He bent forwards, retching blood and foam. Isla grasped him from behind, calling his name. It was all a quick haze, and before she ever fully understood what was happening, he slumped back into her arms and stilled.

She must have been screaming, for she heard the distinct stomp of footsteps over hardwood. The door was kicked open. A man in servant gears much akin to hers, long blade drawn.

Servants do not keep blades.

Isla flared her core, shot straight for the dark-eyed bladesman. His shield held. Unlike the intruder in her room, his was fresh without the distraction of runes, and he had been prepared for her. But Pepper had skirted the door behind him and, just as the bladesman swung, sent a stream of fire like Isla had never seen before.

Golden, serpentine, so vivid and hot her sleeves frayed to ash when she shielded herself from its brightness.

Her arm stung from the force of it; she could feel strips of skin melting. The bladesman dropped, a charred lump of something that was once human.

Pepper choked. Its fire died in a wisp of smoke.

Isla covered her face, as best she could ignoring the foul odour emanating from the blackened corpse. Her thoughts were only on one.

'Kiet!' She shook his body. Pepper's flames had warmed him, but a hardness was starting to creep through. No. She turned his face towards her. Eyes mercifully shut. A speck of froth in the corner of his lips, and a sharp, familiar scent almost disguised underneath the stench of burnt hair and grease.

No. No. No. He did not deserve to go like this. Not when he had so much to offer.

Pepper was suddenly there, nipping at her feet.

Somewhere deep in the belly of the residence, a bell was tolling.

This was her fault. She embraced Kiet's unmoving body. 'I'm sorry.' This place did not deserve you.

The poison must have been for her. But how did the rajini know she was here? Had her spies seen her fleeing from her bedchamber? Why did they not intercept her before?

It made no sense, but there was no time to question. And no time to cry. Pepper pulled on her skirts. Isla gently pried Kiet off her, his chest glistening from her tears.

The alarm had been sounded, and she knew how it looked. Her, a girl in servant garbs, and two dead bodies on the floor. She rose, reluctant to leave him there. Her heart empty.

Perhaps I should stay. Wait for the guards. Let them hang me for hericide. Have it all done with and over!

Isla flinched. Pepper had scurried up her length and bit hard on her earlobe.

With a shuddering breath, she snatched Kiet's map off the table and forced herself out.

The map was useless outside the labyrinths, and Isla found herself hopelessly lost. She heard the drumming of boots from one end of the hallway and fled to the opposite direction; saw a shadow emerging off one corner and turned into the other – it was by luck that she stumbled into a servant and overpowered her with a thought.

'Take me to the menagerie.' There was a feeble attempt of a struggle, but Isla crushed it without hesitation. 'The private way.'

The girl led her through a doorway and into the servant passages. Isla's heart was beating so loud she thought it must be reverberating through the cement walls. They passed two, three other servants, but neither looked twice at them. Isla had wiped the fear off her host's face, replacing it with a nondescript mask.

It was a long walk, and quiet enough that Isla's mind strayed constantly back to Kiet. She pinched herself hard. She could not mourn now.

They met the end of the hallway, where the ceiling rose above them and floor dropped below, connected by a steep, looping staircase. Voices came from the passage behind; masculine and brusque. Isla gave her guide a mental push, and they descended into the dark.

'Could you give us some light?' Isla whispered.

Pepper drew in a deep breath and hissed.

Nothing.

She scented a hint of something sulphuric, but the element was as flameless as damp kindling. 'You've exerted yourself.' She did not think it was possible. Is it to do with his growing corruption? Please, Pep. I can't worry about you, too. Not now.

Isla stumbled in the poor light until her eyes adjusted.

The salamander had been her one remaining hope. She was reliant on its power. Isla knew it, but could not bring herself to despair. She had become inured to the swelling dread in the pit of her stomach.

What was one more complication on top of everything else? Kiet was dead.

She reached for her shoulder and squeezed the element gently. 'I don't know how to fix you.' Kiet would've known what to do.

Isla choked on the thought. She missed him far more than she would have ever imagined.

A sudden brightness froze her. They had alighted from the stairs, and the servant had flung open a door, beyond which Isla could see the familiar bearings of the atrium galleries.

The hallway outside was clear. Isla pushed past the servant, allowing a slither of freewill to return. 'What's your name?'

'M-Madja.'

'Madja. Go. Speak of this to no one. If you do, if I see you again, I will kill you.'

