I jumped out of a window.

  I. JUMPED. OUT. OF A WINDOW.

  “Aaaaaaa!” I screamed, flailing like an idiot as gravity did exactly what it always does… drag my sorry ass toward the stone streets below. “This isn’t—!”

  Wind whipped past me, roaring in my ears, tearing at my scarf and yanking my hair into a tangled halo of panic.

  And then I saw him.

  I dared a glance up and… “Of course he’s flying,” I groaned.

  That smug wind mage lunatic had actually followed me out the damn window. His white robes billowed like he thought he was some kind of divine justice, arms spread wide as invisible currents caught him like wings. The runes on his cuffs were glowing, silver and blue, circling his body like lazy feathers.

  Wind. His element was wind. Of course.

  He looked like a pissed-off cloud god descending upon the heretic. I was the heretic.

  Okay. Focus, Charlie. Less screaming, more not dying.

  I reached for the mana in my core, frantically calling on the technique I used to use back when I was a player with stats and gear and actual mana. Back when falling meant cool parkour moment, not crater-shaped death.

  I imagined the old maneuver: Ice platform, tilted just enough, angled to redirect momentum. Quick friction. Lateral drop. Stylish skid into a roll. Easy.

  Except…

  The ice cracked halfway through forming.

  I didn’t have enough mana for a full platform. Just a half-baked, slippery ramp with the structural integrity of wet soap. Still, better than nothing.

  It flared into existence below me with a sharp crack, cold mist blooming outward as my boots slammed down and—

  “Woooaa—!”

  I skidded. Hard.

  The platform was too steep, the edge too short. I turned my slave boots into my belowed heels and heels scraped ice, trying to dig in, but I had the grip of a dying duck on a slip-n-slide. I barely slowed down before whoosh… I slid right off the end like a cartoon character missing a rooftop.

  Air caught me again. I flailed.

  “No, no—!”

  I twisted midair, summoned another splinter of ice. Not for style. Just something, anything, to push against. It shimmered under my foot and exploded as I kicked off, redirecting just enough to aim for—

  A rooftop.

  “Yesssss—”

  I didn’t land gracefully. I slammed onto the tiles, bounced once, then tumbled into a heap beside a chimney with a thud that knocked the wind out of me.

  My body screamed in protest. My ribs hated me. My left elbow voted to secede from the rest of me.

  But I was alive.

  Barely.

  I slammed my palm to my ribs and cast [Healing], the soothing energy barely enough to dull the stabbing pain in my side. It tingled. Not pleasant. More like chugging a healing potion mixed with ice shards, but it held me together.

  “RUNAWAY SLAVE!” a voice bellowed from above.

  Oh. Crap.

  I scrambled to my feet, lungs heaving, muscles still stiff. My heels scraped against sun-warmed shingles as I stumbled forward, and just in time, because the rooftop exploded behind me with a whomp as a gust of wind punched into it like a wrecking ball.

  He landed.

  White robes flared around him like some righteous weather god cosplaying as a tax auditor. Silver hair swept back in the wind. Eyes locked on me like I was a fly about to meet a very smug swatter.

  “Not paying!” I yelled, voice hoarse but triumphant.

  He didn’t understand the joke, which made it even better.

  I dove off the edge and dropped into a shadowed corner between buildings just as another wind burst slammed the ledge where I’d been standing. Tiles shattered. Dust and splinters rained down like confetti at a very aggressive parade.

  “HELP!” I shouted as I hit the alley. “He’s damaging property!”

  It was one of those cramped market spines. Barely wide enough for a cart, lined with stalls and hanging banners, the kind that smelled like rotting fish.

  Merchants blinked at me, then at my scarf, and then at the fast-approaching whoosh of an angry storm mage.

  “Not buying! Just running!” I shouted, ducking low and scrambling under a table stacked with ceramic jugs. A woman with hair like dry straw opened her mouth to scold me, but her voice died the moment a wind projectile obliterated her inventory, scattering shards across the cobblestones.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What’s the meaning of this!?” she screeched at the incoming mage.

  Good. Let her chew him out. I bolted down the alley, heartbeat in my throat. A cart full of woven baskets rolled in front of me, probably someone’s delivery, but I vaulted over the edge and twisted to the side.

  I felt the mana gathering behind me. Instinct screamed.

  Ice.

  I flung mana into a flat, transparent wall of it, angled, reinforced, and glowing faintly with frost.

  BOOM.

  The wind strike only grazed my wall, but it shattered in a misty explosion, and launched the poor basket cart sideways. It spun midair and slammed into a fruit stall. Melons or whatever that was went flying.

  “Sorry!” I shouted, dodging flying fruit. “Not me! Blame that guy!”

  No time to slow down. No time to think.

  Up ahead, I spotted a tall wooden rack of scarves and cloaks. Probably another stall. Probably another victim of collateral damage. I grinned as a stupid idea formed.

  I sprinted up the side of a crate and flung myself through the scarf rack. Fabric exploded around me. I grabbed one mid-fall and wrapped it around my head, yanking off my visible collar scarf as I dove into the nearest group of shoppers.

  I crouched between a tall man arguing over spice prices and a dwarf enthusiastically inspecting salted fish. Smelly fish.

  Behind me, another wind blast tore the cloak rack to splinters.

  “What in the heavens?!” the merchant wailed.

  I didn’t wait for the follow-up. I slipped past them and ducked into a shadowed space between a bakery and a tannery. It stank of yeast and boiled leather.

  A water barrel stood to the side, full to the brim. I yanked the not-slave scarf off, bunched it up, and tossed it in. It floated on the surface like a drowned flag.

  Let him chase that.

