I saw into it long before we got to the hall where the main fighting was taking place. Holes were blown through several of the rooms, sparks still searing at the paint on the walls, filling the entire place with a bitter smoke.

"What's happening?" I cried.

"I don't know," Sir Osoro said. I glanced back at him. His face was plain again. Not handsome. Something had gone wrong.

We stumbled into the entryway. The dining hall's arched doorway acted as a portrait's frame, although the fighting spilled out from it through the front door and into the garden. Not much distinguished the garden from the front of the manor, as much of it had been blown away, only stacks of rubble hinting at where the walls had been.

"Sir Fayd!" Osoro pointed. Freckles was being held by several musing sorcerer elves near the edges of the fracas, a sash wrapped around his mouth. That pocket of the sorcerers was quiet. It was being eaten into as one and then another lining its edges would be cast on or cast against someone else. Like at the Avalon fight, I saw people cheering, laughing, and taking bets between shouting out encouragements and jeers.

Although a dozen personal vendettas were being settled, most of the storm circled around where it had started: Bernard and Winsor at the front of the room. Winsor was shored up with Azeria and a few others. Not many others. Not nearly as many as Bernard. They both had encircled themselves with cover, Winsor's group having flipped up a table. Bernard's stood behind the sizzling remains of Winsor's gift boxes. A giant snake slithered its way across the floor, a feather hat farcically placed on its head.

Despite his group being three times the size of Winsor's, Bernard was worse for wear. He hunched down, too scared to cast. Winsor, filled with righteous indignation, cast brutally and without regard to the fall out. Azeria was at his side. The dispute we'd been witnessing when we left had started a free-for-all.

Agent Goldwynn was still casting in full uniform, a triumphant laugh burst from the bird-like mask with every impact his words made. Quarzimi was tied to one of the chairs and shoved against a wall, his mask ripped off and left on the floor by his feet. Spells flew across the room as arguments flared. People fought about everything from tribute to affairs to stolen archaic tomes. I saw Victoria cast Fatima into a small rabbit. She lifted her painfully by the ears.

One person threw their Assistant into the way of a blast that charred their skin. Several of the helping staff laid injured on the floor, ignored by everyone. My eyes swept for Kluth's distinctive white uniform, but instead landed on Rorona. She was kneeling on the floor, holding someone to her and crying. Half a dozen others, colorfully dressed, were crowded around the same figure like a ring of flowers.

The cacophony was ear shattering. We were all transfixed by the spectacle, magic flashing like lightning behind heavy gray clouds. The Divinis stumbled into the room, and he cried out. His words were nonsense.

Winsor touched Azeria's arm to grab her attention. His face awoke with shock as he realized what had become of his celebration. Bernard peeked out from behind his table.

"Father? Why are you bleeding?" Winsor shouted and hopped from behind his cover. Azeria lunged after him, but her fingernails only grazed the fabric of his shirt. Winsor ran toward the Divinis.

Bernard peered over the edge of the ruined presents. Goldwynn's beak tracked Winsor's path across the room. He cast a spell around Bernard, who ducked. It flew toward Winsor. Bernard frantically shook his head.

"What are you doing?" he screamed at Goldwynn. "He stopped. He stopped. Why?"

The spell followed Winsor's body as he swam through the crowd toward his father. Divinis Wenrick's front was covered in the blood that spilled from his mouth, making him look more gravely wounded than he was. Winsor was chanting to heal him between deep gasps of breath. He skidded to a stop on the carpet in his thin formal boots. He placed a hand on his father's arm, the same tender concern he'd shown for me in the alley.

All his attention was fixated, but as coldness and exertion combined, his shoulders and head drooped. He panted, supporting himself with one hand on his knees. The spell that had been aimed for him shot too far, whizzing past his left ear and directly into the Divinis.

Wenrick didn't react. There was no time. As soon as the spell hit, a white hot ring opened up in his stomach, consuming him. A final, gargled scream ripped from his throat. Winsor recoiled from the flame-like heat that illuminated his father's body. He stammered through words, tripping over them.

"Uncast this mass – heal my father from the flame, let no blame— Father!" Too slow, too late, he'd never had a chance. The offensive spell ate through the Divinis's core, greedily blackening the vital organs into so much ash, the bones rendered charcoal. Winsor inarticulately grasped at the air as he continued to shout, struggling to rhyme and undo the damage. But Divinis Wenrick was dead. Black clad figures with gold writing on their chests converged toward the source of the spell, Bernard and Goldwynn.

"Hex it, I missed." Goldwynn's head bobbed. A knife of silver flew through the air and imbedded itself in the box near Bernard's head. Bernard flinched away, staring at his reflection in the metal in dumbfounded shock.

