Silence spreads like a plague. Unnatural, disturbing quiet from Briony and Clutter. And the silence of absolutely nothing from Vesa. He stares at me mouthing the start of multiple sentences. Eventually, those motions shift from scrambling into a calm and worried smile–the kind someone puts on when they’re about to tell you you’re crazy.

  “Shelby, what are you talking about? You’re wanted by Stonestep Solutions–of course I know your name.” Vesa takes a step forward. The magic grows just a little stronger. It closes in all around my shield like the insistent, deadly pressure of the deep ocean. “Just because Briony tried to lie to you, it doesn't mean we’re both liars.”

  “The hell you aren’t.” I sneer and shove another shield at Clutter’s chest. It bursts into a holding cell, both to protect him from Vesa–and me from him. “Only one asshole here has mind altering powers. You think I buy that it’s a coincidence that Briony just so happened to forget something in exactly the same way Clutter did? Is that the only thing your spell can do?”

  Vesa shakes his head. “Shelby, you’re not thinking straight. Just relax, let your thoughts cool down, and give the situation another look-over. Briony tried to attack the two of you, and I protected you from her. How does that make me your enemy?”

  The magic shifts. An omnipresent pressure collapses into a needle less than an inch thick directly at the back of my head. Cold sweat trickles down my back as I feel just how much concentrated power is inside of that thing; it’s nowhere near as weak as Shout’s damn claws, but not close to anything I’ve seen Noland or Ursula do. Instead, it just reminds me almost perfectly of the power level of the masked attackers.

  I have to do something. Vesa doesn't seem to know that I can feel his invisible magic. Purification probably won't work on the needle itself, since it's stronger than anything I can make, but maybe I can interrupt the connection between the caster and the spell. A quick projectile to break his focus and a purification follow-up to hopefully sever his connection to the spell.

  …Of course, that opens up the question of how I purified his control of Clutter in the first place, but I can’t worry about that now. Because the only thing I can think of is that he let me do that for some unfathomable reason.

  Coins simmer against my palm as I take a deep breath. Vesa raises an eyebrow, just as much in question as in confusion, and I snap the projectile at the edge of my shield. He roars in surprise as I take down the barrier and duck down as far as I can go, the sensation of the needle hovering menacingly in place not diminishing in the slightest.

  As he stumbles back, hands bloody and mangled from trying to block my projectile, I toss a trio of purification coins at everyone else. With a single thought they detonate, spreading a salty mist of nullification across half of the room. Clutter coughs, then yelps. Briony screams in pain, which slowly devolves into a whimper as she dully scans the room.

  “What…” She trails off as she stares at Vesa. “Oh, no… don’t… it’s not…”

  I lunge at vesa and wrap my hands around his throat. He gags, flailing his arms through the mist as his eyes widen with fear and recognition. One last shield seals him in here with me, inside of the purifying mists.

  “Who the hell are you?!” I demand as I stomp his foot to keep him from thrashing. “You’re with Stonestep Solutions, aren't you? Or maybe you’re working for the Preservation because they can’t get at the other, more powerful people I work with. TALK!”

  Vesa chokes and grabs my forearms, his fingers clamping down tightly. “I… can’t… breathe…”

  I grimace and let off his windpipe. “You’ve got fifteen seconds of air. Use them well, and maybe I’ll give you a few more.”

  He gasps in relief, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “You goddamn better be.” I snarl and slam him against my shield. “Talk, damn you! Who are you working for? Why are you after Clutter? Was it all a ruse to get to me?!”

  “It… wasn’t my fault. I didn’t even think of it.” He whimpers, then shifts a little to look over my shoulder. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. All I wanted to do was find my friend. But then… then…”

  Dull reverberations echo against my shield. Vesa continues to stare directly at them. My grip tightens in frustration, and that annoying stare starts to go dark. I shift from his windpipe to his arteries; if he faints, his magic goes away. If he dies… well… I had no intention of shifting my hands. Apparently my skill isn’t as pissed with this slimy little wyrm as I am.

  He breathes, gasping and writhing, until his body goes limp. The second his eyes unfocus I take my hands away and let him collapse on the ground, which is enough to stir him from the momentary loss of consciousness. I grimace down at him in disgust, barely resisting the urge to kick him hard in the ribs, and turn on my heel to see how Clutter and Briony are faring now that they’re free from the psychic’s clutches.

  They’re standing right there. Up against my shield. Pounding their fists against it as they open and close their mouths silently and a horrific spike of magic hovers just behind them. Cold jolts of fear drive deep into my spine as my brain struggles to find an explanation for what I’m seeing.

  Pearl clenches her little fists. She looks like she’s about to explode from keeping silent. Which she has to be doing for a reason. But… she shouldn’t have a reason to any more. Vesa is down for the count. Purification is removing the mental control debuff from Clutter and Briony. So… why is she still quiet?

  And why is the spike still there?

  I swallow hard. Gears I really don’t want to move start to click together, and the thoughts they’re making spin blaze through my mind like a slideshow of options I don’t want to admit could be possible. I turn back, stare down at a struggling Vesa, and feel that there’s absolutely no magic coming off of him right now thanks to my purification.

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  Meaning… he isn’t controlling the spike. Nobody in the purification is.

  “Shit.” I whisper, carefully kneeling down as I focus my awareness on the spike. “Vesa. Talk to me.”

  He winces, but doesn’t look away. “I’m sorry.” He whispers. “I… didn’t even realize what I was doing. Honestly. They… they even made me forget my own class. How is that even possible?”

  Goddamn it. This is bad. “Show me your Class Card.” I turn and dispel my shield. “You two, too. Bring out your Class Cards right now.”

