Mirae nodded. Pippa’s idea was one Mirae had already planned; clearing the path was what her puppets were for.

  Raising a hand, she signalled for the construct to move, and it stepped away, footfalls echoing off the rough stone of the puzzle room as it approached the open door.

  The luminescent figure walked into the shadows, darkness consuming it. Mirae’s fists clenched. Beyond that door waited either another passage, or—

  A sharp jerk came from the back of her mind, and the connection to the puppet began fading.

  Then, an arrow burst from the doorway.

  It sliced through the air with a whistle, shaft spinning, its iron tip catching the dim light. The projectile raced past the table, just missing Pippa, and buried itself in Harry’s arm with a wet thud.

  The boy screamed, stumbling backwards. His hand flew to the shaft jutting from his bicep, blood already welling around the puncture, dark droplets pattering onto stone.

  “Harry!” Mrs Strongmail’s voice cracked as she rushed forward.

  Mirae’s eyes went wide. Her puppet had disappeared. An arrow had come through. But surely the trap hadn’t been a single arrow—that would mean there were more in there, and the puppet had absorbed nearly all of them. Dozens, maybe. She looked at Pippa.

  The girl’s eyes were wide, and her face drained of colour.

  “I was wrong,” Pippa muttered, the words barely audible.

  Her gaze drifted back to the table. Above it, the orbiting construction shuddered, disconnecting the attached piece. Then it fell and struck the table’s surface with a heavy thunk. The blocks that made up the key shape separated, pieces scattering across the stone.

  Meanwhile, Mrs Strongmail had already reached Harry. She grabbed his shirt at the shoulder, fingers working at the fabric. With a sharp tear, she ripped the sleeve free, wrapping it around the wound. The makeshift bandage darkened immediately, soaking through.

  “It’s nothing,” Harry said, voice tight. He was trying to steady his breathing and failing.

  Mirae moved toward Pippa. Her friend stood frozen, fingers trembling as they hovered over the scattered blocks. The girl who’d been so confident moments before, who’d solved every puzzle with that eager smile, now looked like she might shatter.

  “Are you alright?” Mirae asked.

  Pippa’s eyes stayed locked onto the blocks.

  This puzzle was her first failure. All the other trials had proceeded cleanly, relatively so anyway. The door puzzles she’d solved with no consequences. The golem riddle, she’d figured it out within moments. Yet this puzzle, which now lay scattered before her, had stumped her.

  Pippa’s hand moved forward, fingers shaking as they touched one of the odd-shaped blocks.

  “Pippa,” Mirae tried again, reaching out. Her hand stopped halfway. She didn’t know how to comfort this. She couldn’t say you’ll get it next time—she didn’t know how much Pippa really understood right now. Another failure could mean something worse. It was a miracle it hadn’t been worse already. Her puppet had stepped in and disappeared. If one of them had gone through that door instead—

  Her friend understood that. The shaking made it clear. But panic clouded thoughts and made it impossible to see answers where they needed to be seen. Which meant Pippa would most likely get another one wrong.

  “I’m good, Mirae.” Pippa’s voice shook as she picked up a block. She looked over to Harry.

  The boy was back on his feet, clutching at his arm with a grimace. He’d moved several paces away from the path of the leftmost door, where the arrow had come from. Probably for the best, given that standing there had nearly killed him.

  Mirae reached into the back of her mind, pulling on that familiar sensation of [Moonlight Marionette]. Light coalesced at her side, particles gathering until they formed a human-shaped figure. The puppet solidified, its pale glow washing across the puzzle room.

  Pippa looked back. “I’m going to try again. I think I’ve got it this time.” The weak smile she gave inspired no confidence in Mirae.

  Pippa didn’t have it. Mirae suspected the next attempt would be a guess, though a guess built on a slightly firmer foundation than the first. It was probably best to prepare for another round of arrows.

  Mirae’s gaze moved to the two remaining doors. She tried to calculate trajectories—where would the arrows fly from? Harry was out of the firing line now, thankfully. But the table sat directly within it. If Pippa failed again, she’d be in harm’s way.

  Though with the last time, there had been a few moments before the puppet disappeared. If something was going to happen, it wouldn’t happen immediately.

