Sean caught me by my shoulders and pulled me to him. Gradually his voice penetrated the haze, calm and steady. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Breathe.”

I sagged against him, shivering. The magic pooled at my feet, and more was coming, rushing toward me. It veered around Sean and went straight for me. Despair rose from it like a tsunami and dragged me under. Spasms rocked me, and I cried.

“Take your time. It will be okay.”

This was so much worse than the corruption I had felt in the dead ad-hal. This was something deeper, more obscene, more horrifying, worse than anything I had ever experienced. Worse than the baby inn dying, worse than…

Sean clamped me tight. “Does it hurt?”

I tried to answer, but only sobs came out. I felt so sad. All I could do was grieve. I shook and shuddered, but the tears wouldn’t stop.

Sean turned me and stepped toward the portal.

“No,” I managed.

“You’re going back.”

“No—”

The wall to the right burst open. Two corrupted ad-hals rushed at us. Sean fired. The weapon whined, spitting a stream of supercharged plasma. It took the first ad-hal in the chest. The creature shrieked, throwing its clawed hands in front of it, trying to conjure a barrier.

I had to help. I forced myself upright and stabbed my broom into the floor. My magic swelled inside me.

A slimy, rotting tendril burst out of the wall behind me, caught my waist in its loop like a lasso, and dragged me back. My feet left the ground. I flew backwards, through the house. Sean spun toward me. I saw his face, bleached with alarm and shock, and then walls snapped closed between us one by one, as the tendril carried me through the rooms, right, left, right, ripped the broom out of my hands, and hurled me into darkness.

* * *

I tucked my head in as I fell, rolled across the floor, and came up to my feet. The practice sessions with Sean paid off. I’d have a few bruises, but nothing was broken.

I was in a small room. The lights came on, the same nasty blisters. A trail of smashed fungi and moss darkened the floor where I had fallen. My broom was nowhere to be seen.

I wiped the nasty smudge off my cheek with the back of my hand and turned. A doorway formed in the wall in front of me, a rectangle of blue-green light.

This was an inn. I was sure of it. The rotting corpse of one, but still an inn. Somehow it was here, inside the Dominion’s mining facility, slowly decaying, decomposing into sludge.

Who would do this? This was monstrous.