Isla hurried towards the galleries, quickly reminded of the men standing guard over each archway.

Taking a deep breath, she lit her core and pooled as much theurgy as she could. It rolled in the back of her head, thunder waiting to burst.

Isla spread over the menagerie. Felt the beastly patterns of its inhabitants; several far more intelligent than others. All as equally inaccessible to her. But lining the outskirts were very human minds. She sensed a little over twenty of them, all bearing shields of varying degrees of strength. A couple permeated with the empty pull of the void. Isla avoided those, and chose only five of the guards closest to her. She could not make the same mistake as Pepper.

Just as she approached the menagerie from its postern, she broke into her targets. Some were powerful – their minds thrummed with the weight of their theurgy – but not as powerful as her. Their shields shattered, and as Isla strode into the atrium, they abandoned their posts and made their way around the courtyard towards her.

An unmarked guard was slayed as one of Isla's thralls passed. Too far for Isla to see, but she felt his presence snuffed like a candle. Nineteen to go.

'You there!' Someone shouted. Isla turned long enough to count half a dozen guards emerging from the hallway behind her. 'Halt!'

Isla sighed. Five-and-twenty to go.

She broke into a run, disappearing into Rajini Amarin's menagerie as the guards gave chase. Shrubs closed in behind her. The path broke into several branches, and she took the one she thought would lead her to the mooncat.

A shaft whistled past her head. Quivered, as it buried deep into a trunk. Isla gasped; her theurgy slipped. It was brief, but enough for her puppets to revolt. They pushed against her, but she swiped them aside like a warhorse charging through a crowd. In a blink, she had them subdued.

The mooncat. The cage was just before her, its inhabitant pacing as though sensing unrest. If Kiet's right, the entrance to the labyrinths should be just east of here.

Isla caught a flurry of movement. An ape laughed from high upon the boughs. A shadow passed under the moonlight streaming in from the glass dome above.

Pepper chirped madly, drawing Isla's attention back to the courtyard – and the guard who was running up to meet her.

Not one of hers.

Kiet had said the guards would not be able to hear anything occurring in the menagerie from their posts. Someone must have notified them of her presence. Soon, they would all be swarming for her.

Isla drew her kitchen knife. Nothing compared to the guard's own blade, large enough to carve the head off her neck.

She could never defeat him, a man thrice her size, in a physical battle. But she did not mean to.

Isla bent by the mooncat's cage and pierced down into the runes framing it. 'Please,' she whispered; perhaps to the mooncat, perhaps a prayer.

The rune lit, bright enough to blind both Isla and the guard, and with the sound of splitting earth, cracked through its centre.

A satisfied roar filled the air, and when Isla squinted through the piercing white, the mooncat had grown exponentially larger. Large enough to fill its cage, and growing still. The bars shuddered under its bulk and, without the power of the runes, were rent asunder.

Metal flew in all directions. Isla fell back as a piece whisked over her. The guards had caught up behind her; their forerunner not as lucky.

The rest of his men froze – if not for the leader, motionless on the ground, then for the monstrous feline now baring its long, saber fangs. One whisked a ball of blue flame between his hands and made the mistake of hurling it towards the beast.

The attack landed full on the mooncat's back, leaving a trail of ember blazing through its thick coat.

The great cat hissed. Leapt over Isla – this creature twice as large as any royal carriage – and unleashed upon the guards its mighty vengeance.

Isla scrambled to her feet while they were thus occupied. Their screams sent a few uncaged birds fluttering from the trees. She left the sound of thrumming steel and crunching bone, her knife shaking in hand, fleeing eastward. Past a cage of rattling snakes, through a thicket of silver berries, until a sharp pain in the back of her thigh brought her sprawling down.

Two guards were sprinting towards her, one of whom was nocking another arrow. Isla crawled to her feet. Where were her men? She reached out for them, dug deeper into their very blood and bones. Hurry.

She stepped in as the first guard approached. Parried strong on his forte and twisted, delivering an open-palm blow to his trachea. Just the way Master Chendra had taught.

He gagged and crumpled to the ground. Behind him, the second guard let loose his arrow. Isla slid in time. The first of her pawns arrived. One took the archer out while Isla forced another to bury his sword into the spluttering guard at her feet.

The rest of her puppets came, eyes empty of all expression. Isla could hear them, if she cared to listen. A kaleidoscope of noise, muted as though under glass. Hums, howls, a gentle buzzing, all trying to break through. It will be over soon, she promised.

