The next room was square. Bare stone. Four thick pillars spaced evenly around the perimeter, holding up an arched ceiling.

  An empty stone box.

  “That’s new,” Fen murmured.

  Tamsin’s gaze swept the walls as they gingerly walked forward.

  Surely there was a trap some—

  The far wall erupted.

  A massive shape tore itself free of the wall with a thunder of grinding rock and exploded into motion faster than stone should move.

  Miri threw up her hands and fired off Arc Bolt without thought. She missed by a mile.

  Charging at them like a bull, it was built like a siege ram given limbs. Thick, jagged stone fused into a hulking torso. Arms like unfinished statues. Head blunt and featureless except for a single recessed slit of dull amber light where it could presumably see from.

  Too big.

  “Tamsin—” Miri started.

  “I know!”

  It crossed the distance in a heartbeat.

  Fen didn’t dodge, he stepped in. Stone Skin flared over him just as the creature hit. The impact sounded like two wrecking balls colliding.

  Fen flew, launched through the air. He slammed backward through one of the support pillars in a burst of shattered stoned and dust. The column exploded around him. The ceiling groaned.

  “Fen!” Miri shouted.

  Tony was already moving — sprinting to where Fen had disappeared in rubble.

  The monster pivoted. Fast. Too fast.

  Miri fired Arc Bolt straight into its face.

  The blast detonated against stone, cracking plates and blowing fragments loose. The amber slit flickered violently.

  The creature roared and the floor trembled as it charged again.

  Tamsin loosed an arrow mid-stride. Wind coiled tight around the shaft. It punched through the amber slit.

  The creature reeled and crashed shoulder-first into a second pillar.

  The stone support split down the middle. The ceiling shifted, a line of dust spilling from above.

  “Out!” Tamsin snapped.

  Miri sprinted for Tony, who was pawing frantically at fallen debris. Fen lay half-buried, unmoving. She pulled broken boulders away.

  The monster tore the arrow free from its ruined eye and swung blindly.

  Its arm clipped the third pillar and the support shattered. This time the ceiling didn’t just groan. It gave.

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  A deep, rolling crack split the chamber as the dome fractured inward.

  “MOVE!” Miri screamed.

  Tony grabbed Fen’s collar strap in his jaws and pulled. Miri threw her shoulder under Fen’s arm and dragged. She triggered an impact dampening charm, thinking no time could possibly be better than this one.

  Behind them, the monster stumbled forward, disoriented. The fourth pillar splintered as its massive body collided with it.

  For one surreal second the entire ceiling hung suspended above all of them.

  Then stone thundered as the ceiling came down. The monster disappeared beneath a collapsing avalanche of its own making.

  Miri felt something slam into her back as she shoved Fen clear of the main fall. She hit the ground hard, ears ringing, dust filling her lungs.

  Silence followed, heavy and wrong.

  Debris settled in small, ticking sounds. The chamber no longer a chamber. Half the dome had collapsed inward, burying the center of the room in tons of broken stone.

  Where the monster had stood—

  Nothing but a mound of rubble.

  Miri coughed. Pushing herself up on shaking hands, she looked around. Tony stood over Fen.

  “Tamsin?” Miri croaked.

  A hand shifted under fallen fragments near the wall.

  “I’m here,” Tamsin’s voice came tight, strained.

  Relief hit and evaporated in the same breath. Miri was already moving.

  “Hold on,” she snapped, scrambling to her feet. “Don’t move.”

  Stone scraped against stone as she shoved chunks aside with bare hands. Tony shouldered in beside her, clawing debris away with brute strength. Dust coated Miri’s tongue. Her lungs burned.

  Another slab shifted. And then she saw it.

  Tamsin’s leg was pinned mid-thigh beneath a fractured beam of stone. The angle was wrong. Bone wrong.

  Miri’s stomach lurched. She swallowed it back down hard.

  “Okay,” she said, voice steady by force. “Okay. I’ve got you.”

  She wedged her shoulder under the slab and heaved while Tony braced against it. The stone shifted just enough. She dragged it free.

  The leg beneath—

  She did not look long. “Potion,” she muttered to herself, already reaching into her inventory. Not the best one, but a strong one. Fast. Brutal.

  She pressed the vial to Tamsin’s lips. “This is going to hurt,” she warned.

  Tamsin gave the faintest nod.

  Miri tipped it back. The reaction was immediate.

  Tamsin arched with a strangled sound that tore out of her throat and tore out Miri’s heart. Bone snapped back into alignment, flesh reknit. The sound of it made her own vision sparkle white for a second. She couldn’t imagine how it felt for Tamsin.

  “Breath,” Miri ordered through her teeth. She spoke to herself as much as to Tamsin.

  “Breathe, breathe, breathe.”

  The glow faded, revealing the leg laying straight. Tamsin’s hands were fisted at her sides. Sweat slicked her temples.

  The two women stared at each other, both of them trying desperately to keep it together. This was not what they expected from a guild contract. After a moment, they nodded to each other at the same time.

  The gratitude in Tamsin’s gaze was just as visceral as the relief in Miri’s.

  “Don’t move yet,” Miri said, already turning.

  Fen.

  He lay half-buried near the shattered pillar.

  “Tony,” she said, and her voice cracked despite her best effort.

  The tiger was there instantly, nose pressed to Fen’s chest.

  Breathing shallowly.

  Miri dropped to her knees. She didn’t dare move him. Didn’t dare roll him. She had no idea what was broken inside.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

  She eased his jaw open with shaking fingers and poured a careful measure of potion between his teeth.

  “Swallow,” she murmured. “Come on. Swallow.”

  Nothing. She scooted back and slowly lifted his head into her lap, cradling it carefully, tilting the vial again in small increments.

  “Don’t you dare,” she breathed.

  The potion was mid-tier. It would hurt. It would fix what it could. It would not be gentle. She kept pouring. Slow. Measured. Watching his throat.

  Swallow.

  There.

  Another swallow.

  She emptied the vial. Then she waited.

  And waited.