Emotional Purity looked like a really good skill. It was an all-encompassing enhancement, providing you were a half-decent thaumaturge. Any spell needing emotional channeling would receive a not insignificant umbrella buff. This could help him a lot with his final exams.

But this was no time to think about the final exam.

As they turned the corner into a grainier and definitely more sinister corridor, Fabrisse became acutely aware of his lack of parry spells. The only parry spell she had was Stillbrace, and surely he wasn't blocking any mantis with that. What else could count as a parry? Does redirecting count? It probably does, under 'reflection'. Then, does blocking with a well-placed rock count?

The corridor opened into a chamber shaped like an inverted teardrop, with a ceiling tapering high and a floor widening in a way that looked like a mouth about to speak. There were no bisected corpses in this chamber, meaning Severa hadn't been here yet. He warily scanned around, looking for movements, but all he saw was a shudder. From Severa.

Severa shuddered once in front of him.

Was that fear I saw? Did she ever feel fear? Not that he'd ever seen. If she does feel fear, does that mean she's been pushing through this entire corridor in constant quiet horror?

She had stopped shuddering, so he assumed she was just cold.

Then she halted. Fabrisse froze in step, noticing how her body tensed, how her eyes narrowed as she raised her hand. She threw out a piece of paper with runes etched on it, and a golden glyph appeared in the air before her, coalescing into a streak of light arcing along the chamber. She murmured an incantation under her breath and let it slip forward like a probe. Fabrisse's heart jumped as tiny figures scattered into view from the shadows.

"I knew it," she muttered. "A Chasm Nymph ambush."

Fire erupted from Severa's palm in staccato bursts. Her hands moved with that fluid, terrifying precision he had seen before, and the small insects exploded in brief flames, leaving smears of smoke in the air. Even so, she stepped backward cautiously, just enough to keep her distance from the swarm. Fabrisse mirrored her motion, always staying a step behind.

Perfect, he thought, a strange thrill rippling through him. This is a perfect opportunity to parry for her.

One small insect wouldn't do much damage on its own. And a parry . . . a parry is a parry. If he timed it right, he could block or redirect one of the tiny attackers, and Severa wouldn't even notice.

The problem was . . . Severa was scorching them all.

Every single insect, no matter how fast, how tiny, how desperate in its scramble, erupted in flame, leaving nothing but faint smoke curling into the chamber's high ceiling. Even the ones that seemed like they had a chance to breach her line of fire—gone. Every last one.

And she wasn't even using anything flashy; nothing but Tier 2 Fireballs and bursts of combustion. The precision came not from complexity, but from instinct, timing, and ruthless efficiency. It was almost unfair how completely she dominated the swarm with what looked like minimal effort.

Fabrisse's eyes dashed from the nearest Nymphs to the ones skittering at the far edges of the chamber. Surely Severa will slip . . . just one . . .

A part of him, darkly mischievous and thrill-seeking, considered deliberately tripping her so he could test a real parry. But the thought erased itself under its own recklessness. What if a bigger threat arrived at that precise moment?

She didn't turn around, but spoke to him anyway, "Kestovar. Keep your eyes on the far end behind us. They know how to hide, so try feeling the aetheric disturbance. If suddenly aether courses through your body, there might be ambushes."

Feel the aetheric disturbance? I can barely feel my own aether . . .

His thoughts were spiraling, trying to latch onto any sensation in the air, when a sudden twitch of motion danced at the corner of his eye.

Incoming for Severa.

And it's small!

I will parry it!

Fabrisse thrust his hand forward and conjured Stillbrace.

[Emotional Vector: Resolve 0.72 – Shame 0.22 – Nervousness 0.06]

He forced resolve into it just good enough to materialize the spell, tightening every muscle to keep the damn thing from collapsing prematurely, then lunged to Severa's side.

Boop.

The 'incoming threat' drifted to the floor. It was . . . a brittle flake of stone peeling off the wall.

[Parry disqualified — Not an attack]

Before he could even finish processing his own humiliation, something firm collided with his back. Severa stumbled, catching herself on the stone wall as the flames guttered in her palm.

"What in the Flamus— Why are you standing that close to me?"

He had no good answer.

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He had, in fact, the worst possible collection of answers.

So he said, "Your hands are warm."

Severa looked at him like he was just admitted into a psych asylum. "Huh?"

"Uh . . ."

"Did you swap your brain with a mantis or were you born this way?" She glared daggers at him.

Fabrisse's brain was still buffering, still trying to reverse-engineer what part of his mouth had betrayed him, when he saw a small chitter.

