"You really are more brilliant than I expected. Such a waste, but I don't make the rules."

Time dilated agonisingly slowly before Melissa.

If she didn't make it through the night…

Natalia would remain here forever, imprisoned in her own guilt, like what happened with Lionel. He carried a flame everyone could see, or at least pretended he did. She carried a flame that never stopped burning her from within.

And for that, Melissa had resented Lionel. He had made her complicit in convincing Natalia she was just minutely above ordinary. But now, now…

Melissa finally started to get him. Maybe he burned himself every day over that same lie.

And even if Natalia somehow evaded the Van Nassau pursuers, even if they preserved her life for their dark intentions…

she would still burn, over and over again.

Melissa had been wrong. She had never looked beyond the surface heat of Natalia's arcane structure.

Natalia was heat, yes. She was also more.

Perhaps that ridiculous buffoon Lionel had known all along. And now, Melissa had walked Natalia right into the hands of the Van Nassaus without even seeing the outline of the move.

Taika's voice rumbled low as he leaned closer to the barrier. He pushed his hand into the rippling sheet.

"Goodnight, Doctor."

Electricity snaked along his palm. The vicious arc tried to use her wall of water to close the circuit and kill her.

If she didn't make it through the night, Natalia would—

No.

"Not tonight," Melissa growled.

She grabbed the barrier with both hands and shattered its structure. She'd never mastered this the way the Whitlocks had–

To hell with dying here.

Liquid to vapour, every droplet unbound. Her blue hair lashed back as she pushed the entropy higher until it evaporated completely. The ion channel failed without the bridge. The circuit flatlined.

Taika's eyes widened. He snarled, calling up another bolt. Melissa reached for her Gift but found herself depleted.

"Love the spirit, Doc." His surprise morphed to a victorious grin, until violet light flooded his face.

The whole cabin glowed purple.

Melissa's breath clouded the air, curling up in wisps to mix with the vapor pooling at the ceiling. The mist turned a deep violet, wrapped around Taika's fist, and sucked the charge right out of his skin. It shuddered, faded, and drifted out through the broken door.

Taika blinked, then laughed it off. "That your last trick?"

Gold sparks danced over his knuckles. Melissa yanked Natalia off the seat and dragged her to the floor, out of his line of fire.

His lightning slammed into an invisible barrier, inches from Melissa. Her heart skipped a beat.

The ceiling dented inward.

A pressure wave slammed the car a breath later, blowing every window into flying shards.

A blade of luminous white punched through the reinforced roof, then punched through his shoulder. The metal shriek arrived last and drowned his cry.

Melissa caught her own reflection in the blade before the silver light glowed brighter, burning her eyes. The blade shattered into particles, leaving neat punctures in the roof and in Taika's shoulder.

Her ears rang, yet a familiar husky voice sounded from somewhere above the car.

Astra's.

"Duck," she called.

Melissa dove under the charred upholstery. Metal screamed as it tore, and what remained of the windshield burst apart. The roof peeled back, flung into the black sky.

Moonlight caught Astra's silver hair as she dropped through the opening, landing lightly on the headrest in her leather boots. The golden streetlight hit her blade, scattering sparks like stars. She looked almost… celestial.

Snap out of it.

"Would've been nice to have, I don't know, one more second to react," Melissa complained, though relief rushed through her.

Astra pushed off in a graceful backward leap, landed on the bonnet, and plunged her blade deep into the engine block.

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"Sorry. If it weren't for the blue fire—" she said softly.

Taika vanished in a blink and reappeared behind Astra.

"Look—" The word died on Melissa's lips.

With reflexes sharper than his lightning, Astra's backhand sliced the bolt into two.

Taika leaped back, drawing another electric stream with both arms, bathing the rocky edge in glow before flinging it at her.

Radiance dazzled Melissa once more as Astra conjured a second blade, crossed them, and absorbed the strike with ease.

"Diamond? What are—" A lazy plum-red mist thickened from nowhere and slammed into Taika's mouth.

Another haze appeared, this one the same shade of violet from earlier. As if driven by pure malice, it seized his neck and hurled him off the cliff road. With every sick, wet crack, bone tore against rock, then another—

and another for good measure.

Both man and mist vanished, leaving only blood streaks on the cliff.

Melissa stared in shock. Not gonna lie… that felt weirdly satisfying. But "What the bloody—"

"—How is Natalia?" Astra sighed. She, too, had watched the violence with something close to exasperation.

Melissa took a deep breath. She should have demanded answers about the mists, which might or might not have been the same ones rumoured in headlines over the past few months.

But Natalia came first.

Melissa checked her pulse. "She's stable. Needs a day or two to recover."

Astra relaxed her shoulders. "We need to get you both to safety."

"They're after Natalia. And Taika might return—he can—"

"Turn invisible, I know. I doubt she'll let him walk away." With her blades dissolved, Astra hooked an arm under Melissa and another under Natalia.

"She?"

Astra ignored the question. "So Taika can throw lightning as well. What is he?"

"Lightning's just the surface of a much larger force. Most people never push beyond it but… actually yes. With modern science we are finally starting to cross reference the old myths with real physics and—"

"More concise, please." Astra jumped, carrying both injured women with her.

