I followed Ellen along the path, my thin hoodie and shorts almost comical next to her dress and heels. We stopped at a second sign, and more Mana flowed out of my shaking core and into hers. I started drawing on Cheddar—who was, in theory, still sitting in my lap. That Mana vanished into Ellen's insatiable core, too.

And with every drop of Mana that poured into her, my grip on her mental world grew weaker. By the time we finished the second sign, my eyes were closed against shadows that felt like monsters thrashing against me, and she was squeezing my hand to stop me from letting go.

I couldn't let go. Not completely. So I squeezed back. I squeezed hard enough for both of our knuckles to pop and crack. But the pain was inconsequential compared to my core's agony.

The God of Thunder had been right. I'd been in no shape to push to B-Rank—even if my skills hadn't been too low, it would have failed. It could still fail. I could let Ellen down. But no, I promised I'd be with her for the long haul. I'd promised everyone we'd get through this. That I'd take care of Jessie. And I'd do what it took to fulfill all of my promises.

Ellen's garden was beautiful.

It always had been. The house had been her refuge growing up. Her school. Her world—until Bob had shown her the city outside of it. Its high walls cast shade across its sandstone paths, and the desert flowers within smelled like springtime even in autumn. The pool—surrounded by ponds full of fish and filled with priceless real water, not the portal water from Wickenberg—had been a welcome respite from Junes and Julys filled with hundred and twenty degree days. She'd spent hours a day in her swimsuit, thrashing and splashing in the water.

Then, as she'd grown older, she'd spent her time in the garden thinking for herself. Trying to start piecing the world together. After her trip to Tucson's walls, she'd been grounded, and the garden's high walls had been the closest she could get to freedom.

When she'd consumed her first D-Rank core and merged her first skill, she'd done it in the garden. Behind the Palo Verde trees and the prickly pear she'd planted when she was six. It had grown tall and wide; it looked less like a single leaf and more like an upside-down triangle of round pads and long spikes. Ellen had merged her next skill there, too. It was safe. Protective. Constraining.

It was a refuge. But it was still a prison.

Kade's mental space couldn't be anything like this. The storm wouldn't thrive here; even as it raged overhead, the impossibly tall walls—the ones she remembered as a toddler, not the ones she could see from her bedroom window now—blocked the wind and shielded her from the rain. But they also kept her trapped. She had to do something about it. About Bob.

And about her first core. He'd shoved it on her. Told her how expensive it had been. How much he'd sacrificed—how much his companies' profits had been set back, never mind that it wasn't really worth that much in the grand scheme of things. That first core was a constant reminder that she was in his debt. That she'd always be in his debt—even after she'd paid it back. He'd never let her forget that, either. She had to do something about it, but it was too late.

Ellen took a deep breath. She focused on the Laws, not on the blooming desert flowers or the all-too-expensive pool at its center. The Laws had to come first. Once she had them figured out, then she could…

She could…

A wave of vibration slammed into her from Kade, ripping up her arm and into her chest. "Are you okay?" she tried to ask, but nothing came out in the too-still air of her always-silent garden.

I wasn't okay.

I was far from okay. The center of my vision was still locked onto Ellen as I kept pouring Mana along Shadowstorm Battery's channels and borrowing it from Cheddar. My Mana still hovered at zero, flicked to one, and then returned to zero again, faster than I could watch. Nothing had changed there. I wasn't in danger of Mana Burn from it, even though Ellen was draining everything I had.

But along the periphery of my vision, the garden was giving way to gigantic portal metal bands holding back a raging thunderstorm. The bands seemed to encircle me; in every direction I looked, they kept the same distance, and as Ellen dragged me along the path to her next Law, they moved with me.

And they were cracked. Fractured. Coming apart even as Ellen worked through her second Law.

