Henry took off at a sprint toward the exit of the town. The gate was just barely lifting in the morning light, but Henry didn’t wait for the shift change. He stuck out his tongue at the guards he passed, laughing—especially since it was the same pair Elara had humiliated the day before.

  The trek back to the forest was a long one, and not something Henry particularly enjoyed.

  He pushed forward, his steps quickening into a sprint. Strength coursed through his body—this body that had once been so frail, so consumed by disease. Now, he was faster than he’d ever been, each step eating up the distance between him and the towering mist spout. The speed was exhilarating, almost intoxicating, and for a fleeting moment, confidence surged through him.

  This time, he thought, gripping the spear in his left hand. Its weight was balanced, familiar. This time, I can stop her.

  Mist energy curled off the weapon as he ran, silvery tendrils steaming into the air with every motion. The spear pulsed faintly, almost like it was alive, as if it shared the frantic rhythm of his heart.

  But doubt still clung to the edges of his mind, nagging, whispering. I don’t have the full set of armor. And I have no idea what the new pieces will even do.

  The thoughts snagged at his resolve like thorny vines. He tightened his grip on the spear, forcing them aside. There was no time for hesitation. Every second wasted was a second Sarah spent in danger.

  “Keep up, Elara!” he called, urgency sharpening his voice as he picked up speed.

  “Oh, sweet child,” she cooed from somewhere above him. “You think you can outrun me? I exist in the space between moments.”

  Henry barely had time to roll his eyes before she started teleporting. Not in a straight line. Not with any sense of logic. No, she popped in and out of existence with wild abandon—one moment balancing on his shoulder like a deranged parrot, the next flickering a dozen yards ahead, upside down, arms outstretched like a bat.

  “Conserve your energy,” he snapped, trying to ignore the unsettling blink-blink-blink of her rapid teleportation. “We might need it.”

  Elara popped back into existence inches from his face, drifting backward as if she were reclining on an invisible couch. She stretched lazily, sighing. “But Henry,” she mused, completely ignoring his request, “have you ever considered that clouds are just really smug water?”

  Then she somersaulted into nonexistence again, her laughter ringing in his ears.

  Henry exhaled sharply, resisting the urge to swat at the empty space where she’d just been. Just keep running, he told himself. Just keep running.

  The rocky terrain shifted, giving way to the tangled embrace of the woods. The air thickened, the mist slithering along the ground in sluggish, unnatural coils. Henry’s grip on the spear tightened as a realization began to scratch at the back of his mind, small at first but growing sharper with each step.

  “This Mist Fount we’re headed for,” he said slowly, unease creeping into his voice, “it’s where we met, isn’t it?”

  Elara, who had been hovering ahead, froze mid-flight like someone had hit pause on reality. She turned to face him, her expression uncharacteristically still.

  “Oh yes,” she said, voice hushed. “That’s where all the mist started. It’s where Arraiza died... and why the wand was there.”

  Henry’s chest tightened. He had known—felt—that this journey was leading back to something significant, but the weight of it landed harder than he expected. The place where everything began. Where this nightmare took its first breath.

  He glanced down at the Wand of Arraiza, its surface dull and muted, and felt the familiar knot of questions tighten in his mind. Why was the wand left behind? What really happened to Arraiza? Would this place hold any answers—or just more horrors?

  “Does it bother you?” Henry asked, his voice quieter than he intended.

  Elara was silent for a beat too long. Then, with a sudden inhale, she spun around midair, arms outstretched like she was making a snow angel in nothing. “Bother me? Bother me? Oh, Henry, sweet, na?ve Henry—does it bother you that your heart keeps beating even though it will, statistically speaking, betray you someday?”

  Henry blinked. “I—what?”

  She tapped her chin, her eyes flickering with a strange, distant amusement. “It’s where I became me, after all. Well, this version of me. I mean, I may have been born from my mother’s heart, but this—this is where I really woke up. Like when you realize you’ve been chewing the same bite of food for way too long and it suddenly tastes wrong.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  She gave a twirl midair, her wings buzzing erratically. “So, you know—full circle! A perfect little narrative arc. We love those, don’t we?”

  Her grin was too wide, her movements too fast, too bright, like a candle burning at both ends. But Henry saw it—that flicker of something in her eyes. A crack in the mask. Something old and raw and not-quite-buried.

  Then, the Wand spoke.

  "This is where I died."

  Henry nearly stumbled mid-step.

  The Wand had been quiet for so long, letting Elara dominate the conversation, which was odd in itself. But now its voice carried something… not quite sadness, but close, like a memory worn thin from too much handling.

  Elara didn’t even blink.