  I spun and sprinted down the alley, rounding the next corner and—

  Yes.

  A laundry line.

  Stretching across an upper balcony with linens big enough to hide a runaway, and a rickety-looking fire escape leading right to it.

  I didn’t think. I climbed. Fast. The metal rattled under me, but it held. Barely. I reached the line, yanked one of the sheets off the rope, and tucked myself under it just as another gust of wind swept down the alley below.

  He blew right past. Literally.

  I watched from behind a curtain of someone’s frilly bedspread as his silver robe flared again, his face furious, scanning the streets for me like an Irishman without whiskey.

  I did not know where exactly I was—shocker, right?—but I thought I was heading the right way. The general barn-ward direction. The air tasted like dust and sweat and cheap spices, and every corner I peeked around felt like a dice roll for whether I’d find safety or another wind-fueled freakout.

  So I crept like a very anxious rat with a death wish, glancing over my shoulder and double-checking every alley like a paranoid rogue at 2 HP.

  Eventually, I got within a few blocks of the barn. That familiar scent of sunbaked stone and overworked slaves was just starting to tickle my memory when I saw him again.

  Standing like a pompous statue in a stone plaza near a tiered marble fountain, silver hair fluttering like some kind of holy shampoo commercial. He was surrounded by a half-circle of guards, cape flaring, gesturing dramatically as he shouted something at them.

  I couldn’t hear the exact words, but I could guess the tone. Probably something along the lines of “Ah yes, her acrobatics were divine, but worry not, for I, The Magnificent Sky Pompadorius, shall recapture her with dramatic flair!”

  I ducked back around the corner.

  Too late.

  A wind bullet screeched past the edge of the wall, flaying off stone and scraping the tip of my ear with an icy kiss.

  “STOP THE SLAVE!” he roared.

  “Nope!” I snapped back automatically, already scanning the street like my life depended on it. Which, y’know, it did.

  The street was wide. Too wide. Open. Welcome to your doom, please trip here for dramatic effect.

  So I did the only thing that made sense to me in the moment. I summoned a flat platform of ice beneath my heels and vaulted up to the first floor of the nearest building. And by vaulted I meant crashed, shoulder-first, through a wooden window with the grace of a drunk pigeon.

  I landed in a room that was a mix of classic Rimelion and something more exotic: tasseled cushions in every corner, painted screens with weird motifs, copper lamps hanging on delicate chains.

  It smelled like incense, dust, and maybe rosewater if you squinted your nose just right.

  No time to marvel at the decor. I bolted through a beaded curtain into the next room, blessedly a bathroom, and yes, it had another window.

  Small. Cramped.

  Good thing I’d downsized my body. Huray me smool!

  I squeezed through the window frame, glass scraping my arms and hands as I pushed through. My clothes held, of course they were magnicificent, but my palms throbbed, raw with little red cuts. I landed in a heap on the street outside, face-first, and grunted.

  I groaned, shoved a hand into the air, and cast [Healing] again. Light wrapped around my fingers, soothing the sting just enough to let me move.

  Then a dull boom shook the ground, followed by a wave of heat that rolled up the alley. Shouts echoed, guards barking, citizens screaming, probably a merchant crying over crushed pottery.

  I bolted again, ducking into a curved side-street just as a fresh pack of guards sprinted toward the blast.

  They didn’t spot me.

  Lucky.

  The square was in sight now.

  I could see the broker’s building; the House of the Purple Dragon. Even that glorified barn.

  Then I heard her.

  “Guards! Slave!”

  An old woman, bent over but still sharp-eyed, standing in front of a spice stall, her face twisted into the kind of glee only cruelty could fuel.

  Rage flared.

  Before my brain could stop my hand, I’d summoned an ice spear and hurled it her way.

  It pierced the ground at her feet and shattered, the ice exploding into frosty shards. She screamed and crumpled, one leg a wreck of frost and blood.

  I winced. Hard. My rage cooled as fast as it had come.

  Damn it, Charlie...

  Regret settled in like a lump of lead in my gut, but there was no time for a therapy session.

  “Here!” someone shouted.

  I was seen.

  I ran again. The street narrowed and twisted. My heels clicked on the stones, every breath a stab in my ribs. I was so close. I could almost taste the broker house

  Then I felt mana gathering again.

  I didn’t think, I leapt into air and tossed up a thick sheet of ice behind me. The mana burst exploded against it with a howling crack, and the ice didn’t just block it.

  It caught the wind.

  And it launched me.

  The blast sent the ice sliding straight into my back like a giant hand shoving me across a polished floor. I flew forward, arms flailing, eyes wide—

  —and slammed into the outer wall of the broker building like a snowball thrown by a winter god

  Stars danced in my vision. Everything hurt. Legs. Ribs.

  “Ughhh…”

  I rolled over, groaning, and slammed my palm against my chest. [Healing] again. Numb warmth spread through my bruises.

  “Just one more step,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I forced myself upright. Limping. Stumbling. Swaggering like the world’s saddest drunk.

  And I fell through the broker house doors.

  One of the assistants at the reception blinked at me, mouth opening to ask something.

  That angry windbag beat her to it.

  A wind bullet slammed into the side door I’d just stumbled through, blasting it off its hinges and sending polished wood splinters skittering across the pristine floor.

  Silence fell.

  The front hall was frozen, assistants mid-step, papers fluttering down like awkward snowflakes, even the ambient hum of conversation gone.

  And then he stepped in.

  His silver robes were windswept and torn, the air still twitching around him like it was waiting for permission to strike again. His hair was now wild with static and fury, but none of it dimmed the twisted grin stretching across his face.

  His eyes locked onto mine.

  “Got you.”