The wall grew. It wasn’t very detailed, just a solid barrier. Five feet long, two high. Then ten long and four high. It stopped growing in height, stopping at just over five feet high, growing in length and thickness.

  Solid ink separated the thrashing mob of Clan Brady from Loch and the others, closing off the gate and preventing the mob from reaching them. A couple were on this side, but not enough to cause many issues. The twin, with a couple swings of the blunt end of his spear, knocked out the two reaching for him. He managed to turn, getting his spear out, catching a charging Hob in the gut.

  “Enough,” Loch shouted, pointing his axe at the Presence. “This ends!”

  ***

  “This is not a good idea,” Cerie said.

  Piper ignored her.

  She opened the door, wearing a full suit of armor made from ink, a long solid ink staff in her hand. The hallway was filled with bodies, some groaning, some not moving. Blood covered the walls. No one moved. Slowly, carefully, Piper walked past the bodies, eyeing the ones that groaned, making sure they didn’t grab for her.

  It felt like hours to get from their door to the stairwell, which was thankfully empty. She was afraid she’d see the body of someone that had fallen, or been pushed, down the stairs. Piper wasn’t sure if she would have been able to move on after that.

  The pressure was still there, pushing at her mind, but just along the edges. For some reason it couldn’t penetrate. It wanted to. She could feel it wanting to dig into her mind, to feed her feelings she didn’t want to hear or feel. It wanted to make her as mad as the others. To feel hate that she just didn’t feel.

  Why did people hate each other? Piper had gotten mad at people before, but she had never hated anyone in her life. Why was this pressure making everyone want to hate everyone else? She’d never understood it. Even when her mom and dad would talk about the violence and hate across the world, she couldn’t understand why people would feel that way.

  Because someone was different?

  Everyone was different in some way.

  She pushed open the door, stepping into the hallway leading to the lobby. She could hear fighting, but it sounded like it was coming from the cafeteria and other rooms. Not the lobby itself. She was relieved to see no one in the lobby. The glass doors outside were open, letting in the cold air from the late afternoon. The sun was setting, she could see the edges of the red horizon above the trees.

  The glass into the office was broken, the doors to Mr. Turner and Mr. Holmberg’s offices open. She thought about calling out, seeing if anyone was in them, but the fighting was too close. Looking through the doors into the cafeteria, Piper could see people moving around, throwing each other, and some on the ground. She wanted to avoid alerting any of them, especially if she wanted to get outside the wall and help her dad and sister.

  Moving quickly, Piper darted through the lobby, heading for the doors outside. She yelped as something grabbed her, pulling her back. She was thrown against the wall, crying out in pain. Jake held her, staring at her. But it wasn’t him. She could see it in his eyes, all sanity was gone. What she was looking at wasn’t her friend. He didn’t even say anything, just raised a fist.

  “I know this isn’t you,” Piper said, turning her head, trying to think of what she could summon that would help her.

  Jake grunted, releasing her. He fell to the ground, body shaking. Cerie floated over him, her hands outstretched, natural glow dimmer.

  “Piper, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “I don’t think I will be of much help,” Cerie said, glow even dimmer. “That took a lot of my energy.”

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  “It’s okay, go back into the band and recharge.”

  Piper held up her wrist, Cerie flying over. She hovered over the Codex Band, body turning translucent, turning into a streak of energy that shot into the Band. Piper could feel the presence of the fairy in the Band and feel how weak she was.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at Jake. “We’ll fix this.”

  She ran out the doors and into the yard, turning and running toward the wall. The gate was packed with people, pushing against it, trying to get out of her inkwall. She could feel the summon weakening from the repeated blows of the Clanmembers. Feeding more energy into it, strengthening its construction, Piper wasn’t sure how long it would last. It had to be long enough.

  Reaching the wall, Piper used a bit of her Spirit to summon a ladder, glad she had started filling her sketchbook with a lot of mundane items. Shovels, axes, ladders, nets, forks, spoons. Anything she could think of. Even more complex things like wagons and wheelbarrows. There were even boxes.

  Getting onto the wall was easy. Getting down would be just as easy once she resummoned the ladder. But getting through the mass of monsters and clan members between her and her family? That wasn’t going to be easy.

  ***

  “Are you okay?” Harper asked, back to back with Davis.

  “Is anyone?”

  “No, but why aren’t you..,” she gestured with a tonfa at the maddened Clanmembers trying to get past Piper’s inkwall, ignoring the blood dripping from the weapon.

  Ignoring that some of the blood was from her Clanmembers.

  “I was,” he said, raising his spear to block a swing from one of the strange new humanoid monsters.

  Her Evaluate said it was a Sauriad. A tall and skinny scaled creature. Not quite a walking snake, but close enough for her.

  “I could feel myself getting madder, losing control,” Davis said, ducking so Harper could swing a tonfa over him, the tip slicing through the neck of the Sauriad.

  She continued her spin, stopping and blocking an attack from a raging Red Cap. Davis kicked the dying Sauriad out of the way, stabbing his spear at a Hob to keep it back.

  “But then something cleared it all up and I could think again,” Davis continued. “I saw Trent and Brent running this way, shouting something about needing to help your father. I figured that I’d find you wherever he was.”

  “Smart man,” she said, kicking the Red Cap in the shoulder, sending it twisting to the side and right into the hook of her tonfa. She pulled the weapon back, the monster falling to the ground.

  They both spun around, changing up the opponents.

  Harper kicked out, catching a human in the kneecap. He wasn’t a clanmember, too dirty and covered in black spots that she thought were frostbite. He was bone thin, the kneecap snapping at her kick. Howling in pain, the man twisted down to grab at his knee, catching hers in his face. His head snapped back and he fell.

  “Dad’s making a run for that shadowy thing,” she yelled out. “We need to clear a path.”

  “Understood,” Davis replied.

  ***

  Loch rushed forward, wishing he had his armor to use Windstep. Not just for the Ability, but the protection. Bulwark was strong, but it didn’t cover his entire body. He was surrounded, blows landing that he had no way to defend against. Loch managed to stop the worst, the ones that would take him out of the fight, but the little ones were adding up.

  He had to get through the rush of people and monsters between him and the Presence. And Theodore. The man hadn’t moved from his spot a couple feet in front of the shadowy creature. The wild grin never left the man’s face either. Loch couldn’t see Roger or Josh anywhere. They had to be fighting against his people.

  The press of monsters grew thicker, more moving into his path, as if they were being directed by the Presence. They probably were.

  They fell before his swings and blows. Most weren’t killed, but broken bones kept them from getting back in his way. Loch didn’t care if they lived or died, he just needed them out of his way. But there were too many of them. He couldn’t get to the monster behind all the chaos.