Sophia turned on her side and looked at Dav. If she was done, he had to be done. “What Ability did you get?”

  “I didn’t, exactly.” Dav’s mental voice sounded a little puzzled but not unhappy. “You know my Eldritch Fire Bud Summon? It changed to Flowering Firewater. For once, it has a somewhat decent description; it says I can summon a beacon to ensnare my enemies, burning them in its frozen petals. It’s sort of like what the Pandemonium Conjuror’s could do, but with more fire. Or maybe ice.”

  Sophia nodded slowly. She was a little envious, but Dav’s new Ability was exactly why they’d come to the Waters of Izel Challenge. It was even better than they’d hoped, because not only was it usable immediately without the Wisp cost of a new Ability slot or unslotting something else, it also sounded like it improved on the use of an Ability that was very difficult to use effectively. “I like it. I like it a lot better than mine.”

  Dav spent the remainder of the time suggesting silly uses for Sophia’s Firewater Crystallization. Most of them were pranks; Sophia particularly liked the idea of putting some of them in Aric’s bed. Not enough to harm him or even catch anything on fire, but enough to make him uncomfortable. She’d never do something like that, but it was still a funny thought.

  Neither Amy nor Taika managed to gain an Ability before the bigger hungry fish found the entrance to the grotto. They knew that meant their free time was up; they’d have to fight if they wanted to stay, and even then their time was limited because they’d keep attracting bigger and bigger enemies. The group killed the first few fish, then swam for the surface. It was time to head back to the Registry for the evening.

  Outside the Challenge, they found the towels they’d stacked outside the water waiting for them. The first step was to dry Taika off, followed by getting as much water out of their clothing as possible. Sophia had never realized how much better bathing suits were than clothing for swimming, but she’d also never gone swimming in her clothes before. She wasn’t a fan.

  Taika was even less of a fan. The entire time, he kept muttering about staying outside the next time they decided to do a watery Challenge.

  Marcie was waiting in the Registry’s entrance when they returned. She had a stack of giant towels in her lap, which nearly spilled to the floor when she hopped to her feet. She handed one to Sophia and two to Dav, then wrapped the third one around Amy’s shoulders herself. “Here you go! Any luck?”

  Her attention was clearly fixed on Amy, so Sophia let Amy answer. Sophia was busy with keeping her new towel on her shoulders while she helped Dav get the new, completely dry, towel around Taika anyway.

  Amy shook her head. “Not for me. Sophia’s luck was a little better, but it’s a weird Ability that she doesn’t think she’ll ever use.”

  Marcie shrugged. “Can get someone wet? Yeah, that’s pretty much the norm. What about Dav? He’s the one you were headed there for, right?”

  “Yeah,” Amy agreed with a frown. “We’re not sure what to think about it. It’s probably useful.”

  “That’s good,” Marcie said with a smile. “At least you didn’t get nothing. That’s more common than not, with the Waters Challenge. Want to come to my place to warm up?” She paused then looked up and seemed to realize that it wasn’t just her and Amy. “Uh, you can all come if you want. I have enough cocoa…”

  “That’s all right,” Dav said with a smile. “You and Amy can join us for dinner.”

  Amy held Marcie’s hand as she followed the mouse-eared librarian back out of the Registry.

  At dinner that evening, Aric sat at the next table. Sophia found that with the full group there, talking and laughing as they ate, she could ignore him. Dav and Marcie carried a lot of the conversation. Dav didn’t normally talk much, but Marcie was fascinated by his past, even if she seemed to think it was all stories. Sophia even found herself opening up under Marcie’s determined inquisition.

  It was really nice. Sophia could even almost ignore the fact that they were the only cheerful group; there were people in the restaurant again, but everyone else seemed to be on edge.

  On the way back to their rooms, Sophia was pretty sure she heard shouting and the sound of wood breaking. She didn’t look back to find out what was happening.

  The only stop she made on the way was to pick up some supplies she’d ordered the day before so that she’d have them for the Reflections Challenge the following day: feathers. They were cheap, as long as she didn’t need them made into quills or anything, which made them perfect. She could get them in large quantities pretty much anywhere she went. They’d be far easier to replace than anything made of metal, too.

  Of course, they’d be far more fragile, but that should be fine.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  They had to get up well before dawn to reach the Reflections Challenge; it was only open at dawn and dusk. It was located almost on the other side of Izel, down a dark corridor that Sophia would have called a back alley if it were in a more normal city. Here it seemed more like an odd stone corridor that dead-ended into a portal. It was supposed to be a mirror, but it didn’t reflect the corridor; instead, it showed a moving image that looked strange, almost like electricity moving on a series of concentric wire circles at the top then streaking to individual points at the bottom. It was far easier for Sophia to think of it as a portal than a mirror anyway, since it led into a Challenge.

