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Nora

I don't know why I find myself crouching over Ryker Snow's body.

Whoever threw that knife is now running up the stairs, heavy steps a dead giveaway that it was a male. But I don't care anymore.

The boy on the floor is all that matters to me now.

"What the hell are you doing? He's getting away," Ryker wheezes, covering the spot where the knife was embedded. I don't know what to do. He's losing blood way too quickly and he's growing weaker. I don't want to see him die.

"Maybe I like your stupid face," I'm crying now. 

Ryker smiles weakly then winces, blood pouring out from in between his fingers. "I'm not going anywhere." But even we both know that's not true.

He's dying.

"Who stabbed you, Ryker?" I ask him, his blood all over my hands. 

"I didn't see," he says, and I get the feeling that he's lying. I don't say anything. I wave Li-Yang forward with a nod and she runs over, looking as if something just blew up in front of her. Which, in a way, it did.

"Take care of him," I say and she picks him up gently, bringing him towards the Duke. I breathe a sigh of relief. The Duke once told me that he trained with the best doctors in the School of Aurelia and the lands around it. I just hope he knows what to do.

"I want to see him," a voice purrs in my ear and I turn. Of course, it's him. Baz Snow.

"No," I say, "You're coming with me."

"But-"

I slap Baz across the face, kick him in the shin, and grab his sleeve, making sure my nails dig into him as much as they can. "I said," I push him towards the door, "You're coming with me."

It's only as the two of us begin walking towards the door that I realize something.

Devon is missing.

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"Take me to see her," I say to Baz, kicking the backs of his legs again, "Now."

He doesn't need to ask who I'm talking about.

"Fine," he replies, "But you need to be blindfolded. For security purposes." 

"No."

"Then I will not be taking you," He sneers, trying to wiggle his way out of my grip, but I kick him hard in the back of the leg. He cries out in pain, collapsing to the ground, and I take the opportunity to twist his arm behind his back.

"You're taking me. Or else I will have the Duke kill your son. You don't want that, do you?" 

"Spare me. I've seen the way you look at him. Like he's a mystery you can't figure out." With a wave of his hand, Baz causes ice to form down the ceiling. 

"So you want to fight?" I ask, hoping in the back of my mind that my hands will turn orange again. They do, faint but nevertheless, still there.

"I do."

"If I win, you'll take me to Aurelia no questions asked. If I lose, you get to see Ryker. Do we have a deal?" I can't resist a deal. 

"Yes," Baz says, snatching an ice dagger out of thin air.

"Let's dance," I snap my fingers and the thoughts come to the surface. They feel hot on my palms as I aim them at him and let go. Baz vaults back and summons icicles. He throws each one at me and I flop on the floor, refusing to make the same mistake as last time. 

"I think you overestimate yourself, young Nora," Baz calls, the temperature suddenly dropping. I shiver, silently wishing that I didn't wear short sleeves today. 

"Why is that?" I reply, trying to concentrate on a crack in his mind. He keeps moving around too much, and I can't get a solid lead. 

"How do you know your mom even wants to see you? How do you know that she's not... gone?" Baz looks as smug as he always does, running a hand through his silver hair.

I don't get what he says at first. Then it hits me. 

Mom greeting three masked men at our doorstep... the men aiming their guns at me... Mom stepping in between the two of us... 

Dad wasn't home. Of course he wasn't. He was either out training or saving the world, never making time for us as he did back then.

She's crying... begging, pleading for them to take her, shoot her, do anything but kill me...

The men didn't listen to her. One of them stepped forward and with a wave of his fingers, snapped my arm clean in two. When Mom tried to get to me, they shot her.

"What should we do with her?" One of the men asks, looking in deference to who I think is the leader. It was hard to tell with their black ski masks anyway.

"Keep her alive. I have a feeling Madame will want to see her one day," I didn't know that voice than, but I do now.

Baz Snow. The one who shot my mother.

When Dad got home, long after they left, he found me crying over her body. The two of us buried her in her garden and then Dad whispered an enchantment to make me forget. By the time I realized, it was too late.

She was already gone.

"I will fucking kill you," My voice turns deadly. Baz only smirks and with a wave of his hand, summons more icicles from thin air.

"I'd like to see you try."

We run towards each other, ice on flame. I avoid Baz's well aimed punches, and every time I try to land a kick on his groin, he dodges me. 

It's a fricking standstill. We're wasting daylight. I see that now. The sooner I can find Aurelia and whoever stabbed Ryker, the better. I can feel the lifeline between us growing weaker as more and more of his lifeforce is drained. He's dying and if I keep this up, he will die.

Baz Snow has been trained to guard all of his points. He's not very powerful, but he's cunning, and his cunning is what keeps him on top. I just need to find a way to knock him off.

Then I see it.

It's barely recognizable but my sharp eye picks it out.

Baz Snow does not protect his middle.

You'd think that somebody with extensive combat experience would, but alas, Baz Snow's middle is wide open.

So I feint to the left and Baz feints with me. Except where I go right at the last second, he trips over his long limbs and falls to the ground. I fall with him, jamming my elbow into his ribcage, so hard that I think I hear something pop. 

"You won," he says, wheezing, "I'll take you to her."

I lie back down on the ground, smiling.

I beat a warrior.

And I didn't need my powers to do it.