  Probably.

  Pippa worked faster this time, hands moving with more certainty even as they trembled. She connected blocks in a different pattern—a wider base, vertical pieces extending upward like a tower. She added smaller cubes to the sides, creating something that looked almost like a throne. The symbols on each side of the chair-like structure aligned as she pressed them together, forming continuous patterns that spiralled around the construction.

  Holding it up, Pippa sighed.

  The structure floated from her hands, drifting toward the central block. Click. It connected. The entire assembly began rotating faster than before, with the newly added pieces orbiting in a complex pattern.

  A grinding sound echoed through the room.

  The middle door swung inward.

  Mirae’s heart kicked against her ribs. That grinding—stone on stone. She’d heard it before. Her muscles tensed. Golems. Had to be. But she’d dealt with them before, in the passages. As long as there weren’t too many—

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  Heavy footsteps thundered on stone. Multiple. Synchronized.

  From the darkness emerged five stone golems.

  Mirae’s stomach dropped.

  Three would be tough but manageable. She’d handled three just moments before, albeit with her vines to control the fight. But she hadn’t had time to top off her mana and had barely recovered.

  Five of them. Even with all four puppets, the golems would outnumber them by one. And she’d never engaged the golems physically herself. Without vines to hold them down, they would tear her puppets apart. Even if she could re-summon them, she wouldn’t have time while fighting.

  “Get behind me,” she said, her voice carrying in the cramped space.

  Pippa stepped away from the table. Mrs Strongmail moved over, Harry in tow.

  “I can help,” Harry said, seemingly forgetting about his wound. Sincerity shone in those eyes, a look of genuine bravery that would’ve been admirable in different circumstances.

  She couldn’t let him. Those creatures had nearly torn her puppets limb from limb, and they had the strength of Gravity Forging-Three, perhaps beyond. If they got their hands on Harry—he wasn’t even Gravity Forging-One yet—they’d rip his arms off and beat him to death with them.

  “No, stay there.”

  She stepped forward. Reached into the back of her mind again. The strain of summoning another puppet slowed her thoughts—not enough to be disadvantageous, but definitely noticeable. Like trying to think through a light fog. Her mana churned inside her, responding to her will. She clenched her fingers, readying herself to call more of her purple vines.

  The stone golems stopped in a straight line. Dead eyes fixed on the group.

  Then they charged.

  Mirae shot a hand out. Her puppets moved to intercept, and purple vines exploded from the floor in a crisscrossing web. They wrapped around legs, caught ankles. Two golems staggered. A third crashed down, its stone body slamming into the floor with a crack that sent vibrations through the room.

  Her puppets fell upon them.

  Luminescent fists pummeled stone. One puppet drove its knee into a downed golem’s head. Another grabbed a golem’s arm, wrenching it back at an angle that made stone grind. The remaining two golems broke through the vines, tearing free with brute force. They charged at the puppets from the sides.

  One of her constructs spun. Too slow. A golem slammed into it, its stone fist connecting with the puppet’s torso. The impact sent it stumbling. The second golem closed in from behind.

  They grabbed it. One golem seized its right arm. The other clamped onto its left.

  They pulled.

  Panic flared through Mirae’s connection to the puppet. She felt the strain—not physical pain, but an awareness of imminent destruction, of being torn apart. Mirae reached deeper into her mana pool. Deeper than she probably should have.

  The power poured into her vines.

  The floor beneath the two golems erupted.

  Purple tendrils covered in leaves burst forth in a massive tangle, each one as thick as her thigh. They wrapped around the golem on the left—around its legs, its torso, its arms—and yanked downward. The creature had no time to resist. The vines pulled it into the stone floor as if the ground had turned liquid. Rock swallowed it whole. Then compressed. A grinding crunch echoed through the room as stone crunched against stone.

  Her puppet, with its arm now free, slammed its fist into the remaining golem’s face, breaking from its grip.

  Mirae’s vision swam. Her mana pool had plummeted, the reserves draining so fast she could feel the emptiness spreading through her body. Cold. Hollow. Like she’d bled her mana clean. She most definitely couldn’t do that again.