  “And you broke everything,” she said matter-of-factly, like she was commenting on a spilled cup of tea or the fall of a long-forgotten empire. Henry shot her a look, waiting for elaboration. He got nothing. Just a dreamy little hum as she twirled midair and floated deeper into the cave, her wings buzzing at an uneven rhythm, like a song only she could hear.

  The air thickened as they walked, pressing in, dense and syrupy. A cloying metallic tang curled in the back of Henry’s throat, blending with the faint, sour rot of mist corruption.

  "This place reeks worse than an ogre’s sock pile," the Wand grumbled, its usual rasping voice shifting into the distinct tone of a cranky old woman. "Ugh, I can taste the mold in the air. What kind of barbarian lets a place fester like this?"

  Henry sighed, adjusting his grip on the Wand. The weight of everything—the armor awkwardly slung over his back, the spear, the sheer absurdity of his life—pressed down on him. "I don’t think anyone’s had time for a deep clean, considering, you know, prison of a ruined statue thing."

  The Wand let out a gravelly huff, the kind a scandalized grandmother might make upon seeing someone put milk before the tea. "Disgraceful!" It crackled like dry parchment, absolutely appalled. "Back in my day, people at least had the decency to keep their eldritch horrors in properly maintained cages. This? This is just lazy, Elara."

  Elara, already zipping ahead, turned in midair, her wings flickering like a glitch in the matrix. "Oh yes, let’s all pause to mourn the true tragedy—the decline of responsible dungeon maintenance. Gone are the golden days of well-polished crypts and thoughtfully curated nightmare vaults!" She clutched her chest dramatically, voice thick with mock despair. "Alas, where have all the meticulously dusted oubliettes gone?"

  Henry groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "I swear, if we all survive this, I’m putting you both in a box."

  Elara gasped, scandalized. "Henry! You flatter me."

  The Wand, meanwhile, only scoffed. "At least line it with velvet. I have standards."

  Henry shook his head and trudged forward, his armor clanking obnoxiously with every step, announcing their arrival to every possible nightmare lurking in the dark.

  Elara zipped up to the wall, fingers dancing over the rough stone in a series of rapid, erratic movements. It took Henry a second to realize that she wasn’t searching for anything in particular—she was just pressing random spots like a maniac trying to brute-force a puzzle.

  Henry narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t seem like a real strategy.”

  Elara turned her head at an unnatural angle, grinning like a cat who had already eaten the canary. “You’d be surprised how often mash buttons until something works is the superior method.”

  Henry opened his mouth to argue—because surely that was not how ancient magical mechanisms were supposed to function—when the entire wall rumbled.

  A deep, resonant clunk echoed through the corridor, followed by the slow, grinding scrape of stone on stone. Dust and ancient debris shook loose from the ceiling, filtering down in thin streams as a previously invisible seam split open before them. The passage beyond was narrow, its jagged edges revealing a darkness that felt thicker than normal shadow, like something was waiting inside it. A faint, humid breeze curled out, carrying the scent of old magic and something metallic—something faintly, intrinsically wrong.

  Elara turned to Henry, eyes alight with smug triumph. “See? Foolproof.”

  Henry exhaled through his nose, unimpressed. “One of these days, you’re going to press the wrong thing, and we’re both going to explode.”

  Elara waved a dismissive hand. “Eh. Only a sixty percent chance of that.”

  Henry gave her a look. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”

  At first, Henry was convinced this was a wild goose chase.

  Nothing about this place screamed important. The passage wasn’t grand or ceremonial—no intricate carvings, no forgotten relics, not even a single ominous inscription warning them to turn back. It was just… a damp, forgotten corridor, half-smothered under years of dust and neglect.

  This wasn’t how things were supposed to look.

  This was meant to be a linchpin of reality, a keystone in the world’s balance, and instead, it looked like the kind of place you’d find an old janitor and a disappointed mop bucket.

  But the deeper they went, the more that feeling shifted.

  The air thickened, pressing against Henry’s skin in a way that had nothing to do with temperature. The faint, acrid scent of mist corruption clung to the walls, nearly imperceptible—but there, woven into the stone like a bruise on reality itself.

  And then there was the stillness. No echoes. No shifting rock. No distant drips of water against stone. Just a silence so perfect that it made the hair on the back of Henry’s neck stand up. His grip on the Wand tightened. The Wand, usually brimming with unsolicited opinions, had gone noticeably quiet.

  Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, it muttered, “Oh. Oh. Well, that’s… horrifying.”

  Elara, who had been floating on her back and making vague swimming motions through the air, lifted her head.

  “Ooooh, now that’s the kind of reaction I like,” she cooed, spinning lazily in place. Then she clapped her hands together, eyes sparkling with a very specific kind of delight. “I cannot wait to find out what’s going to traumatize us next.”