The shadows around us twisted and groaned. Cold wind blew through the clearing, instantly putting out the torches illuminating the area. That left the glowing red mana bubble as the only source of illumination in the pitch-black forest, along with a few stray strands of moonlight peeking through the treetops above us.

  Whatever happened was enough to make Jezebel stop her knife inches from my face. Even with her face draped in shadows, I could still see the confusion on her scarred features as she looked around the clearing. “Who turned out the lights? I swear to the Codex that if one of you chuckleheads did it—”

  “It wasn’t us, Miss Jezebel!” said a scared-looking bandit standing on the other side of the red mana bubble. He had drawn his short sword, though his hands trembled under the light from Nimbus’s mana bubble. “The wind and shadows, they—”

  Something long and dark emerged from the shadows behind the bandit and snatched him up before he could finish. He screamed as he disappeared into the shadows around us, first out of fear, then pain—then, with a crunch, his screams abruptly cut off.

  “What happened to Tim?” said another bandit, this one taller and skinnier than the others. He carried a blunt club but looked just as freaked out as ‘Tim’ had seemed. “Did he—”

  Another shadowy tendril lashed out of the darkness and wrapped around the second bandit’s neck.

  Snap.

  The second bandit went limp and collapsed lifelessly onto the ground as the tendril vanished back into the shadows, though not before Jezebel fired a red bolt of magic at it.. Her attack missed the tendril entirely, and I thought I heard, as softly as a spring breeze, a slight chuckle from the shadows.

  “Gather up!” Jezebel’s voice rang stern and fearless in the shadows, though even the darkness couldn’t hide the worry I saw on her face. “Around the rabbit! Hurry!”

  Jezebel and the remaining bandits formed a loose but close circle around Nimbus and his red mana bubble. That included the bandits holding me hostage, though they stopped holding my arms all the way back, at least. Still, I was in no position to free myself, and even if I was, I didn’t know if I wanted to. Whatever was picking off the bandits couldn’t have been very friendly or safe.

  But what could it be? I knew the woods around these parts pretty well, and the most dangerous things tended to be bears or mountain lions, creatures that didn’t have access to magical abilities or the Codex.

  Instantly, my mind flashed back to the malformed Codex Entry I’d faced in my trial along with Nimbus. That spell had taken the form of a man with a wolf’s head and had been impervious to all forms of physical attack. It had taken a lot of creativity on my part to take it down, and even then, the aftermath had nearly killed me and Nimbus.

  Was that it? Were we under attack by another malformed spell entry, this time in the real world?

  As if responding to my question, another tendril lashed out and snatched the bandit directly behind Nimbus’s red mana bubble. The bandit didn’t even get a chance to scream before he was yanked into the shadows.

  “Mark!” cried out one of the surviving bandits. “No!”

  That bandit tried to run after him, but a barrier of red mana suddenly erupted all around us, encasing us in a mana bubble similar to the one containing Nimbus, but much bigger. The bandit ran face-first into the bubble and fell back on his behind, rubbing his nose. The barrier cast a red hue on everyone and everything inside the bubble, as well as barely illuminating the trees around us, though it didn’t show us the monster.

  “Don’t get yourself killed, you idiot,” snapped Jezebel, touching her earring, perhaps having cast the barrier around us. “Though given your obvious stupidity, perhaps we would be stronger without ya.”

  That confirmed it. Jezebel’s earring was her portable. Under other circumstances, I might have found it interesting that she cast a spell without speaking or writing its glyphs in the air, but perhaps she had a glyph depository like mine that let her store prewritten spells for later use.

  Right now, however, I was just grateful that Jezebel had summoned her barrier around us. I didn’t know how good it would be against the monster, but hopefully, it would at least buy us some more time to escape or fight back. I glanced at Nimbus, but oddly, he no longer looked nearly as scared as he did before.

  Nimbus even seemed relaxed. He was sitting on the ground, back legs out behind him and forelegs in front of him, looking for all the world like the situation was now under control. I wished I could ask him why he seemed so relaxed—did he know something we didn’t?—but then another tendril smashed into Jezebel’s barrier, which shook and even cracked under the impact.

