“N—” Addie tried to refuse, but Nettal interrupted her with a painful jab of her elbow.

  Addie had to rub at her poor sore ribs. She glared at Nettal accusingly.

  “Well, it sounds like a good offer—”

  “Obviously it’s a great offer!” Visesata interrupted Nettal this time, quite pleased with himself.

  “But, we’re wondering if we can go home first?” Nettal finished.

  “Why would you want to go home? I have everything that you need right here: food, drink, pleasures, and luxuries beyond your imagination. You two have only seen the bare surface of what I have to offer.”

  “I... uh, that’s great, really. But maybe we can go home first and relax? Addie can come back here after,” Nettal tried.

  “This isn’t some kind of peasant’s job where you can commute on the weekdays!” The man’s eyes briefly flashed violet. “Besides, you won’t find an extraordinary offer like this one anywhere else. No one on this plane can teach Addie more about her magic or train her like I can.” Visesata moved his eyes to address Addie directly. “Don’t you want to learn how to master your powers? Don’t you want to be strong? No one else can teach you these things. So, what do you say?”

  Nettal sighed. “Alright Addie, do your thing.”

  “Finally.”

  Confusion crawled across Visesata’s face, but it quickly turned into a scowl when he noticed Addie building up her magic.

  “How about we blast him with our new ability?” Addie proposed to Squishy privately.

  “Activating an untested ability in the midst of combat is not a wise choice, my lady. Let us only attempt such if we have no other choice.” She could feel him building up his own attack through their soul bond.

  “Got it. Don’t hurt him too much; I don’t know how to get home without him.” Addie’s roiling white flames coalesced into a flaming spear as she held it up right above her head.

  “Understood.”

  In perfect sync, following each other’s thoughts, Squishy vanished from existence just as Addie released her flame spear.

  It soared through the air, intent on smashing into the man. He tried to sidestep it, but Addie had better control than that. Like a serpent, the spear swerved in the air, flying true to strike the man anyway. In a wave of heat and fire, the flames washed over the man, forcing him to cover his face and close his eyes. But he opened them a moment later, not so much as a burnt piece of clothing on him. He did look really angry, though.

  Addie hadn’t expected those to burn regardless, since those were soul flames.

  Feera was quick to respond in her master’s favor. She leaped at Addie, but before she could even get close, Squishy reappeared right on her flank, tackling the fog demon onto the ground. They wrestled for a moment, Squishy biting hard into her still-injured hip. Feera screamed a cat-like yowl, but Addie had to focus back on Visesata. She trusted Squishy with his part of the battle.

  It’s a good thing she didn’t stay distracted for long, since Visesata was already attacking again. A heavy weight bore down on Addie’s soul like it wanted to push her into the ground. Her transcendent loop held, but it strained against the force. Luckily, it was weaker than Christena’s version.

  Already Addie was forming more fire in the air around her, lances of soul flames boiling the air and causing it to distort. For a brief moment, Addie swept the area with her spatial sense. The entire room came into focus all at once, Addie seeing Squishy and Feera rolling nearby, Nettal hiding right behind Addie, and Lotty standing next to his mistress. Most importantly, Visesata was standing still, a scowl upon his face.

  “You can’t hurt me with my own technique!” he shouted at Addie.

  She didn’t know why he did that— talking during a battle was silly. Her spears launched forward, one after another smacking straight into the man’s chest. None of them pierced through, but each roiling wave of white soul-flames made the man’s scowl deepen and his face redden with pent-up anger.

  The pressure around Addie’s soul grew, something compressing around her from all sides. The outer layer of her transcendent loop broke, leaving her with only two more.

  Seeing that his soul attacks weren’t getting through, for now, the man finally fought back. He snapped his fingers, balls of flame as large as the throne behind him appearing over his head. Each ball circled around him like a rotating crown, the fireballs squeezing in on themselves and compressing until they looked no bigger than a hand. He launched them.

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  In a single instant, Addie swept the area with her spatial sense, found Nettal and Lotty, grabbed her hand, and then sent all three of them into Realmspace. Nettal almost tripped when Addie dragged her forward, but they quickly reappeared toward the far right from where they’d entered. Addie didn’t want to get closer to the man because she had to defend Nettal.

  When they reappeared, the throne room was covered in a dense fog. She couldn’t see at all. That didn’t matter; Addie swept the field with her spatial sense again, quickly noticing the man hadn’t bothered to move. She checked on Squishy again too, seeing him swipe at the fog demon. Her brain was starting to struggle with all the information. She had to focus on so many things: protecting her soul, defending Nettal, attacking the man, keeping an eye on Squishy and Feera.

  The next moment, Addie was separated from Nettal, now directly in front of the man. He grabbed her, pulling her up by grasping the poncho in his fist. “You’re not the only one that can jump all around,” he hissed at her.