Her five pawns circled around her, forming a guard while she cut the tail off the arrow embedded deep in her thigh. She knew better than to remove it. The pain was unbearable, almost distracting her from the dull ache that had started to form in the base of her head.

Isla limped on. A marble arch peaked through the boughs further ahead. Her guards ringed her, few falling behind when two more men attacked from the south.

'Traitors!' one of the rajini's men cried.

The air fizzled with a charge of theurgy. The ground shook. Root and vine lifted itself from the undergrowth, stretching into life.

Isla cut through a snare of ivy. Her men hacked away at the roots that had risen to bind them. She pushed onwards. Behind her, swords clashed. Something heavy fell against the brush, and a burden lifted from Isla's head. She felt lighter. One voice less, pounding against the glass.

The trees cleared. Tiled stone replaced grass and earth, and Isla found herself facing the black maw arching through the gallery beyond.

Another presence faded from her grasp. She sighed at the sudden release, but her heart fell. Three men left. Two of whom were behind her. She urged one forwards, following close as he approached the labyrinths.

'Pep?' She drew the element from her pocket. It gave its best attempt, but still – nothing. 'That's all right. You'll get better.' I hope. Now that Kiet was gone, she did not know who else could fix the salamander.

Her guard lifted a torch from the entrance and lead them into the darkness.

Isla had expected someplace musty and damp, but the tunnel was cool, odourless. The air was crisp, and it calmed her to breathe in.

Their footsteps echoed, shadows bounced against the grazed wall. The ground broke into wide steps; steep and endless it swallowed them into the deep earth before gradually easing into a descending slope.

Isla allowed a moment of rest. She looked up for a glimpse of the entrance, but the blackness ate their surroundings so completely, it was impossible to see beyond a few paces.

She pulled out Kiet's map and studied it under the dancing light. Traps were marked, every chamber named. A web-coated torch on the wall ahead of them would supposedly call forth a barrage of spikes if lifted.

'Second turn south-bound.' Her voice bounced back, sounding much braver than she felt. Her torch-bearer took it as a command and cleared the way. 'Do not touch anything!' There was little use of warning them – puppets did not move unless their strings were pulled – but it gave Isla reassurance to say nonetheless.

It'd be much quicker to take the southern entrance. If Isla read the map correctly, Rajini Chei's section of the labyrinths started just a quarter of an hour's walk away. But with this leg ...

Isla winced. Somewhere behind them, she heard the tails of an echo. She turned to her rear guard. 'Carry me.'

He lifted her, and she filled them both with haste. As the two men took her deeper into the tunnels, Isla reached out for her last remaining thrall.

He was there, just by the entrance of the labyrinth, a speck of consciousness on the throes of death.

Someone had cut past him, mad with pursuit.

'Faster!' They only needed to lose their pursuers in the maze. They ignored the first fork in the tunnels, took a right in the next, and followed a series of turns whilst Isla perused the map. 'There, through that door!'

It took her torch-bearer all his weight to push through the solid, double-arched wood. The bottom rail groaned against the floor, wind gasped down Isla's face once the rear guard carried her in.

A light pressure of air whistled from a hollow somewhere above. The cavern was much larger than the tunnels they had passed. Kiet's map marked it as the defunct west wing of his house dungeons.

'Find the entrance to the guard chamber,' said Isla, motioning for her mule to set her down. She needed to sit. Her head was aching so, despite now keeping only two in her power. She had never used her theurgy in such length and magnitude before. If she lost control of them, now ... 'The door bears the insignia of Surikhand. All others are false exits and will send you down to the oubliettes if opened. Pass me your torch.'

She took the fire and knelt, searching for a groove in the floor. It was not difficult to find – it cut midway across the entire chamber, sinking deep into the stone. Isla dipped her finger and felt the unmistakable drip of oil.

She stepped back and lit the channel. Fire spread from one end to the other, an intense blaze against the darkness. With the sudden sound of sucking air, it contracted and diminished into a burning strip of sunset yellow.

Much better. Doors now stood in plain sight across the dungeon, just through a long row of prison cells. Rust and webs decorated every bar, each threshold inscribed with runes now broken and faded. Dust rose as they passed through.

Someone coughed somewhere ahead, breaking the silence. It took a moment before Isla remembered she was leading the company.
     

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