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Ryker

Turns out, the knife barely missed my heart.

Sure, I may have punctured a few organs along the way, but I'm not dying anymore. It's a start.

"Ryker, you should rest." Li says as I try to get up. I'm confused at first, trying to remember where Nora and Devon are, but than I remember.

Nora is with my Dad.

Devon stabbed me. 

His face is clear now. Panic in his eyes, a hood over his brown skin and short cropped hair. He threw that knife at me, yet it wasn't deep enough to kill me. I can't blame him. Aurelia has a hand in everything around here. Devon can't resist fully, yet some part of him was powerful enough to completely ignore her command to kill me.

I can only imagine what she'll do to my father after he inevitably gives her up to Nora. 

"Take it easy and you'll be back to stabbing people within a few days," The Duke says, stretched out on a velvet plum red sofa in the back of the room. I thank him, but ignore him, sitting up.

"Devon," I say, "Devon stabbed me." I shiver, only just realizing that I'm in nothing but my boxer shorts. 

"There's no way," Li says, eyes widening.

It's a good thing I can't blush, but Li sees that I noticed and her face is red enough to rival a tomato.

 Leaning over to pick up my pants, I feel my wound stretch and I groan. Li bends down and hands them to me, black hair draped over one shoulder. I feel bad that I haven't talked to her in a while. We used to be best friends before coming here.

"How's Mary?" I ask her, and she drops her eyes. Her and Mary had been dating for a few months now, and every time I saw them, they looked so in love.

"We broke up," she admits, and my heart breaks for her, "After Nora... yeah, after that, when I was defending Nora, she couldn't even look at me. I guess her and Nathan were good friends or something. Her last words to me were 'I can't love someone who is a murderer'."

"I'm sorry," I say, knowing that it's pretty much all I can say.

"Yeah," she replies, lost in thought, "Me too." I slide into my pants, thankful that they're loose.

"Did you see where Devon went?" I ask weakly, head spinning. I have to find him. Maybe I'm just delirious from pain, or tempting fate, but I want to protect him. Devon has power. Power under the Madame's control is one less thing we have on our side and one more thing that she could hold over us. 

Let's face it: we're weak. I can barely stand, Li isn't as good of a fighter as I am and we have no other allies to call on. Unless Nora performs another miracle. I don't have a doubt that she can, I'd just prefer for it to be sooner, rather than later.

Judging by the pinched look on the Duke's face, it's a miracle I'm even standing.

"I think he ran to the left. Towards the Great Hall." 

"Great," I say, not even bothering to put a shirt on. I have enough bandages covering me and trying to lift my arms will just make it worse, "Let's go get him."

"Ryker, stop. You're still too weak," Li grabs my arm, but I shrug off her hand, taking another woozy step towards the doorway.

"Great," I say, swaying a little bit on my feet, "You can carry me."

Li rolls her eyes, smiling for the first time in a while. "This is why we're not friends," she says, grabbing my good arm and putting it around her shoulder.

"To the Great Hall," I ignore her and hobble forward as best as I can. Which isn't good enough, considering the fact that I nearly died, but I keep going.

I won't stop until I find Nora.

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Nora

"We're here," Baz says. Indeed we are.

Madame Aurelia's secret lair was apparently a set of underground tunnels built beneath the school. It's a hell of a lot bigger than that.

We're standing in front of the mouth of the Illuminate Cave, a popular hangout spot for teenage Lunars. There are all sorts of crystals and reflective geodes for them to practice with, so many that the cave is almost never dark. I admire the leftover strands of light from whoever was here yesterday and smile.

It's almost pretty here.

"Where is 'here' exactly?" I ask, taking a few more steps towards the gaping black maw at the back of the cave. "I'm assuming that black mass is where the Lunars don't go, although I can't imagine why."

"Rumors of a three headed beast with eighty-five teeth and eyes as red as blood. The students  call it the 'Hellfire'." Baz says it so convincingly that I can't tell whether he's lying or not.

"So you inspire your students through fear?"

"Fear can be a powerful distraction," Baz removes a lantern from behind a well placed boulder and strikes it on one of the matches in his pocket, "Your little 'demonstration' at the Test was enough to get your fellow students afraid."

"Wanting to kill me is different from fear." We begin the long walk forward and I begin to feel grateful to Baz Snow for bringing the lantern.

"It was enough to pass you." Baz says, so quietly I almost don't hear him.

We walk in silence for a while but the sharp knock of silence is soon penetrated by a loud rumble from behind us. We turn, as if on instinct, watching the way we came soon become filled in with rocks.

"No!" I cry, turning back around. Baz's smile is wicked, his grin telling me everything I need to know without reading his thoughts. 

I'm a prisoner here, whether I like it or not.

"Hello, Miss Abraham," A mechanical, dainty voice sounds from behind me and I whirl back around, searching wildly for the source of the noise, "I've been waiting for you."

"Who are you?" I scream at the shadow hiding where the lantern isn't shining light.

The shadow comes into the light slowly, walking almost like a ballerina towards us. "Thank you for bringing her to me, Baz."

"Of course."

I should've known. Baz Snow is slick, so why didn't I think that he wouldn't just set this whole thing up? I wasn't careful.

And judging by the figures expression as they step into the light, I'm going to pay for it.

Devon.

Oh no.

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