arm with wide eyes.

‘It’s okay, Tsubasa!’ Dr Chiasa said as the blue of the symbols began to dim. ‘It’s just a bruise, keep going!’

With another deep breath, he clenched his fists and concentrated.

The light beamed onto the ground again, brightening up the symbols to their previous vivid colour and spreading to the adjacent runes.

The bruises spread across Dr Chiasa’s skin, sometimes breaking into small open wounds. But she bit down her lip, clutching her arm with an iron grip. It must hurt like hell. But if she made a sound, Tsubasa would stop again. His eyes were focused on her palm and nothing else.

By the time the final rune, a simple line meaning to link, glowed blue, a patchwork of red and blue had worked its way up Dr Chiasa’s right arm, her neck and even over her jaw. Her lip was bust on one side as she continued to hold her arm over the symbol.

The earth rumbled below us.

With a jerk, the ground shot up. We fell, clutching each other for dear life as the walls sprang past us. What if the ground kept moving up? Did the spell have a way of knowing when to stop? My heart raced. Stop thinking of weird things!

The floor ground to a halt, perfectly level with the rest of the earth.

‘We-We’re out,’ Ahio chuckled, lying on his back as Tsubasa retched into the fake grass.