The first shot hit Binam in his shoulder; the second missed him. He staggered away, clutching his shoulder and screaming.

Caen grabbed the sacks of monster parts and flung them away. He took out his revolver.

Dari conjured a curved barrier of wind and diverted two thick arcs of lightning before the barrier collapsed.

Ellu turned her attention to Affen, slamming him with packed sand. Zeris stood behind Ellu and Dari, emptying the rest of her cylinder into the werewolf.

Hez was running towards Zeris from behind, glowing shortswords extended to either side of her.

Caen shot at the woman.

The first one hit her in the side. She jerked to her left with an evident burst of a Body-enhancement spell. Caen's second bullet missed her.

She reoriented towards him, running at breakneck speed, buckler raised to shield her face.

His next bullet hit her at center mass. She staggered to the side and began running erratically, making unnaturally sharp veers and feints, each one empowered by magic.

He hit her twice at center mass and missed his last shot, which was aimed at her legs.

Caen slammed the gun back into its holster, grabbed a small waterskin which had been mixed with liberal amounts of pepper cumin, and filled his mouth with it, careful not to swallow any.

He tossed the waterskin, then retrieved two glass vials from the belt bag that he kept his chymical supplies in. Bracing himself for the pain, Caen flickered Soul-sense.

Like clockwork, Hez stumbled. He flung the vials at her one at a time. She sliced through the first, and a cloud of reagent stained her forearm. The second bottle hit her shoulder in an explosion of acidic goo.

The top half of her body erupted into flames. Hez shrieked, letting go of one of her shortswords. She pulled off a section of the fire away from her body, confirming that she was a Fire practician.

Caen leaped backwards, flickering Soul-sense and interrupting her working once more. Her screams worsened, but she still managed to pull off the remaining flames. The compound on her skin would continue to produce a burning sensation, however.

Caen's head was aching furiously from all the activations of Soul-sense, and his vision was starting to blur from the pepper cumin in his mouth. Hez ran at him, babbling incoherently in rage. She was a Fire practician and though her skin was red and crinkled, she looked far less harmed than she should have been. There were scorch marks on her armor, but her hair and eyebrows were still intact.

She began covering the last few steps between them with obvious spurts of Body-enhancement, her shortsword no longer in reverse grip. Caen had already retrieved his backup gun, a pocket pistol. It had a terribly short range and only two bullets.

Hez got close enough, blade raised. He flickered Soul-sense. She stumbled, just as he shot her twice in the knee.

As he holstered the gun, he unsheathed his own sword and flickered Soul-sense one last time. She struck awkwardly with her weapon, body unempowered. Caen parried her blade to the side with great effort and still felt vibrations run through his bones from the impact. Muscles twinged in his already injured ribs and forearm. Caen spat the pepper cumin mixture in her face and leaped away. Hez screamed, limping away and rubbing at her eyes.

Sheathing his sword, Caen retreated further, glancing to his right where Zeris was pelting Affen with pellets of flame from behind Ellu. He returned his attention to his own fight, already reloading his pocket pistol.

Hez was panting heavily. Her footwork and coordination were worsened by the injuries she’d sustained, but Caen was not foolish enough to take on a Body-enhancer in a melee fight. Even an injured and clearly unskilled one would gut him with ease.

He grabbed another vial and tossed it at her. As she ducked out of the way, still rubbing at her face with the arm bearing her buckler, he shot at the same knee he'd hit earlier. The first bullet missed, but the next hit its target. She fell with a growl, but still covered her head with the buckler.

He moved backwards, reloading the gun again. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed two shadlings gliding into the midst of the others. Two-tails, the both of them. Though one of the shadelings was missing a tail, a bubbling mass of shadow beside it.

It felt like the cue everyone had been waiting for. They all disengaged immediately.

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Hez hesitated only a moment before putting her back to him and shambling for Affen, who had engaged one of the two-tails.

Zeris turned and ran, Ellu and Dari hard on her heels.

Caen grabbed his backpack, Zeris's too.

Affen howled, Binam screamed something indecipherable at him.

Ellu was injured. Her basket had been shredded but not utterly destroyed. Her robes were burnt. Dari's clothes, too, were scorched, and he looked like a man who had been squeezed dry of life. He had an arm over Ellu’s shoulder.

“Let's get out of here,” Caen said as Zeris reached him. She was uninjured.