  All three of them make different practiced motions and summon their Class Cards. I quickly glance at Clutter’s and Briony’s, confirming that they’re a Scout and a Transmuter, then hand the cards back and find myself staring at Vesa’s card. My mouth goes dry as the word ‘Mage’ sears itself into my retinas, and a whole lot of other data backs it up to the point that I can’t question it.

  “Mother… upstairs. Now.” I order as I bend down to help Vesa stand. “Stay in the purification. If the real Psychic is using magic to ‘see’ us, it’s the only thing preventing them from killing one of us.”

  Nods of understanding bob in unison, and Clutter ducks under Vesa’s other arm to help me get him to the stairs. We give the needle a wide berth as we slowly walk as fast as my purifying mist can move. Stairs hold strong under Briony’s feet, barely clunking under the weight of her armor, and I say a quiet ‘thank-you’ to the system for making a house that makes no sense.

  As we crest the top stair, Vesa growing more lucid by the second, my awareness buckles under a flood of magic so all-consuming and heavy that it feels like being crushed under a chunk of liquid despair. I stifle a yelp of surprise and summon a shield around all of us, reinforce it with another two shields, then drop a pair of purifications at my feet. Then, all I can do is watch as the Psychic’s magic bears down.

  Cracks appear in my outermost shield before I can breathe. My mind strains as something seeps into those cracks and expands like thick foam, pressing them apart with a ravenous insistence to widen them as much as humanly possible. Each shield won’t hold for more than a minute, and… this attack feels different. The cracks aren’t clean. When they break, I don’t know what’s going to happen after.

  Clutter taps my shoulder multiple times. I turn to see him opening and closing his mouth repeatedly as he points down his throat. I think I know what he’s asking.

  “Yes, you can talk. But keep it quiet.” I say in a hushed hurry. “I don’t know why my shields sometimes keep sound out, but this one should. Now… what the hell are we supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Vesa whispers apologetically. “This is all my fault. I brought them here, and now the two of you are in danger, too.”

  Briony puts a sympathetic hand on Vesa’s shoulder. “It’s both of our faults. We let it happen and led them right to Clutter and… I don’t know if I should say her name.”

  “Shelby.” I state flatly. “No point hiding it if you two know it. Clutter, do you actually know these people, or were they just puppets?”

  Clutter narrows his eyes at Briony. He thinks long and hard about his answer–two whole shields worth–and it doesn’t look like he’s any closer to an answer. I put up a few more shields just to be safe, but the sensation… it still feels like those destroyed shields are putting pressure on me. As if they exist, even though they’re completely gone.

  “I can’t hold this back for much longer.” I mutter with a grimace. “If you don’t recognize them, just say so. We need to work together to get out of this safely even if they mean nothing to you.”

  “It’s… it’s not that.” Clutter grumbles. He shifts so his eyes meet mine, then looks away shyly. “They’re two of the people I told you about at the graveyard. Yesterday, when they came up to me, I… didn’t know what to do. Then everything went fuzzy, and I guess my memories got scrambled.”

  Briony nods in agreement. “It was really subtle for me. I thought I was doing all this because I was asked to, but… we were just hired to make sure Clutter was still safe and alive. Not kidnap him.”

  “It wasn’t subtle for me.” Vesa groans as he cradles his head. “They made me forget my class. I… they just used me as a scapegoat. If Shelby didn’t have a spell that undoes mental manipulation, we… I…”

  He swallows hard, then bends down and quietly retches. Nothing comes up, luckily, but I must've done a little more damage than I thought. As long as I can trust that my purification actually removed all the mind manipulation from them, I guess we can trust them. And if it didn't… well, then I lost from the second my skill wouldn’t let Illumisia take them out.

  Wait. Illumisia. She followed Clutter–she should’ve seen all this happen. Why didn’t she warn me? Or say something, at least? Maybe it wasn’t obvious at all. But I refuse to believe that someone as powerful as she is didn’t at minimum get a bad feeling from what she saw.

  “Shelby?” Clutter whispers.

  I shake my head. No time to think. “We’re up against a psychic at least. I’m damn sure they should know where we are, since my shield should be a huge hole in their magic, but the needle’s still downstairs.”

  “Which means they can’t ‘feel’ through their spells. They need some kind of… other locator.” Briony finishes for me. “Sound would make the most sense for a psychic, and thought, if we weren’t protected by this… stuff.”

  She waves a hand through my purifying mist for emphasis. “I can’t use magic because of it, but I think it’s making our thoughts unreadable too. Or else we’d probably be in a lot more danger right now.”

  I glance up at the cracks in my shield. If that’s true, then the psychic’s magic is doing this naturally–and without alerting them that something’s wrong. That’s one terrifying spell.

  “So… um… how are we supposed to do anything?” Clutter whispers. “If we can’t use magic, and we get mind controlled if we leave the safety of the salty mist, then how can we fight?”

  Vesa nods in agreement. “He makes a very good point. Most low-level psychics can’t create anything with their minds, but this one obviously can. Do we have anything that can work against them or… can we run?”

  Both Vesa and Briony turn to Clutter. He, in turn, locks eyes with me.

  “I can’t use my spells from here; there needs to be a seamless connection between where I am and where I’m going. So no caves, dungeons, closed doors, or… shields.” He admits sheepishly. “And then I need at least thirty seconds to get the spell activated. It just won’t work. Plus…”

  Vesa raises an eyebrow. “Plus what?”

  He covertly gestures at the ring on my finger so nobody else can see. A small smile creeps up the corners of my lips; he’s still thinking about the quest, even now. Just in case the deadliest option is a possibility I try to send a thought of Illumisia, but my skill stops me dead in my tracks. Somehow, being on our own is the best way through this. For the quest.

  But, as I’m slowly realizing, definitely not the best for our survival.