"Bernard!" Osoro hollered. Bernard was shaken back to attention and lost it again as he gaped at Agent Goldwynn. Goldwynn was casting to keep the dark clad BROS hacking their way through the crowd with actual swords, axes, and knifes at bay. Bernard stumbled over a shattered chair, stood up again, and ran up to us.

Winsor wailed on the other side, unseen, raspy and unguarded. His dad wasn't getting back up.

"My father—" Bernard began. "Goldwynn—"

"We must leave." Osoro tried to keep Bernard on task. Cold. But I agreed. Winsor's shrill shrieks pierced the air. I hadn't screamed when my father had died. I hadn't the energy. But he wailed, letting all know what had transpiring, honoring him. Or was he wailing in pain? Was Winsor now coming undone?

"The front and back are congested; we'll go through the library's escape route." Bernard led us to a small study only a few rooms down from Winsor's room. He threw aside a half full book case that was far too light. He ushered us all through and then closed it behind us.

This escape tunnel proved that the staircase leading to the Divinis's lab wasn't the only secret path in the house. Mallow struggled with this one too, bits of her dress getting caught on corners and in between loosely aligned stones. When we would emerge, she would look like she'd been physically as well as mentally assaulted while in the Divinis's care. Perhaps it would earn us sympathy, or maybe it would only make her appear more savage. I found myself wondering how many miles of snaking tunnels sorcerers tended to build beneath their homes. Was this made before or after he started sacrificing citizens for his son?

Winsor... I listened. The manor was still being blown apart above; the Divinis's death had not brought that to an end. In fact, it was getting even worse. A horrible crunching, breaking sound... though not from above. Muffled thunder rolled from somewhere deeper in the city.

We stumbled from the narrow tunnel until we reached a stair leading even lower. I had to fight my own reluctance to descend. The air grew damp, and I knew we were near Blythe's sewers. The smell hit us first, and there were audible gasps of disgust as each person realized what we were inhaling. Mallow sputtered next to me, and I withdrew the decorative handkerchief from around my neck and held it up to my nose. We had arrived at the town sewers. The water level was low because the limited rain all week. Now, raindrops fell in from the street grates and stirred the once stagnant surface, making it smell worse than sewers tended to in the first place.

"That way, there's a manhole over there," I said, nasal, as I spotted a beam of light falling from the ceiling. I hurried toward it with Mallow at my side. I couldn't stop looking at her. She was here. Really here. I'd done it. Somehow, I'd gotten her. We were together again. I'd saved my family this time.

"Won't the BROS know of this route?" Sir Osoro asked. In some ways, although less dangerous, this path was less inviting than the jaunt down to the forbidden laboratory had been.

"Yes, but they are distracted by...In any case, we should have enough time to get away." Bernard shuddered and wiped the back of his hand against his nose.

"Since none of us are inconspicuous, we need to stay out of sight." There was venom in his tone. He was not happy with how this had gone, and I wondered for a moment if it was aimed at me in particular. Chrys buried his face deep against the fabric of Osoro's perfumed shirt. "However, I suggest that we follow this to the edge of town. The sewer dumps into an artificial river that runs underground for a few miles, away from the city. We can get outside the walls and acquire horses. We should be all right."

"Won't Winsor just cast a spell on us?" I asked.

"He can't. He can't see us right now," Bernard said. He was huffing heavily. "He's gotten strong though, so I wouldn't let him catch us... He won't have time anyway. Having to explain what happened to all of the party guests—"

Bernard stopped in his tracks. Osoro swung his arm around the other's elbow and yanked him forward, and Bernard cooperated. He swallowed.

"Do you think my father really is dead?" Bernard asked.

"Let's hope so," Mallow spat.

"He's horrible." Chrys, who had been quiet against Osoro's back, pressed his face against Osoro's neck. "He was stealing my life, bit by bit. Maybe if he dies, I'll get it back."

"Guys..." I said, recognizing the anguish that contorted across Bernard's small mustached face. Losing a father was hard; he didn't need this right now. "We can figure it out later. For now—"

The cry of dogs made us all stop. Mallow legs coiled in preparation to kick.

"Wolves? In the city?"

Chrys was confused too. Osoro shouted, and we all ran at full tilt again.

"What are we running from?" I shouted as the howls echoed along the rounded ceilings of the sewer tunnel, bouncing around and shaking us to the bone as it did so.

"It's a spell sorcerer's cast, like a familiar but poison," Bernard said. "We used to cast them to chase Winsor down, though they were little lap dogs back then."

"Did you say poison?!" I cried.

"We used itching powder, but you can use whatever you want. He can see through its eyes, but the form is too incorporeal to carry anything but light dust and liquids," Bernard said. We went around a bend and slushed through the noxious liquid that overlapped the flow channel onto the walk ways.

