“This can’t be right,” I told Char.

  “I promise it is.”

  I looked around the chamber they had led us to, rendered speechless. Next to me, Fallon seemed to be in little better shape–although she managed to say, “I told you we should’ve just stayed where we were!”

  The words made me flinch, not least because she was completely right. The chamber the ellids had brought us to, the so-called ‘central chamber’ that we could leave the dungeon from, was all too familiar. It was a simple domed cave with multiple tunnels leading out of it, lit from overhead by a single massive crystal, glowing a dull blue.

  “It was yellow, last time we were here,” I said, still disbelieving.

  Char looked from my wide eyes to the spire of crystal jutting down from the room. “You’ve been here before?”

  “It was the room I woke up in,” Fallon explained. “Dani was in one of the adjacent chambers.”

  Char bobbed their head a little, their surprise obvious. “Interesting and interesting-er,” they muttered. “If the crystal was yellow, it must’ve been before we came down. Eni set up a retreat glyph attached to the crystal in case we needed a quick escape.”

  Only at their words did I notice the other change in the room. Directly underneath the crystal, in the exact center of the chamber, where I had first seen Fallon standing, a thin series of ridges that had been risen from the stone and dirt, forming a shallow, intricate little pattern.

  “So when we got here, you weren’t in the dungeon yet,” I said, feeling blood drain my face.

  “So I really was right,” Fallon said, seeming as surprised by that fact as I was. “If we had just stayed here, we would’ve been ready and waiting when they came down to this floor.”

  “Looks that way.” Char seemed even more troubled by this reveal, but I couldn’t quite understand why. “In either case, I think it’s time to get you two out of here. Ready to see some sunlight?”

  That wrung a smile out of me, while next to me, Fallon was practically glowing.

  “Ten minutes,” Eni said. She was dead serious now, nothing like she had been in the tunnel, joking with us and teasing Char. At her feet, a complex glyph gently glowed, carved into the floor underneath the crystal.

  The knight themself was similarly serious. “Gell should have things ready, then.” The massive ellid had gone up first, to prep things for our arrival, while Fallon and I were still getting over our shock. “I’ll go, then you two. Eni, you’re out last.”

  I watched Char take a step into the glyph–and like Gellert had, they simply vanished, without so much as a flash of light. Simply gone.

  Every time I thought I had gotten the whole “magic is real” realization under control, something else would stun me. Teleporters were a level past what I was ready for.

  “Fallon,” Eni prompted.

  The blonde girl looked very small and very fragile in that moment, but I reached out and squeezed her arm. “I’ll see you up there.”

  Fal gave me a wan, nervous smile–and then she stepped forward and was gone.

  As soon as she vanished, I slumped in place, finally feeling like, for a brief moment, I didn't need to be the pillar of support anymore. I could breathe. I could even admit how fucking terrified I was.

  Eni rested a hand on my slouched shoulder. “It’s okay,” she told me. “You survived in a dungeon that should’ve killed you. Compared to that, some political dar-crap will be easy!”

  I looked up at the girl. She was still uncanny, different, with her shape features and two-toned eyes, standing next to me like a wood elf right out of a video game, but her personality had been a consistent touchstone. She had a sort of big sister energy, almost, that I couldn’t help but enjoy.

  “I’ll be in your house, right?”

  “Vigilant House. Don’t let anyone steer you anywhere else, okay? We’ll take care of you.”

  I nodded, irrationally comforted by that–and I finally stepped into the glyph of retreat, before I could think about it anymore.

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  And then…

  Imagine getting in an elevator that took you to the top of a skyscraper in half-a-second, and you’ll be halfway to understanding what riding that glyph out of the dungeon was like.

  Existence itself became a blur of brown dirt and gray stone and blue crystal and something white and beautiful and comforting and then there was a flash, and I was falling forward.

  I landed on my hands and knees, and spent a few minutes throwing up my hastily eaten breakfast skewer. Next to me, Fallon was curled up on her side, arms and legs tucked in together.

  In the distance, I could hear voices arguing, but I was far too miserable to care about them. My stomach ran out of things to hurl, but kept clenching anyways in painful, arrhythmic dry heaves.