  The pressure on her soul grew even more, the second layer of her loop cracking and grinding in on itself. She uselessly tried to wack his arm, but he was stronger than her.

  “Realmspace!” Squishy shouted out at her— Addie hadn’t been the only one watching the entire battlefield.

  She took his advice, wrapping herself in his magic. Falling to the ground, Addie caught herself on the cool black Realmstone. She was quick to run a bit forward and to her right. From here, she expected to be right behind Visesata. Her heart beat so fast in her chest that Addie couldn’t tell if she was excited, nervous, or just breathing hard from the activity.

  Just as she guessed, she reappeared on his flank. He didn’t expect the ambush, which Addie again thought was quite silly; he knew she could teleport.

  Remembering all those times she accidentally used too much fire, all those scoldings from Nettal or the surprise on the Furrians’ faces, Addie poured as much magic into the fire as she could. She had to stand still for a few moments, but when the flames came out they blasted out at him in a wave so intense Addie had to cover her eyes from the heat.

  When she reopened her eyes, the man had already turned fully around, not a single mark on him. Faster than Addie could react, his foot shot out in a rapid kick. Addie pulled on the magic to send her into Realmspace, but his hard shoe impacted right into her stomach. A wheeze gasped out of Addie, and she went flying backward, her magic forcing her into Realmspace halfway through.

  Even though she couldn’t breathe, she knew she didn’t want to hit the ground hard, so she forced herself to focus. Pushing herself out of Realmspace, Addie forced her momentum to stop, managing to land somewhat softly on the ground back in the throne room.

  “My lady!” She could feel his concern, along with his intent to rush to help her.

  “I’m fine! But my magic isn’t doing anything to him!” She let some of her frustration out into her thoughts.

  “I’ve nearly won my battle.” Squishy’s words made Addie want to check on him.

  Sweeping the area with her spatial sense, she could see how injured Feera was, bleeding all over and limping. She held a defensive stance, with Squishy growling at her.

  “We can work together to fight Visesata in a moment. Try to get to Nettal for healing.”

  Scanning the rest of the room with her eyes, she could see Visesata in the middle of pouring his magic into more fireballs, each one as small as a candle flame yet almost as bright as the binary. They floated in the fog like sprites, impossible to miss but blurred and shaped funny.

  “No time for that,” Addie hastily replied. “Come help when you’re done with Feera.”

  Finally drawing in a breath, Addie got ready to pull on more magic to teleport away. But, with his evil grin peeking through the fog, Visesata turned, his head snapping and his hand pointing in Squishy’s direction. All the fireballs launched forward, zooming so fast through the air that Addie only had time to notice her heart dropping, but not enough to help her Squishy.

  “Squishy!” Addie cried out, her hoarse scream cracking midway through the word.

  He turned to face the fireballs just as they got to him, Squishy yelping in a way Addie had never heard from his tiny self before.

  Sympathetic pain lanced through her, the soul flames of Visesata’s attack punching into Squishy’s core and straining against their bond. Squishy popped out of existence, fleeing to Realmspace, but a lot of the flames had already hit him.

  Normally, he was great at that kind of magic, but his core was boiling, and she knew he was in too much pain to focus on helping himself. All three of his transcendent loop layers had shattered, so Addie worked quickly to help Squishy repair them. It was hard to focus on repairing them for him while also keeping hers together too. The pressure from before hadn’t stopped, and she could feel her second layer of transcendent loop about to break.

  She needed to jump back into the fight, to make sure he didn’t attack Nettal and so that Addie could give Squishy time to heal. But her stomach hurt really bad from where she’d been kicked, and she had a hard time sitting up from the floor. Turning onto all fours, she managed to push herself up from there.

  Breathing through the pain and muggy fog air, Addie ran at Visesata. Luckily he wasn’t looking at Addie. He stared down at Feera, who was pitifully collapsed on the floor.

  As she ran, Addie desperately thought about any ways she might be able to hurt him. He was a grown adult, so attacking him physically wouldn’t work. She didn’t know how to put pressure on his soul like he was doing to her, she only knew how to defend. And worst of all, her best flames didn’t do anything to him.

  “Send him to Realmspace,” Squishy suggested. “We’ll beat him on our own battleground, and keep him away from Nettal simultaneously.

  Squishy seemed to get his bearings back, his own control over their shared magic pooling into his soul and forming a single layer of transcendent loop.

  “Together.”

  “Together,” Addie agreed.

  As Addie got right behind the man, she thought about sending just him to Realmspace, leaving Feera separated from him. But, she only had a split-second to think, her arm already reaching out to touch him. She decided to push her magic out to both Feera and Visesata; if she left Feera here with Nettal, Nettal might do something silly like heal her again.

  “Nettal’s gonna be really mad that we fought them without her in Realmspace.”

  Her magic activated, Visesata looking over his shoulder with surprise. In the next moment, darkness surrounded them entirely.

  “This is our home-field advantage,” Squishy declared.