They wouldn't hold. Not for five. Not if I didn't do something to brace them. But the only thing I could do was…

I took a deep breath. Then I focused on the bands as they framed a tall, two-armed Saguaro cactus. They were portal metal. More than that, they were Stormsteel. And that meant the Law of Stormsteel governed them. And no shelter could withstand the storm. But destruction? Destruction was protection. The two Laws were in contradiction to each other.

But they made sense. I didn't need to withstand the storm. I just needed something to be left when I was done.

Ellen drew on my Mana again, and the whole structure shook violently around me. The storm outside of it redoubled. I squeezed my fists until they hurt. Then I tore down the weakest band.

The storm started to pour into the silent, still garden. Ellen's hair blew, her battle pigtails flapping in the wind. She looked up, confusion on her brow. I couldn't say anything, though. My mental space—my core—didn't belong in hers. The fragments of the first Stormsteel band poured into the others, bracing them, and the garden stilled.

But my core ached like it hadn't before.

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As Ellen finished standing in front of the fifth sign in her garden, she dropped to her knees as if a massive weight had crashed into her shoulders. I knelt with her, then helped her into an awkward sitting position, our hands still entwined. That connection—as mental and non-physical as it was—was the only thing providing her with enough Mana to keep going. And I only needed to maintain it for a little while longer.

She was done reviewing her Laws. Now, she'd have to consolidate them, and for that part, she wouldn't need my Mana. But I'd have to maintain the connection. Breaking it would reduce her to a Mana-Burned state again—and mid-consolidation, that would be disruptive enough to make her fail.

I sat next to her and stared at the three rings that were all that was left of my core's defenses. They were cobbled together, lightning-welded monstrosities that barely resembled the clean Stormsteel frame of my armor. Cracks and rust covered them. And behind them, a hurricane grew.

I couldn't lose another. It wouldn't be strong enough to hold the storm.

I dropped into a battle trance. My vision narrowed. I stopped being able to feel Ellen's sweaty palm in mine. Only three things mattered—the three bands that contained the storm. Every fragment of portal metal I could muster poured into them, reinforcing them against the maelstrom outside as Mana kept flowing into Ellen's core from mine.

The pain was incredible. It felt like lightning in every one of my veins. Like I was being sandblasted to nothing.

But I kept holding on even as the third ring started to come apart. I had to. There was no other option.

"Hold together. Hold it together, please god!" Ellen screamed silently into the garden.

Her hand shook in Kade's grip. She squeezed it tighter and tighter. The five Laws. She had to consolidate the five Laws. That was her only job. She could trust Kade. If anyone could hold it together, it was him. His Mana had completely cut off, but that was…that was fine.

Ellen gasped in pain.

It was fine. She had enough. With Pepperoni, she could finish this. Probably. Maybe. The Laws, then. She cleared her mind. Cleared her core. Focused on each of them, one at a time.

The Second Law of the Shadow Boxer. Darkness was a fickle ally, but a steadfast one. It was. The spotlight in her mental space was proof—the one she'd lived in. Where it went, her ally fled. But when it left, it returned. She could trust darkness and shadow. It wouldn't betray her—not for long.

The Second Law of the Bottomless Pit. It stated that the end was an illusion, building on its predecessor's understanding that there was always an end. That end—the one that was a challenge to find—was a deception, because in every end was a new beginning. There was no finality—only continuation through the depths.

Next was the Second Law of the Dark Book. Forbidden readings must be spread. Her magic was evolving. She wasn't enough for it. It needed to spread, to propagate. Her understanding of it wouldn't be enough to keep it tame and controlled; she'd need to help her apprentice along in his understanding of shadow magic, too. And in this regard, Kade was her apprentice. She snorted silently, her hand in his.

The Second Law of the Echoing Word. In revelation is freedom. That was the truth. She'd finally found Kade—someone to be truthful with about her situation. And it had helped. The Law was helping her, just as she'd helped it along.