  Jezebel, however, grunted and furrowed her brows. The cracks in the energy barrier rapidly healed, though when they did, Jezebel let out a small sigh and wiped sweat off her forehead. Whatever spell she was using must have cost a lot of mana for her to maintain and repair.

  That didn’t bode well for our chances of survival against whatever was attacking us.

  Still, Jezebel smirked at the shadows and said, “Is that all you’ve got, monster? Perhaps you should go find easier prey than Jezebel, the Bandit Witch, and second in command of the Wolfbrand Bandits. At least, if you want to live long enough to fill that empty stomach of yours, though if you are tired of living, I’ll be happy to introduce you to death.”

  Jezebel’s words sounded tough enough, but I caught a hint of trembling fear undercutting them. At the same time, Nimbus rolled his eyes, though neither Jezebel nor any of the remaining bandits seemed to notice. Their gaze was focused on the trees beyond the barrier, hands tightly gripping weapons. Except for the bandits holding me, though I could feel their nervousness through their tighter-than-usual grips. I didn’t know if I should feel as nervous as they were, but I could tell you I wasn’t relaxing.

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  A hooded figure seemed to materialize out of the shadows on the other side of the barrier, like a ghost from Sheol. One moment, she wasn’t there; the next, she was.

  As for how I knew it was a woman, that was thanks to her silhouette. Her silhouette—robes and all—was unmistakably feminine, though her face was obscured by her hood.

  That floored me. Had a woman been attacking us and not a monster, like we thought? Or was the woman controlling the monster attacking us? Was she another rogue Codexer?

  Jezebel and her bandits noticed the hooded woman as well, pointing their weapons at her and glaring at her. But the woman didn’t seem to look at any of them.

  Instead, the woman looked through the barrier at Nimbus first—who had now sat up and was looking at her expectantly—before turning her gaze toward me. White eyes glowed from within the hood of her robes, and I got the feeling that she wasn’t just looking at my physical form.

  Somehow, in some way, she was also looking at my soul.

  “Who are you?” Jezebel demanded. She clearly tried to sound tough, but the fear in her voice was becoming increasingly obvious even to me. “Are you with the SNA?”

  The hooded woman finally turned her gaze toward Jezebel. She tilted her head, as if confused by Jezebel’s question …

  And then drew a Codex Stylus from her robes, its tip shining a bright golden color, before tapping its tip against the surface of the glowing red barrier once.

  An instant later, the red mana barrier shuddered and broke into mana shards, shards that dissipated long before they landed on the ground. Nimbus’s bubble remained, but Nimbus sat up even straighter when the barrier broke.

  At the same time, Jezebel cried out in pain, clutching her earring, which crackled like lightning. She nearly ripped her earring out of her ear, but stopped just short. Perhaps she was afraid of losing her portable, though I wondered how the mysterious hooded woman had harmed her portable from a distance.

  More importantly, however, I realized that the woman had used a Codex Stylus just like mine to break Jezebel’s barrier. At least, I thought it was a stylus. Thanks to the shadows, dim lighting, and distance, it was hard to tell. It could have been a wand or something else.

  But the way she held it told me it couldn’t be just a wand.

  Regardless, the hooded woman began walking toward us, holding her stylus or wand or whatever it was in her hand. She moved with no hurry, yet she walked with a quiet confidence that told me she wasn’t afraid of either Jezebel or her fellow bandits.

  The same couldn’t be said about Jezebel and the bandits, however.

  Jezebel jerked her hand toward the hooded woman and roared, “Forget the boy! Kill her!”

  To their credit, the bandits, including the ones holding me, didn’t run. They dropped me roughly onto the ground before drawing clubs and short swords from their belts, rushing toward the hooded woman, screaming threats and curses at the top of their lungs.

  They didn’t get very far.

  A shadow spike erupted from the ground in front of one of the bandits, instantly impaling him through his chest. A shadowy portal opened beneath the second bandit’s feet, which clutched at his ankles like mud. He tried to get out, but he sank into the shadows like quicksand, crying out for help before he disappeared into the shadow puddle with a plop.

