The roof shingles cracked and clattered. Kaylee felt the wet clay from which they had been made and the moss that had overgrown the tiles over the years. The incessant rain created a surface as slippery as oil, which Kaylee's hands couldn't grip.

Her lost walking stick slid down the clay shingle and fell over the edge ahead of them. The momentum of their involuntary slide made them shoot over the edge of the roof. Millicent opened her mouth, but her scream choked in her throat as gravity pulled at her body and pulled her down.

"Crowford!" Benjamin exclaimed desperately, taking a step forward and almost losing his footing as well. At the last moment, however, the doctor shifted his weight, flailing his arms wildly, and righted the misstep just in time. He stared at the disaster unfolding right before his eyes, his eyes wide with terror.

As Kaylee's body slid over the edge of the roof, her mind was paralysed, empty and heavy at the same time. No spell would come to her mind that could have helped her in this predicament. There was only sheer panic—and pure survival instinct when her fingers finally found purchase: on the old, tinny rain gutter, which groaned ominously under the sudden strain.

Her body jerked as her fall came to an abrupt end, her entire weight borne and held by the sweat-dampened, trembling fingers of her right hand. Below her, she could see Millicent's tumbling body plunge downward, then catch and cling desperately to Kaylee's foot.

Kaylee's body trembled under the strain. Adrenaline and the will to live made her fingers dig into the thin sheet metal of the rain gutter with all her might to keep whatever hold the cold metal offered her. The gutter, however, creaked and groaned audibly. The old, long-aged brackets in the stone walls of the old building creaked ominously. 

Kaylee could almost see in slow motion how they bent, and the screws with which they had been anchored were pulled out of the stone with a grinding sound. It was like a countdown, counting down with every second, every breath and every slightest movement towards the inevitable plunge into the depths.

"Ben! Help!" Kaylee could only scream in desperation, not even knowing how the other Seeker could have helped her in this situation. Her thoughts, which were usually so clearly structured, resembled tangled wool threads. 

The effort to hold on took the young magician's breath away. She yelped loudly and jerked her left arm up, searching for a new handhold. But the edge of the iron gutter was sharp. It almost cut her palm as she tried to shift her weight onto it. 

The still-unhealed wound on her left hand, which Kaylee had utterly forgotten about thanks to the effort, suddenly sent a sharp, burning pain shooting up her arm, causing her fingers to come loose again inevitably, and she let out a hoarse cry of pain.

Her face twisted into a grimace of suffering, and for a moment, the unimaginable pain of her wound made black spots appear before her eyes. 

The damned Black Mark! 

Her right arm couldn't support their combined weight for much longer.

"Archer! Damn it – do something!" she cried, her desperation spilling over into loud rage. "I can't hold on much longer!"

Kaylee's black hair was soaked from the rain and cold sweat. It stuck to her cheeks and face and hung in her eyes. The wind whipped her long coat back and forth as if it were a ship's flag dancing in the storm. Blood pounded in her ears, a monotonous, drumming noise that almost drowned out all the sounds around her. 

All except for Millicent's desperate, pleading words that reached her from below: "Please, please not! Please don't let go! Oh God..."

Tears ran down her face as the young woman below her sobbed, repeating the words like a mantra.

While this moment dragged on endlessly for the two ladies, Dr Archer fearlessly slid down the shingles, inch by inch, towards the abyss. His heart was beating in his throat, pushing wind and storm – and even the danger lurking behind them – into the background.

Suddenly, the ground gave way under his feet. 

Accompanied by a loud clatter, the roof shingles rushed below him, jumped over the edge and fell into the depths, where they shattered into reddish shards with a loud clang.

The wooden struts of the roof battens, revealed under the now-missing shingles, offered the doctor new support. With strong arms, he grasped the old, splintered wood and climbed step by step to the edge of the roof.

"Ben!" Kaylee shouted again, her throat tightening with the stress, making her call sound hoarse and rough.

