My stomach clenches and bile rises in my throat as I take a step back, only to bump against the doors. If Veeni and Jira turned to Serena’s side, how many other fires can’t be trusted? My pulse hammers in my throat, but I start preparing to fight. If they're really going to try to kill me, I'm taking some of these fuckers down with me.

Typhon moves in front of me, spreading his wings wide, his long body rippling with power.

Malakai, Serena, and the gathered students all take a huge step backward, eyes suddenly wide with fear.

"Let them see what they threaten. Let them see Typhon. First of his name!"

He throws his head back and lets out a roar that rumbles through my chest, shaking dust from the ceiling and rattling my bones. The sound vibrates through every inch of my body, making my teeth ache and my ears ring.

Elementals flash into view around the room as the students draw weapons and prepare for a fight. Three fire elementals and twelve water elementals bathe the room in magical light, red and blue.

Veeni and Jira, the first-year fires who led me to the room, make the first move. Just as Typhon engages with four elementals, biting into one and throwing it hard enough to shatter stone, the girls rush me.

They're both holding daggers, and I'm unarmed. Unarmed, maybe. But not defenseless. Fucking far from it.

I reach into the stone beneath their feet, shifting the earth upward. A stone rises in front of Veeni's feet, tripping her and sending her flying forward.

I step back, pull water from the air, and form a small buckler of water over my right wrist. I barely raise it in time to knock away Jira's dagger, the impact sending shockwaves up my arm that make my teeth rattle.

There's a chaos of movement around me as Typhon creates a deadly barrier between me and most of the students. He's biting, clawing, and spraying magical torrents of water at elementals and students alike, but there are too many of them. He's only able to keep them back. To buy time. And it's not without cost.

His body is already slashed with several wounds that leak blue energy, each gash making my own skin tingle with sympathetic pain.

"Stop worrying over me, angry human. Defend yourself."

He roars, slamming his claws down on a dog-like beast of water that explodes in a cloud of mist. He blasts away Titus and several other waters with a column of water that sends them flying back as if from an explosion.

Malakai's shark, which has grown quite a bit larger since Confluence Day, slices through the air and bites hard on Typhon's shoulder.