  The fight continued.

  A golem’s fist caught one of her puppets across the face. The construct’s head snapped to the side. It recovered, driving its own fist into the golem’s midsection. Cracks spider-webbed across stone. Another puppet joined in—two against one now. They hammered at the cracks until the golem’s torso split. It collapsed into pieces.

  Two golems remained upright, plus the one still tangled in her initial vines.

  One of the standing golems grabbed a puppet’s arm. It wrenched hard. Stone fingers dug into luminescent flesh. The puppet’s arm tore free at the shoulder with a sound like ripping fabric.

  Mirae sent her other two puppets forward. They hit the golem simultaneously, one high, one low. The impact drove it backwards. It stumbled over the vines still covering the floor. The puppet with one arm didn’t hesitate—it charged, driving its remaining fist into the golem’s face repeatedly. Once. Twice. Three times. The stone head cracked. Shattered.

  The golem fell.

  One left standing. With the other still trapped in vines but struggling to rise.

  Her three functional puppets converged on the standing golem. It tried to fight—even landed one solid blow that sent a puppet sprawling—but three against one was too much. They grappled it, each seizing a different limb, pulling in opposite directions. Vines wrapped around its legs, holding it in place. The golem’s torso couldn’t withstand the strain. Stone split. The body came apart.

  The last golem finally tore free from the initial vines.

  Three puppets turned on it.

  The fight ended quickly. Coordinated strikes. No mercy. Stone fragments scattered across the floor.

  Silence.

  Mirae’s legs gave out.

  She slumped to the ground, catching herself with her hands. Her puppets moved immediately, forming a defensive line in front of her, blocking the last remaining door. But their formation felt distant, her control over them tenuous. Her mind was hazy. Mud—that was what her thoughts moved like. She tried to reach for her mana to summon more vines.

  Nothing. The well was dry.

  “Are you alright, Mirae?”

  Footsteps thundered across stone. Pippa slid to a stop at her side, eyes running over Mirae’s body, searching for injuries, as if looking for anything that would explain why she’d collapsed.

  The look in her friend’s eyes sent a sharp pang through Mirae’s chest.

  She shouldn’t look this weak. This pathetic. If Hector were here, he wouldn’t be in this state. He would’ve stood tall, providing that steady presence for them all to shelter under, that certainty that everything would be fine.

  Mirae raised a hand, resting it on Pippa’s shoulder. “I’m alright.” The words came out rougher than intended.

  She struggled to her feet. Her muscles ached with each movement, the mana drain palpable with every thud of her heart. It was like being stuffed inside a barrel, thrown around, then tossed onto cold cobblestones with pain and numbness wracking her in equal measure.

  “I’ll be fine. I just need a moment.”

  She met Pippa’s eyes, trying to project confidence she didn’t quite feel.

  And clearly, Pippa wasn’t buying it. She looped her arms under Mirae’s and helped steady her, a look of confusion settling across her features as she glanced toward the door the golems had emerged from. “I’m sorry, Mirae. I don’t know what happened. By the Great Lake, I was pretty sure I had it.”

  Mirae nodded. She’d been pretty sure Pippa didn’t, but she couldn’t very well tell Pippa she had no faith in her abilities. She just hoped the girl had at least learned from the mistake she’d made.

  Her gaze moved over her shoulder to the floating shape above the table. The piece Pippa had constructed fell away, dropping back to the stone surface. It broke apart on impact, fragments scattering.

  Mrs Strongmail walked over with Harry, teeth gritted with pain in tow. Concern pulled at the older woman’s lips. Her eyes narrowed as they ran over Mirae. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”

  Mirae shook her head, raising her hand. “I’m fine. Just catching my breath.”

  If anything, it would probably be better to sit and meditate. A few minutes would get at least some mana back, though being fully topped off would take hours. Hours she wasn’t sure they had. Her gaze moved to the door they’d entered through. Beyond it, golems probably still prowled the maze. Maybe they even stood outside, waiting for some arbitrary condition to be met before they’d barge in and start brutalising them.

  And it would be a massacre. In her current state, she’d put up a fight for maybe a few moments before they tore her puppets apart. Then her. Then her friends.

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