His companion's cry for help, mixed with the poor Millicent's crying and whimpering, just froze Ben's blood. With trembling fingers, he grasped the rungs of the roof battens. His fingers grew increasingly colder, and the seeker had to pull himself together to avoid losing focus.

Suddenly, it felt as if he wasn't fighting his way across a slippery roof but through desert sand. He could hear the wind rushing over dunes and felt the grains sticking to him and slowing him down. Thunder rumbles became muzzle flashes. The whistling wind became bullets flying around him.

Old memories rose in him, memories he had tried to suppress for years since he had returned from the war almost two years ago. They were dark ghosts that had haunted him ever since and now tried to weigh down his limbs and mind.

'Not now! If you struggle now, they're dead!' Ben hissed to himself and forced himself on. 

"Hold on, Crawford!"

An audible grunt arose from down below.

"Thanks! I would never have thought of that!" 

Even now, Kaylee was sarcastic about the doctor's statements. The physical exertion she was exposed to made her blood rush in her ears. Millimetre by millimetre, the cold metal of the rain gutter slipped from her fingers, and she lost more and more of the life-saving hold.

Then suddenly, there was a loud bang.

Screws flew as the rusty brackets broke, and the gutter sagged downwards with a jerk. Kaylee screamed as she reflexively reached for it again with both hands. Below her, Millicent's shrill scream mingled with the thunder and raging wind.

I CAN SAVE YOU.

The voice inside Kaylee's head, cold as an autumn stream, reached her ear.

I'LL SAVE YOU AND THE BRAT. JUST GIVE IN.

'NO!' Kaylee screamed inwardly against the voice.

Then came another crash, and the gutter was wrenched from the roof. There was a popping sound, then another as the supports were torn from the wall. Plaster crumbled, and Kaylee screwed up her eyes as dust and chunks of mortar flew at her. The sudden jolt pulled at her insides, her whole body felt heavy, and her fingers burned with pain and went numb at the same time.

So this was how it was going to end? 

After all, she had been through? By falling to their deaths?

Her fingers slipped, and Kaylee held her breath.

At the last moment, an iron grip closed around Kaylee's wrist like a vice.

"Hold on!" Ben hissed between clenched teeth. A muscle in his jaw twitched under the strain. With one hand, the former soldier held on to one of the exposed roof battens while he hung halfway over the abyss.

Many meters below him, then gravel and grass, vast quantities of red shingles lay scattered like shrapnel. Doctor Archer grabbed hold with all his might and tried to pull the young mage and the girl towards him.

But no matter how hard he pulled and tugged, he wasn't strong enough to pull the weight of two people up. And the wood of the strut to which he was clinging so desperately was already cracking in warning. The old slats were too thin and not made for such loads.

"I can't pull you both up!" Ben had to admit bitterly.

"Millicent!" Kaylee gasped heavily, trying to ignore the fact that Ben's fingers were digging painfully into her skin from the effort. "You have to climb up on me!"

"W-what?" The young woman blinked against the rain and hot tears. "No! No, I can't! I-I'll fall for sure!" she stammered, clinging to Kaylee's legs with all her might. She could think of nothing but the death that would surely befall her if she let go now!

"Damn it, do it already!" Kaylee urged irritably. It was a matter of life and death. For all of them! "If you don't, we'll both fall! Maybe all three of us!"

Millicent swallowed. A tremor ran through her whole body, and it took the young woman enormous effort to control it. Then she shook herself quickly, grabbed Kaylee's wildly flowing coat, and buried her fingers in the wet fabric.

Kaylee could feel the scrawny thing pulling herself upwards with all her might as Millicent's arms finally wrapped around her neck.

"Oh God... Oh God... I'm going to fall!" Millicent gasped as she clung to Kaylee's body and clumsily climbed up.

Millicent didn't want to believe that all these horrible things were happening to her, of all people, and that this whole nightmare was really real. Some dead creatures were in the shape of women after her, and they had just gone through a wall!

If they crashed, would she wake up?