For a dizzy second, Melissa realised they were flying. She had the sinking feeling Astra's power was something she was better off not dissecting.

"You and your concision." She held on tighter as wind hit her face. It had an unexpectedly sharp and icy bite, like the Arctic.

"What is the larger force?" Astra's question distracted her from analysing it.

"To pull all that off at once, recharge himself…" Melissa decided to leave out the fact that Natalia could recharge him with her fire.

"And?"

"Might sound crazy, but… I think it's the electromagnetic spectrum."

"That shouldn't be possible. That is a world-altering power."

"Wow, you get it? I didn't expect someone with a face like yours to know much about sci…" Seeing Astra's glare, Melissa backpedalled. "I mean a Renaissance-painting face that also reads quantum journals."

Astra's expression froze into a perfect Renaissance portrait, which was somehow worse.

Melissa cleared her throat. "Moving on. Most Gifts are natural, instinctive. You shoot fire, you've got Fire affinity, simple as the old myths. Someone throws lightning, same deal. But Taika actually understands the physics behind it."

Astra landed gently on the pavement and carefully placed Natalia in the back seat of her rented car. "So he's pushing the boundaries of his Gift, using science to align it with a fundamental force. That's how he created a Faraday cage."

"And blocking my phone signal, yes. Off the top of my head, I'm about 77.9% confident."

Astra groaned like she had suffered through this before.

"Our arcane structure is a built-in memory and trying to rewrite it is deadly. Taika has to guide it, choose frequencies, control wavelengths," Melissa explained. "Unless you are a natural genius—"

"Which you are."

Melissa blushed. Then she straightened. "Our minds weren't made to handle that much at once. No wonder he's deranged. And who knows what else he can do? So let's hope he sticks to visible light and below."

"Can sunlight recharge him? Astra asked.

"Maybe. A walking solar pan…" A damp touch grazed her cheek and cut her off. An icy gust cut into her face, and snow began to fall, thickening almost immediately.

From the road, jagged ice erupted with a crackle, flying straight toward them.

Astra shoved both Melissa and the car sideways out of its path, then wrenched the driver's door open. "Can you still drive?"

"But…" Melissa winced and rubbed her shoulder.

"Natalia needs you. Drive. And do not call anyone."

Just as Melissa reluctantly slid behind the wheel, the vapour out on the road thickened and twisted.

And shaped itself into the outline of an old man.

"A shapeshifter. That's… rare," Melissa commented as Astra slammed the door shut.

He wore a long dark blue coat, about Astra's height, with frost-white hair and skin like Taika's. Intricate tattoo covered his cheeks and chin, a mataora. The pattern differed from Taika's, but the style was close enough that Melissa reached the only possible conclusion.

They came from the same family.

Shit.

How was Astra supposed to handle both if Taika regrouped?

"Where. Is. The. Boy?" The aged man spat the words, and the snowstorm thrashed around him.

"Cross that. A water affinity, then, which means teleporting like that is deranged. And ingenious." Melissa was genuinely awed despite herself.

Her unhelpful brain added it to the list of self-sabotaged ideas she fully planned to experiment with someday.

"I got there in time, but Taika was already gone. So where did you hide him?" he said evenly over the roar, arms stretched wide. Snow sharpened into ice spears.

"Please tell me this car is bulletproof," Melissa whispered to no one. The wind grew so fierce that even the luxury car shook.

"It is now." Astra swept her arm and forged silver light into a shield in front of her.

Shards flew everywhere from the clashing spears, dissolving into the rings of mist. Wind-tousled hair framed Astra's calm stance before the vehicle.

"Get out of here. Immediately!"

Melissa swore softly and performed a sharp three-point turn. The lake's calm surface flickered in front of her.

How was he creating such a wild blizzard without using the lake's water?

She looked ahead, stomach sinking. A handful of snowflakes remained intact on the windscreen, all identical in size, shape, and… crystalline lattice. This was perfection and god-like precision. But why waste mana on that?

Melissa slowed the car to take a couple of photos while simultaneously debating whether she should turn back to help Astra. It had taken her and Natalia together just to barely survive one Breaker, and Taika had nearly won.

Now Taika was still out there, and this new and improved lunatic, complete with a perfection expansion package, had stormed in and promised mayhem.

The fog got thicker, headlights piercing only a few metres ahead. Melissa flicked on the fog lamps but it didn't do much. Everything outside the glass smeared except…

Something black hovered above.

A raven?

It darted through the beams, then landed in front of the car, looking back at her as if to say, 'Come.'

She was definitely seeing things, and she hesitated too long before hearing Natalia from the back.

"I'm cold… Mel."

Melissa pressed on the accelerator decisively.

The raven flew above her eye level, glided down into the cone of light, then vanished into the whiteout. Soon it reappeared, loitering just far enough ahead to shepherd her onward.

Drained, and quite possibly unhinged, she followed the bird of shadow into the murk. She hoped Astra's Gift would be enough. Oddly, she could feel Eydis nearby, even if unseen.

For all her rational thinking, Melissa finally understood blind faith and strangely, it comforted her.

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