Something shifted in the dark and her eyes returned to normal in time to glimpse a huge head brushing the top of the archway. She moved back quickly, getting behind cover. She peered out again. The creature, a quadruped ten times her height, stepped into the cavernous room. It had legs like stone pillars, scaled armour around its body and head, and two sharply curving tusks. There was no trace of magic coming from it at all. What a curious beast.

Darquesse walked out into the middle of the floor. It tracked her movements, growling deep within its throat. It had no obvious weak points, but she had yet to encounter an opponent who could withstand her power, so she let her magic pour from her eyes in twin streams. The blast hit the Gnarl on the shoulder, should have melted right through it. Instead, the wound sizzled a little, like a blister.

The Gnarl charged.

Darquesse rose to meet it. She flew straight for its head, hit the armoured plates and bounced off, went tumbling through the air. Its tail, it had a tail, whipped round, caught her across the waist, in between the armoured clothes. Bones broke. She smacked into the ground and sprawled.

She lay there for a moment, blinking in surprise.

Her bones healed, her internal organs righted themselves and she got up. The Gnarl turned, the ground juddering with every step.

She didn’t understand how creatures of the Void were immune to magical attack. Nobody did. People had theories. They had their tests. But then, nobody understood magic, either. Not really. They did their best to confine it to disciplines and restrict it with rules, but nobody knew what magic was or where it came from or how it worked. Not really.

Someone who understood magic, though … Someone who genuinely understood magic could reshape the universe.

And her next step was the Hessian Grimoire.

But first, she had to survive this encounter.

Darquesse raised her hand, wondering if she could take the creature apart atom by atom, but it was all wrong. She couldn’t see it the way she saw everything else. She couldn’t figure it out. She couldn’t see how it could be figured out. She tried to burn it in black flames, but she could find nothing for those black flames to burn; it was like the Gnarl wasn’t even there.

“Those clothes must be astonishing.”

She turned. Grand Mage Zafira Kerias stood at the viewing window.

“I don’t know how you survived that, Miss Cain,” she said, “but you’re not going to be so lucky twice.”

Keeping one eye on the Gnarl, Darquesse edged over. She was three steps away when an energy shield spread within the window, sealing Zafira safely inside.