  A millennia of pain and maybe ten actual seconds later, there was another glint of light and suddenly Enila was standing behind me, looking only mildly queasy, which was entirely unfair.

  “Oh yeah,” she recalled with a bashful little smile. “I forgot, retreat glyphs can be a little rough on grade ones. You good?”

  “Urrrrrgh.”

  “Yeeeah that sounds about right. How about you, Fallon?”

  Fallon’s voice was little more than a trembling whisper claiming a thousand years of hatred and revenge.

  “It’ll pass,” Eni said with ruthless cheer. “I’ll go see what the hold up is, you two don’t go anywhere, okay?”

  “Fglblgr.”

  “Cool, see you soon.”

  Another few centuries of cramps and dry heaves later, my ears managed to start working again. At some point, I had collapsed back-to-back with Fallon, having just barely rolled clear of my puddle of… gross.

  Not far away, I heard Char’s voice.

  “...don’t care about the assignment, Durst. I’m not leaving the two of them alone.”

  “Then you’ll be standing in refusal of your assigned work. Grade three or not, that’s a bad look, Char.”

  “This takes precedence, Durst!”

  “That’s Song Magister Durst to you, Delver.”

  There was a deep, guttural growl that could only have been Gellert, though I hadn’t heard the bestial ellid make a noise like that, even during the fight with the predator.

  “Back off, Gellert. I’m an instructor discharging my duty–do you really want to start something?”

  “Don’t answer that,” a new voice commanded. Even recovering from my bout of extreme sickness, I could feel the surprise in the air from that voice’s interruption.

  “And who, exactly, are you?” the first unfamiliar voice asked, in the tone of someone who had unexpectedly had their pride rankled.

  “Deep Delver Aoss,” she said simply. “Sent on behalf of the Grand Magister to collect our new guests.”

  “What?” If Durst sounded unpleasantly surprised, Charrin sounded positively alarmed.

  “No need for worry, Delver Charrin. You and your team are to join me as well–His Eminence is very interested in your role in events.”

  “That doesn’t mean–”

  “Song Magister Durst, your appeal to duty is admirable, but at this time, it is misplaced. I have no doubt the remaining parties can handle this dungeon without Delver Charrin and his companions.”

  “Party, ma’am. One team was already forced to retreat.”

  “Fine,” Aoss snapped. “Once I’ve gotten our guests and Delver Charrin’s party to Primevus, I’ll return with a replacement team, if you feel one is needed. Now…”

  There was still an air of bafflement as I heard soft footsteps approach us. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “The retreat glyph was a little rough on them, my lady.” Eni’s voice.

  “Well, enough of that, then…”

  A sensation ran through me, separate and distinct from the numbing, tingling chill of Fallon and Char’s healing magic. This was warm, relaxing, like dipping into a hot tub, and I felt my body unwind almost of its own accord. Fallon did the same, until we were both lying on our backs, taking deep gasps and rejoicing in the pleasure that was the cessation of pain.

  “Come on then,” the new voice, Aoss, said, not unkindly. “We’re on a schedule here.”

  With a groan, I rolled to my feet, offering Fallon a hand. Only once I had knocked the dirt off my pants did I take a look around at where we were.

  We were at the bottom of a gorge of some kind, high and rough rocky walls rising to either side of us. Behind me was a rough crevice that reminded me of the tunnel entrances in the dungeon, and I knew without asking where it led. Far above, trees clung to the top of the cliffs, their scant foliage not enough to stop the sunlight trickling down on us. A gentle breeze flowed perpetually through the little gorge valley, and it smelled familiar–like crushed leaves and freshness, the smell of fall.

  I couldn’t help myself. I turned my face up towards the familiar, comforting sunlight, to the clear blue sky, and for a moment, the fact that I was in another world was washed away by the simple pleasures of being outside again.

  I heard voices on the very edge of my enjoyment.

  “Now what are they doing?”

  “They’ve been trapped in the dungeon for a few days now, my lady.”

  “Ah. Fair enough, then.”