The Second Law of the Thunderbird. The contradiction of its first iteration—that the storm would rage on after it faded—was gone. In its place was a single truth. The storm never stopped raging. Kade. Kade never stopped raging. And neither did she. She raged against the walls and the garden and the stupid goddamn dresses. Against the role she kept playing, even though she hated it, because that's what you did for family, even if you hated them too, even if they were just using you and they'd throw you out the second you stopped being useful.

Her anger filled her. Kade's Mana cut off right on time. The emptiness inside of her was so profound she almost passed out—Mana Burn and the Trial's necessary emptiness coming together to crush her—but she powered through and touched the jet-black orb that cracked with lightning above her heart.

She started to consolidate.

And as she did, the storm broke around her. Wind ripped through her hair. Rain splashed down into the pool and ponds. Lightning hit every Palo Verde tree at once. The garden erupted in chaos.

For a few seconds—or an eternity, Ellen wasn't sure—her body burned. Her soul burned. Her core burned. Lightning, wind, water, and Mana—so much Mana she couldn't possibly empty it fast enough—poured into her core. It filled, then overfilled, threatening to drown her five Laws before she could consolidate them and achieve B-Rank. She fought with all her will. Emptied Mana poured from her core so fast that the friction burned worse than the Mana Burn had.

But it wasn't enough. She looked at Kade. At the rictus mask of pain covering his face. Understanding hit her like a dust storm. She knew what had happened; his core had shattered.

The God of Thunder watched as Kade killed himself trying to lift the shadow mage to B-Rank.

Even if he'd been successful, it wouldn't have been enough. Queen Mother Yalerox was simply too strong. A single mage couldn't kill her. Kade had miscalculated. Either that, or the kid's hubris had gotten the better of him. Of course, that hubris was the biggest reason the God of Thunder had wanted him as a Paragon.

One did not simply tell Kade Noelstra that something was impossible. He was brave, stubborn, or idiotic enough to do it anyway.

"That, my God, is that," a skeletal woman said from Eugene's side. Her insectile eyes and massive, ant-like abdomen, and the blackgold chitin-and-maelstrom armor glimmered in his portal world. She stared at the magical images before her, enraptured. "I suppose I win."

"I suppose you do, Yalerox," Eugene said. His voice was disgustingly formal. He hated it; it was so much more entertaining to talk to Kade than to act the part of God to his worshipers."I will return you to your world. After all, you'll have a much larger problem to manage soon. And congratulations on defeating the weakest of my Paragons."

"This was an expensive victory. Tathrix will not be easily replaced."

"I understand. Kade Noelstra was also a once-in-a-millennium pupil. The best I've had in a long, long time."

"Better than me?" Queen Mother Yalerox, the Hurricane Paragon, asked.

"Much. He'd kill you in a heartbeat. Now get out."

A golden portal opened, and the God of Thunder grabbed Yalerox, shoving her through it unceremoniously. She landed outside of her tower, in the sandstone courtyard.

Eugene promptly forgot about her. Kade's situation was tragic—both for the kid and for the lightning dragon. He hadn't been lying. Kade Noelstra was the weakest of his Paragons. But he also had the most potential. If it hadn't been for the timing, everything Kade was going through would have been the perfect crucible for his necessary rebirth. As it was, though, it would take Eugene a thousand years to find another like him. The last to come close has been Tallas.

The God of Thunder had no desire for revenge against Yalerox. That was boring. And she hadn't done anything wrong. Kade's core would empower her as she pushed toward S-Rank, and someday, her core would empower the God of Thunder.

Unless….

Kade's body moved.

How?

He should have been unconscious. He should have been comatose. The shock of losing a core should have been enough to all but kill him, and it should have sealed his friends' fates—especially the shadow mage's. But she was still desperately holding on to her Laws even as her core tried to shut down from lack of Mana, and that was an achievement on its own.

And Kade? Kade was…

Eugene's massive brow rose. "Curious. What are you doing, kid?"

Whatever it was, Eugene had never seen it before.

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