Two tiny Nymphs slipped past Severa's curtain of fire—just small enough, just fast enough, just lucky enough to be missed because she was currently too busy reevaluating whether Fabrisse should be allowed in society.

That was surely a part of his carefully crafted plan to distract Severa.

This was it.

His moment.

He hurled himself forward, conjuring Stillbrace so fast the spell almost tore itself apart.

[Emotional Vector: Joy 0.96 – Resolve 0.04]

Yes! Finally!

A shield of golden light slammed into existence. In front of his Stillbrace.

The first Nymph cracked against the bulwark like a thrown pebble; the second smacked into it a moment after. Heat surged, and both creatures crisped instantly in the barrier's burn-field.

His Stillbrace hung there behind her bulwark, tiny and useless.

Why did she protect me? I'm supposed to protect her?

Severa whipped her head toward him. "Are you mentally insane, Kestovar? Why did you jump straight in front of a diving insect? They can be poisonous!"

Another blur, another Nymph breaking from the far corner. Fabrisse's body moved faster than his brain could file a complaint. His Stillbrace was already up, trembling but serviceable. He shifted to intercept, angling himself so precisely he almost congratulated himself mid-motion.

I can block that—

Severa's bulwark slid across the air and stopped at the exact angle he'd chosen. The insect hit her bulwark instead of his, sizzling instantly.

[Parry invalid — Senior Thaumaturge interference]

No no no.

STOP SAVING ME.

I AM TRYING TO SAVE YOU.

"Are you even listening to me, you— you—" Her voice glitched between disbelief and anger before settling on, "—you rock-brained hazard?"

"I had it," he managed, pointing weakly at where the Nymph had evaporated.

"You had it?" she repeated, voice climbing an octave he didn't know she possessed. "Kestovar, you have the self-preservation instincts of a concussed moth!"

"Can moths get concussed?"

"That's not the point!"

Before Severa could resume scolding him into a fine academic paste, fire blazed across the chamber, turning every insect in front of it into a crisp. A whole blast of churning orange fire punched through the cluster of shadows across the chamber, definitely not something a Stillbrace could block.

It roared straight toward them.

Fabrisse's brain short-circuited into pure survival math.

Severa, who for once did not have a spell ready aside from her bulwark. Because he was still distracting her with his existence.

That sounded dangerous and he didn't know her bulwark could hold.

He had to act.

[Spell Cast: Shadowed Reposition Protocol (Rank II)]

Allows the caster to make a short, low-profile displacement into a zone of lower attention density (max 3m).

Fabrisse had forgotten he had a skill called Shadowed Reposition Protocol until a fireball the size of his torso shot straight toward his face. And today, he learned he could cast that skill only by thinking about it.

Can it move Severa? Can it move two people?

He didn't have time to know.

He grabbed Severa by the forearm.

Reality folded like a napkin in the hands of a bored child. The world went black, then both of them zipped sideways into the nearest shadow.

[Displacement Radius: 0.479m]

Which was, unfortunately, the wall.

Fabrisse slammed forehead-first into solid stone.

BONK.

"Ow—"

[Parry failed—Dodging is not parrying]

Severa's shoulder hit next, and she recoiled like she had been personally offended by the existence of masonry. "Kestovar . . . What was that spell? What did you just do?"

Fabrisse peeled himself off the wall like an improperly glued poster. "Repositioned us."

Her bulwark—still hovering where she'd left it—had caught the fire. It didn't even crack.

"My bulwark," she said, voice very flat, "was going to hold."

"I didn't know that."

"I knew that."

"I didn't know you knew that."

"Argh, you—"

A voice echoed across the chamber, "Sorry for the scare, guys!"

Both Fabrisse and Severa snapped their heads toward the far shadows.

Tommaso stepped past the burning smokes he'd just created. His long hair, usually already fizzled, stuck out at angles suggesting he'd either been electrocuted recently or had voluntarily lost an argument with static.

He waved at them. "That blast was supposed to flush the Nymph cluster, not your entire sense of direction."

"You could've warned us . . ." Fabrisse protested.

"I did," Tom said. "I shouted 'Heads up!' Chathem's law says if you issue the warning, it counts. Doesn't matter whether anyone actually hears it." He stepped closer, and his voice suddenly turned 1000% more serious. "But you might wanna hear this now: go back the way you came from."

Then something chittered.

Then something chittered louder.

A cluster of bright eyes snapped open along the wall's lower seam.

His voice reduced to a low growl. "This section is not safe."

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