  Stepping through the portal was a moment of chilliness, then they all stood in a large circular area with a reflective black floor cut by random-seeming blue lines. They were surrounded by large pillars that supported archways; each archway looked open, but at the far end they all looked like a blank opening surrounded by a lot of arches, more than Sophia could easily count. She knew that was an optical illusion; none of them would be open to the exit. Instead, a series of mirrors was reflecting the other archways and mirrors until it looked like an exit in the distant horizon.

  Or maybe it was really reflecting the exit. Sophia couldn’t know. The Stable Leveled Challenge was called Reflections, but it was really a mirror maze, with mirrors set into the space between the large pillars. You could break them if you wanted to try to head directly to the exit, but that made the mission far, far harder as everyone reflected in the mirror, including yourself, tried to kill you. It was better to follow the maze’s rules.

  “We each pick a different archway, yes, that means you too, Taika,” Amy said with a clear grin. “Did everyone read the pamphlet?”

  “Dav had to read it for me,” Taika groused. “I can’t flip the pages and I also can’t really see the letters. But yeah, I know, we each pick an archway and follow it alone. Somewhere in the maze, we’ll run into either one of the others or a mirrored reflection of one of us. We have to decide which it is. If it’s a reflection and we guess right, the mirror version will vanish and we can continue. If it’s a reflection and we guess wrong, it will attack. If it’s a real person and we guess right, nothing happens but you have to split up again or the mirrors start spitting out lots of copies you have to fight. If it’s a real person and we guess it’s a reflection, a mirrored version of both of us will appear and we have to fight them both. That can double up if both people guess wrong.”

  “And that’s why the usual method is to always guess that whoever you run into is real,” Sophia added. “They can’t use any Abilities or even weapons the person being reflected hasn’t used, and they don’t fight smart, so you can win without too much trouble. Or I guess in Taika’s case, trap them in an illusion and run.”

  Taika snorted. “I have teeth. I don’t use them much, but it’s still better than using my illusions. I don’t want to have my reflection trap you in an illusion.”

  “Better if you win,” Dav agreed. “So what do you think, should we get started?”

  “One moment.” Taika seemed to concentrate for a moment, then poofed upwards in a riot of colors. When they settled, a multicolored fox with two tails grinned at Sophia. “Better?”

  Sophia blinked at Taika for a moment. “I completely forgot you could do that.”

  “It’s not comfortable,” Taika admitted, “But I can fight more effectively. Enough to make it through the maze, at least.”

  Sophia stared at the fox for a long moment, then pointed at one of the archways more or less randomly. “I’ll take this one.”

  With that, they were off. There was no predefined route that would lead them where they were going, so Sophia fell back on the oldest trick in the book for mazes: she set one hand against the wall, or in this case, against a mirror, and made sure she turned that way whenever there was an opening. That was a little more literal in this maze than in most.

  Sophia quickly found that she couldn’t actually see the mirrors themselves, though sometimes she could tell they were there by the odd perspectives they gave. Most of the time, though, she ended up either walking into a wall or having to stop and turn when her hand found only space where she expected a mirror.

  It was only a little annoying.

  After a few minutes, Sophia heard shouting followed by a thud in the distance. It was easy enough to guess that one of her friends had run into a mirror reflection. Not long after that, she almost physically ran into Amy.

  “Oh, hey,” the woman who might or might not be Amy said. “I didn’t see you coming.”

  “It’s the mirrors,” Sophia explained. She hadn’t seen Amy either.

  “So we’re both real?” Amy asked.

  “Yeah.” Sophia frowned. That didn’t sound like the way Amy would say it.

  A moment later, the words “I’m not” and a punch that Sophia barely managed to dodge informed her that this was indeed not Amy. Fortunately, fake-Amy wasn’t actually any good at fighting physically. Sophia grabbed her outstretched arm and pulled her forward hard enough to force her to the ground. When she hit, fake-Amy seemed to shatter with a sound that seemed a lot like the thud Sophia had heard earlier.

  She left nothing behind.

  “That was …. Easy?” Sophia muttered to herself. The records said that the fights weren’t hard, but that seemed even easier than she’d expected. They were supposed to get more difficult as the reflections learned from previous encounters, but if they were all that short and simple, Sophia wasn’t sure they’d actually learn much.

  That probably meant they scaled with the number of fights, as well. She was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to go down in one hit, at least not towards the end of the maze. It was supposed to be possible to get through the maze with only a few fights or with a lot; it all depended on luck.

  A few turns later, the person that appeared in front of Sophia was Taika, in his fox form. They greeted each other cautiously, then relaxed when neither of them attacked. Taika went in the direction Sophia had come from, while Sophia continued forward. It was supposed to be impossible to end up at the entrance again, which made it obvious that the maze shifted around somehow or maybe overlaid itself in some weird non-Euclidean way, but following a wall was supposed to work. Eventually.

  I’ve thought about how Izel deals with people sneaking into the Challenges, but I’m not sure it will fit into the story. It certainly can and probably does happen - but not on the popular Challenges. Those are booked well in advance.