Indira lay on the floor. Unlike the others, she hadn’t moved, hadn’t risen.
Olivia hovered over her, clutching at Indira’s shoulder. She looked up, latching onto the sight of Daniel. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Will kept yanking on her arm, bellowing something incoherent, but she didn’t move.
The guards that had hovered near her earlier were gone. Daniel jerked his head, mouthing come.
A woman burst around the end of the shelf alongside him, a wordless roar on her lips. Something crackled from her fingertips. Lightning.
“N-No!” he heard Olivia gasp, her voice hoarse and raw. She lurched up, yanking free of Will. “Daniel, look out!”
He’d already begun moving. The closer Alexandria wrapped herself around him, the more it was like settling into a trance. The chaos faded away, leaving only the methodical process of it all behind.
Lift his arm.
Stretch out his fingers. Carve the shape that appeared in his mind.
Watch the waters rise, coursing through the air at his beck and call.
It was just so close to what he was used to. The magic was right there at his fingertips, ready and waiting—he just needed to give it structure, to guide it into the shape he wanted. The incantations he whispered gave him that, and Alexandria gave him them.
A wall of water sprayed up. Bullets from somewhere alongside him slammed into it, falling into the murk with a faint splash. He saw the woman’s hand hit the water, driving through the layers.
Before she could breach it or pull back, Daniel pushed the wall outward, toppling it onto the woman’s head. Energy crackled out, turning to harmless jolts through the waves.
And then she was gone, leaving just a necklace that tumbled down into the waters, and Daniel stumbled on. His leg didn’t hurt at all, anymore. The relief of being able to walk again, to move without every twitch coming filled with agony, was nearly palpable.
Yelling—and footsteps, splashing behind him. He hardly noticed, just a ripple on the edge of his awareness as he floated onward.
“Olivia!” Will roared. “Olivia, you can’t-“
Someone slammed into him. Olivia. She clung to his side, gasping through her tears as the water coiled back in around them. It thickened with every churning pass it made, the storm growing.
This was the power of Alexandria given form. He realized he was smiling, his vision foggy around the edges. This was what they could do—together.
“Move!” he heard Rickard cry. “Come on!”
Madis was still crumpled on the ground, reeling. He shook his head as Rickard tried to yank him to his feet, his eyes wide and confused.
What did you do to him? Daniel took another step forward, pulling himself through the growing waves. He could still see Alexandria in front of Madis, her hand flat against his book and rivulets of ink dribbling down the pages. What happened to him?
He didn’t get a reply—but he felt her satisfaction all the same.
Will scrabbled for something in the waters, his eyes glued to Daniel and Olivia. A gun. Fear shone in his eyes. Fear, and hate.
End it. Daniel’s hands came up as he pulled another step closer, drifting past a cloud of smoke puffing off what had to be a wall underneath the glow of the spectral bookshelves. The waters coiled tighter and tighter, thrashing against his legs. Olivia’s grip on his arm tightened.
Other voices yelled. Bookbinders, Booklenders...he didn’t know, anymore. And he didn’t really care. A knot of exhaustion took root in his gut, hollow and cold—and the knot was growing. His power here wasn’t bottomless.
He had a job to do before he lost his grip entirely.
“Up,” Daniel whispered. Other words followed. Words he didn’t know, words he was fairly sure hadn’t been spoken in centuries. Longer. But as Alexandria coaxed the phrases past his lips, the waters of her magic came alive in response. The air thrummed, glistening with mists washing off the pool’s surface. The waves around Daniel grew stronger. Deeper. With every splash, the smoke filling the air choked in thicker.
Rickard backed away. He still clung to Madis’s arm, trying to haul his boss with him, but the looks he flashed Daniel’s way were starting to turn guarded. “Madis! Would you just-”
Daniel clenched his fists. Alexandria’s energy was starting to dwindle, he could feel that much. He grabbed at what was left, at the magic filling the room around them. Cries echoed through the air. Gunshots, from Will and the others. Warning bursts of light and noise from their mages.
He hardly heard them. Bullets and magic vanished together into the misty haze, crackling with barely-contained energy. Their attacks were just pinpricks against the seething mass of Alexandria’s collected rage.
His eyes settled onto Madis and Rickard, the senior Bookbinder still sprawled across the ground. Maybe in a different time or place, he’d have offered...something. A final word, a taunt, a bit of comfort or mercy.
But they’d attacked him. They’d attacked his friends. Daniel was tired, bone-tired, and there was no room left in his heart for taunts or mercies.
The waters thrummed. A pulse shot away from Daniel’s legs, coursing through the pool with an ominous chime.
For a moment, the churning of the waves stopped. The droplets spraying through the air froze. The air in the room glistened, full of tiny, glittering spots of moisture.
A hand closed around his—a hand full of strength, no matter how small and slender. “Now,” Alexandria whispered in his ear.
Daniel exhaled. The magic collected in his hands quivered, nearly bursting free of him.
Now.
Rickard saw their impending doom coming first. His eyes widened. One more time, he tugged at Madis’s hand—but when the older Bookbinder half-rose, stumbling back
