"This is it," said lsabella.

Christina turned to look at her. She was crouched in front of a patch of floor. At first glance, it looked like she was mocking her, but of course that couldn't be true.

She understood as she crouched down beside her and put her hand on said piece of ground.

What she noticed was not dirt or grass, but metal.

"Give me a hand," Christina said, looking over her shoulder at Amy.

They pulled back the grass, exposing the door.

She couldn't understand why Avery had stopped the train so close to the academy, but now she understood it all perfectly. She couldn't believe that they had built a base of operations just a stone's throw from the academy. That they had been so bold.

She would call them stupid, but clearly they hadn't been. Because no one had discovered anything.

Not until tonight.

She was using the plural because there was no way Avery was solely responsible for this.

Down there wouldn't be waiting for them, just a teacher gone mad, selling her soul to the Empire. There would be more of the same awaiting them that they had suffered during the attack. There seemed to be no end to this hell.

So what? What did it matter?

Nothing, of course. Nothing. He gripped the door handles and pushed back, trying to open it. But nothing, of course, they had made sure to lock it tight.

"I can break it," Amy suggested. Wrap it in ice, make it burst.

She could break it with her magic, too.

In fact, it would probably be faster and less noisy, though not by much, than letting Amy do it. But she had a feeling that she needed that. So Christina stood up and moved to the side.

"All yours," she said.

Amy did as she said. She wrapped the door in ice, which she blew into a thousand pieces with a swing of her sword.

Christina covered her ears, grimacing.

Impossible for anyone to not have heard that. The same thing would have happened if she'd ripped the door off with the force of her shadows, but... fuck.

She held her hands over her ears until the shower of ice shards ended.

Christina lowered her hands slowly. There was... too much silence.

She didn't know how to explain it, but it was disturbing for whatever reason. Not a single voice. No footsteps. If she didn't have this magic, she supposed the first thing she'd think of was that there were people waiting on the other side of the stairs, hiding, to ambush them.

But, within range at least, there were no people.

Amy and Isabella didn't have that benefit, so they were tense, expecting a fight at any moment. She had already revealed too much about shadow magic, things that were better kept quiet and a lie that might well haunt her for the rest of her life, so she waited for them to realize that they weren't going to attack them on their own.

When Amy lowered her sword, she knew what had happened.

"They're not coming," Amy said.

"No," she replied. "We'll have to go."

Isabella stepped into the middle of their path again, holding out her hands as if to physically stop her.

"This isn't just about a teacher who's lost her mind anymore. It's much bigger than that. Down there... I'm sure there are Empire soldiers waiting down there."

"A few days ago, we killed a lot of soldiers. Have you forgotten? What makes this different?"

"That you don't have to put yourself in danger. If you go in there, you won't come out. You'll die. And so will Amy."

"Don't underestimate me."

Isabella paused for a long moment, surprised.

"Do you think that boy..."

"Desmond. His name is Desmond!"

"Do you think Desmond would have wanted this?"

She was talking about him as if he were already dead. Or like they could just leave him for dead and walk away without looking back because there was no way to save him.

Christina pushed her aside.

"Get out of my way." She'd already wasted too much saliva and oxygen talking to this wall.

It wasn't a wall she could break down, and in any case, she didn't need to waste time trying to break it down.

Isabella put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing.

"I'm not going to ask again."

Christina locked her gaze with Isabella’s. After long seconds, Christina smiled.

And she brought to life the shadows of the forest, which grabbed the teacher, immobilizing her, leaving her helpless, before she could do anything.

Normally there should be an unbridgeable gulf between a teacher and a student.

Of course, otherwise it would be rather the other way around.

But Christina was cheating. As she had said, this was her domain. No one could oppose her in the dark of night.

"Christina!" Amy shouted, surprised, frightened. She supposed she was asking him to stop.

She didn't stop.

She slammed the teacher against the nearest tree until she fell unconscious. Then she made the shadows retreat, slowly dropping her to the ground.

She had opened a bleeding gash on Isabella’s forehead. The forehead bled heavily and easily, always giving the impression that it was a serious wound, but it was not. It was only striking.

"She'll be alright. Don't look at me like that."

"I understand why you did it. And I don't blame you. Don't get me wrong. She would have stopped us, but..."

Amy finished the sentence by shaking her head.

"Let's move on."

Together, they went down the stairs. They went from darkness to light.

■

Desmond awoke in a circle of light in the middle of absolute darkness, chained by thick metal chains to the walls.

Looking himself up and down, he checked that he was fine, that he had completely regenerated.

Of what had happened to him, not even a trace of pain remained.

Once again, the blessing of his savior had saved him.

He was beginning to have more "faith" in that ability, though his decision to fight as if he couldn't depend on it was the right one. At least until he could talk calmly with his savior and she would tell him the details.

He had thought that as if it was the most likely thing to happen, in this situation. Now he didn't just feel like a caged animal. He was a caged animal.

Desmond pulled on the chains with all his might, taut as a bow, but they only moved. They didn't bend or break.

And though he was alive, he wasn't one hundred percent, far from it. He wasn't ready for something like that. Not yet.

Desmond screamed his rage, and his scream echoed through those four walls as if he had lost his mind, as if nothing was really happening. As if there was no reason to feel this rage burning inside him.

When he finished, he was even more... empty than before. He coughed hard, several times. His throat ached.

His eyes closed.

After a while, which could have been a second or an eternity, he heard something. He heard...

"I'm glad to see you awake and full of energy."

The door opened, with the assassin on the other side. She walked in, smiling as if she had won. He admitted that she was probably right. That he could give no more of himself, despite his determination.