  That left only one bandit, a particularly big, yet stupid-looking man with an eye patch and an ax. He rushed toward the hooded woman, screaming obscenities at her, and swung his ax at her head …

  Only for his ax to pass straight through her head like she didn’t exist.

  The hooded woman’s body melted into shadow upon contact with the bandit’s ax. The bandit staggered forward from the momentum of his own missed blow, nearly tripping over his own feet. He managed to regain his footing just as the hooded woman materialized out of his shadow, continuing her walk toward us.

  “She’s behind you, you idiot!” cried Jezebel. The glow from Nimbus’s mana bubble seemed to show tears forming in the corners of her eyes, tears of fear.

  The bandit whirled around, once more raising his ax, but the hooded woman had already stopped and turned around to face him.

  And touched his big belly with her stylus, which was now glowing red.

  The bandit froze. Red glyphs flashed across his skin, and then he let out a bloodcurdling cry that made even me shiver with fear. He dropped his ax and fell to his knees, trembling, blood leaking out of his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. He trembled violently and seemed unable to move.

  “Stay there,” the hooded woman whispered in a voice softer than Jezebel’s. “I’m not done with you yet.”

  The hooded woman then turned and resumed walking toward Jezebel, completely ignoring the bandit she had just taken out with one touch.

  Jezebel, however, chose that moment to act.

  She thrust her hand toward the hooded woman, and a crimson mana barrier erupted into existence around the woman. The hooded woman stopped and looked at the barrier, though she seemed less afraid and more … annoyed? It was hard to tell because of her hood, but she didn’t seem afraid.

  Jezebel grinned. “Gotcha.”

  The hooded woman tilted her head to the side. She raised her stylus—which I could now see was actually a quill, based on the white feather extending from its tip—and tapped it against the barrier, but unlike last time, it didn’t break. Strange hex-like glyphs appeared where her quill touched the barrier, but that was it.

  Jezebel laughed mockingly. “Good try, but that quill of yours won’t work because—”

  “You’re a Wyrdbinder,” said the hooded woman. She spoke with a distinct accent that sounded nothing like any accent in Shinar. She tilted her head to the side again. “Explains the hexes. Not a very strong one. Maybe Chapter One, Page Two?”

  “Page Four, actually,” said Jezebel, who seemed flustered by the hooded woman’s speech. She gestured at me. “Not like this boy, who is as wimpy as they get.”

  I didn’t appreciate the insult, but I also didn’t dare move an inch from my spot on the ground. The hooded woman might have taken down the bandits, but Jezebel was still standing next to me and could kill me if she wanted to.

  The hooded woman regarded Jezebel as if she were an especially slimy worm she found under a moldy rock. “Bullies and criminals often do compare themselves to children favorably. I suppose it makes them feel better about their inadequacies and utter, utter weaknesses.”

  Jezebel’s eyes flashed with anger. “What do you know, lady? Your party tricks are neat, but I doubt you’re much stronger than me. I’m guessing you’re from around here, so you can’t be very strong. You must be only Chapter One, Page Five, maybe Six. Not strong enough to make a difference.”

  The hooded woman smiled. I finally caught a glimpse of her face under her hood, and she was smiling.

  Smiling the same way that the wolfman in my trial had smiled at Nimbus before trying to kill him.

  The hooded woman spread her arms. “Your portable is still working. Scan me. Look at my Chapter.”

  Jezebel raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Why are you being so open about your Chapter?”

  The hooded woman’s eyes glittered under the hood. “Because people should always know the truth. No matter what.”

  I shivered when the hooded woman said that. Not out of fear, but out of a sense that she was quoting a truth more profound than anything else. As if she were projecting her will through those words.

  Jezebel peered at the hooded woman more closely before she started. “What the hell? There’s no way you can be at Chapter—”

  What happened next was so fast that I couldn’t even follow it, but here’s my best recollection based on what I could see.

  The barrier around the hooded woman failed—not like the larger one, but as if a critical support had been severed. When it did, the mana somehow seemed to get sucked into the hooded woman, rather than dissipating like the mana shards from the larger barrier.

  A second after that, the hooded woman appeared directly in front of Jezebel and touched the tip of her quill—now glowing red—against Jezebel’s chest.

  And Jezebel’s head exploded.

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