"I don't think Winsor is sending itching powder our way," Osoro said.

The cries echoed off the walls. We reached the grate, and Osoro moved to cast a spell to blow it off so we could get through. He was preparing a secondary spell to help our landings so we wouldn't be swept under the current of filth.

"Got it!" Osoro said. The grate fell away, and he swept the air with his hands. "Come, everyone, hurry!"

I heard the spells before I saw them. They were not wolves. They were not huge and lurking like the kind that would sometimes prowl outside my camp, eager to eat me if not for Mallow's watchful gaze. They were lanky. The shape of the small dark dogs that played in Winsor's room, his canine companions to ward off the loneliness when no one else would.

But these skinny creatures lacked the dark coats or warm eyes. They were the right shape, but translucent, the twists of the sewer evident behind them. They swirled, patches of reddish dust forming into rough approximations of snouts and folded back ears. There was no clicking of nails against the stone floor as they walked, silent. Their howls were redirections of the wind inside the tunnel, forced into plumes of toxins that rolled through the air, soaked it in an orange hue. In the sockets, where the dust was most concentrated, two eyeballs swung wildly.

"Bernard—" the lead dog wailed. It wasn't Winsor's soft, raspy whining, his tentative assertive tone. Instead, it was like the draft in a cheap inn room meeting a howling storm, the word only words when one listened especially close. "You killed father! He's dead! You and your Avalon shall suffer the same!"

"No!" Bernard cried. "I didn't. I didn't even cast, Winso—"

"Run! Don't talk, run!" Osoro shouted, yanking at Bernard's sleeve. "They can't stay formed in an environment of lots of wind!"

"Quiet!" the dog screamed. Its lanky form leapt onto the wall, running past me. It jumped on Osoro, who covered his mouth with his arm and stumbled backward. He chanted, but breathed in the poison. I watched in horror as it slunk beneath his elbow, through the folds of his sleeve, and slipped down his throat. He coughed violently, unable to do anything, unable to rhyme. He fell half into the stinking water. He moaned from pain as the cold nipped further toward his heart.

A second dog leapt and hit Bernard's back. I recognized it as the one that Thessa had fed a potato to. I wondered what had become of its true form. It curled around his neck like a scarf and then slid up his nose, into him. He collapsed next to Osoro. Chrys, near them and probably invisible to Winsor who had eyes only for his brother and the conspirer, was caught in the midst of toxins. His already pale features tinted yellow, and he clung to the wall to keep from collapsing as coughs wracked his body.

"Winsor!" I shouted, getting his attention.

"You... you." The howl turned to a whistle. The dog's body must've been channeling Winsor, because I saw its eyes grow wide, its shoulder slump, its head dip down. It then kicked back its head and mournfully cried out. "You... I knew it. I didn't want to believe it, but I knew it," The wolf whimpered, pawing at the ground. Chrys's cough exploded against the wall, red splotches blooming between his white knuckled hands.

"Winsor, you've got to stop! You're hurting innocent people!"

"You are not innocent. You were with them all along. You were with Bernard, against me. I knew you would lie, but I hadn't thought it was to hurt me," The wolf's voice grew sour. "You were using me, distracting me, misleading me for Bernard's own ends. Like everyone else. Everyone always—" The howl transformed into a scream. The third dog went after Mallow. I leapt in front of it, breaking it apart against my body. I tried to hold my breath, but it edged in between my tightly pressed together lips, snaked up my nostrils.

My lungs felt like they were on fire. It slashed and bit my flesh like a real wolf was thrashing about in there. I stumbled, blinded, as tears well in my eyes. It knocked me back. Mallow stumbled away. The rancid current sucked me to the edge of the pipe. I was in the water, staring up at the sky above. Dark clouds hung heavy outside the city. Rumbling. Real thunder, then?

Mallow collapsed into the water next to me. She grabbed my hand, holding it so tight the thorn ring cut into the skin of our fingers. She screamed for help. 

I watched the raindrops as they fell from the sky. Some exploded against the filthy bars above my head, but other droplets raced past to plink in the water around me. Scents of fresh sky blissfully began to mingle in the air. I blinked as water hit my forehead with tiny impacts.

We had almost made it. I tried to tell Mallow I loved her, and that I was sorry. Sorry I wasn't a better hero. Sorry I couldn't save her. Sorry that when she was safe, I didn't treat her like I should have. Sorry I wasn't a good dad like mine had been. But all I could do was cough, shudder, cough again. My insides ripped apart as coppery blood coated my tongue. Mallow's tears fell on me. I watched as the mist swirled around her. She didn't cough. I'd interrupted the last of the dogs. No more were coming. If only she'd run, she would be safe. Winsor couldn't hurt her. 

I guess it was okay.

 I had done all right.