“Grab the sacks,” Ellu commanded, a step behind.

“Lady, you must be out of your fucking mind,” Zeris said without looking back.

Dari and Ellu dashed after them. “Wait,” Dari rasped. “Strength in numbers.”

“Then keep up,” Caen called over his shoulder, barely slowing.

Ellu and Dari struggled to move quickly enough as the four of them headed back the way they'd come.

Minutes after they'd escaped the clearing, Caen could still hear Affen's howls. He reloaded his revolver as they moved and downed a vial of Rien stimulant to help with his migraine.

Their group sought only to deter the occasional one-tail they came across. Zeris kept shadelings away from them by occasionally conjuring whips of flames around the group. Caen only shot the more aggressive ones.

Dari and Ellu were completely out of mana.

In a half hour of hurried trudging, they exited the dense woodlands, and the Aperture was soon in sight. Caen spotted a few Valiant parties in the distance. He kept glancing back behind them, expecting Hez and her companions to come chasing after them. That didn't happen.

* * *

They walked through the Aperture. Night had well and truly fallen, but the area around the archway was illuminated by glass orbs of placid reshent atop poles that stuck up from the ground.

While Ellu and Dari relayed what had happened in the Plane to the Watchers, Caen and Zeris left quickly, making their way down to the train tracks. They were just Gatherers caught in the middle of unscrupulous Valiant activity after all. They’d been told that a representative of the guild would contact them within a week.

Caen had calibrated his watch as soon as they'd stepped out of the Aperture, and the next train was fast arriving. Bare minutes after reaching the tracks, the shrill squealing of the train's brakes could be heard from miles away.

Trains in the Dren Province never stopped around Apertures. They were mandated by law to slow down significantly to what felt like jogging speed when they came within a certain distance of Planes. This allowed Valiants to climb off and onto the trains. It was supposed to be a safety measure of some kind for Valiants, but Caen suspected its true purpose was to make the train drivers and passengers feel at ease.

He and Zeris grabbed onto the handle of a car and hauled themselves onto the train.

A tube of placid reshent ran across the center of the ceiling, illuminating the inside of the car with yellow light. There were a few people in here, and several of them were watching him and Zeris with interest.

Zeris sat in a seat by the entrance and dozed off in seconds. Caen remained standing there so he could better stay awake. His mind no longer buzzed from the rush of combat, his headache had barely lessened, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. Airhorns were prohibited at night. They'd likely miss their stop if he slept off.

An hour later, they were climbing up the stone steps leading into the commune. It was much more silent than usual, though Caen rarely ever stayed out this late. Zeris was barely awake.

Caen waved at an elderly man watering the plants around his porch. Some people had the most amusing nighttime habits.

He took his boots off at the antechamber of their house. Zeris's notes and books had been neatly gathered and piled up on one side of the table. She pulled out a chair and sat there, reaching for her journal. Caen knew she would be asleep in moments, and she knew he knew, so he didn't draw any attention to it.

“Goodnight,” he mumbled.

She grunted, mumbling something back.

When he walked past the counter, he realized how hungry he was. He grabbed some fruit from the bowl and decided he would just come back down for a proper meal after he'd taken a long bath. He also opened the cooling box and grabbed some ice, which he packed into a dishrag for the soreness in his left arm and side.

Caen dragged himself up the stairs and into his room. He shunned the wall lamps, opting instead to cast a simple spell. His fingers flitted slowly through distinct gestures as his spirit sluggishly flowed into the requisite patterns. After four failed attempts, the working took.

Sparks danced around his index finger, which he hurriedly tapped against the wick of the scented candle by the wall. An orange flame bloomed upon it, illuminating his room.

He peeled off his armor and clothes, then sat on the floor, feeling the exhaustion of the day. It all seemed to crash onto him all at once. He placed the cold compress on his side, wincing just a little.

Four bloodlines—the fourth of which remained a mystery—and an even more mysterious sensing ability.

He almost couldn't believe it. And it really shouldn't have meant as much to Caen as it did. It shouldn't have made him cry hot tears of joy there on the floor of his room. Shouldn't have roused so much hope and anticipation in him.

A part of his mind nursed dread. He would wake up tomorrow morning, and nothing would come of these startling discoveries. Or worse yet, it'd all simply be gone, and he'd be just as doomed at practicing magic as he'd always been, destined to go however many decades without affinities.

But Caen felt desperate hope for the first time in so long.