"If they're using charms and phantoms with that silly fog… then the door is probably right there!"

  The realization hit like cold water. My clothes clung, damp with mist. My stomach twisted. "We need to move. Fast." My grip tightened on Lena's arm. "Lena, trust me on this one!"

  She didn't ask questions. "Fast. Got it." All playfulness drained from her face. Her body coiled. "No more playing around."

  We sprinted. The tunnel blurred—my boots hammered stone, Lena's breathing matched mine, sharp and focused. We burst into the chamber. Exactly as we'd left it.

  Not empty.

  The Echo Phantoms were there. Dozens. Standing motionless in a loose ring around the sealed wall. Our feet hit the mirrored floor. Every single one turned to face us in perfect unison.

  The draining pull slammed into me—stronger than before. My knees buckled. I caught myself on my spear. The purple-black discoloration pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat.

  "They're feeding it." My voice came out strained. "Powering the seal with our fear."

  Lena's eyes narrowed. Her Promethean Flame erupted with a roar. "Then we go through them. I'll burn the illusion down—you keep them off me."

  "Fast and messy." I nodded, gripping my spear tighter. "My favorite kind."

  The lead Phantom raised a giant three-clawed hand, gestured mockingly back down the corridor. Go back. Give up. You're already lost.

  "Misery?!" I barked. A wild grin split my face. The words tumbled out before I could stop them. "I have to eat your charcoal bread every morning! They don't even know what misery is!"

  Lena's furious glare was my only warning. I burst out laughing, dashing forward. A hard thrust scattered the nearest phantom into shadow-fragments. I spun—my spear cracked into another, THWACK.

  "YOU TAKE THAT BACK, YOU UNGRATEFUL TWIG!" Lena roared behind me. Her fury fueled her flames into a blinding inferno.

  Taunt successful.

  I used the distraction. My spear plunged deep into the lead phantom's core. Spin. CRACK. It shattered completely, unraveling into shrieking static. The wall sucked it in violently.

  One down.

  The draining pull lessened—just for a second. Then it surged back. Twice as strong.

  My next step nearly buckled. The spear suddenly weighed ten pounds heavier. Lena didn't notice yet.

  Enraged, she became a whirlwind. Her fist plowed through a phantom's center mass—detonated it. A second vaporized under her roundhouse kick. But the third one took three hits.

  Her flame sputtered between strikes.

  "Lena—something's wrong—" I gasped.

  Four more phantoms glided forward. Two swarmed me. A claw scraped my shield—the impact jarred my whole arm, rattled my teeth. Another passed through my shoulder. Icy numbness spread like poison.

  My grip on the spear loosened.

  Two focused on Lena. A claw phased through her guard. Ice spread from a gash on her arm. Her flames wavered, dimming visibly.

  "What the—why can't I—" She hit the phantom. Once. Twice. Three times. It finally dissolved.

  "Nihl... I'm getting weaker." She was panting.

  The wall didn't pulse weakly. It pulsed brighter.

  Feeding. Growing stronger with every second we were there. More phantoms glided from the shadows—six, eight, a dozen. We weren't winning. We were being drained faster than we could fight.

  "We need to go, NOW!" My voice cracked. My legs felt like lead. Vision blurred at the edges.

  No! One more gamble.

  My legs screamed as I sprinted past the remaining phantoms, angling for the wall. Two lashed out—a freezing tear opened on my arm, blood welling hot. I staggered but reached the wall, pressed my hand against the pulsing discoloration. It felt thin. Weak. Vulnerable.

  "Lena! The wall—I'm here!"

  She saw me, exploded into motion. Her fist annihilated the phantom between us. "Hold them off! I'm coming!" She sprinted toward me, planted herself in front—a barrier of flame between me and the converging phantoms.

  "THE WALL, NIHL! FIND THE DOOR!"

  I turned, both hands flat on the discolored stone. I pulled at my Sthénos, trying to channel it like she did— Nothing.

  I can't. That's not my power. I can't just BELIEVE a door back into existence. It had to be the confident knucklehead.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Lena—I can't! It has to be you!"

  Four phantoms circled around her defensive position, coming straight for me. Claws extended. One raked across my shield. Another found the gap in my armor—agony, cold, sharp. I caught a third on my spear, but my arms were shaking.

  "Lena! SWITCH!"

  She didn't hesitate. "Move!" We pivoted past each other. Now I was between her and the phantoms. Now she was at the wall. Her back pressed against mine, steadying us both.

  "About time! Don't die on me, Nihl!"

  "Wasn't planning on it!" I braced my shield. Four phantoms surged forward.

  Behind me, I felt her turn. Heard her hands slam flat against stone. Heat flooded the air. Her Promethean Flame poured into the wall.

  "This isn't real!" she screamed. "It's a lie! AND I'M TIRED OF YOUR LIES!"

  The flame didn't burn. It unraveled. The stone began to dissolve like thread pulled from a tapestry. The phantoms surged forward in a final, desperate wave—all of them, aiming to stop her before she succeeded.

  I blocked a claw. Ducked another. Deflected a third. Not a single killing blow landed. Every parry bought her seconds. Deflect. Duck. Weave.

  Just hold them—

  Behind me, the sound of a thousand mirrors shattering. A jagged line of blinding, beautiful daylight appeared in the wall.

  The exit was open. But unstable. The Labyrinthos screamed in my mind—psychic wail that made my teeth ache. The chamber trembled. Roots splintered overhead.

  "Let's go, Nihl! Now!" Lena yelled, grabbing my arm.

  Go!

  A desperate, stumbling dive toward daylight. Behind us, screaming chaos. The icy kiss of a phantom's claw tore through my tunic, opened a shallow gash across my ribs.

  -?-

  IMPACT. Solid ground, hard and unforgiving.

  A pained gasp punched from my lungs. Salt spray, damp earth—the cold clinging dread of the Labyrinthos burned away in open sky. I lay there, chest heaving.

  The fissure was just a dark narrow crack, stained faint purple-black. No tower. No weeping faces.

  Lena was already on her feet, breathing heavily. Her flame was extinguished. She stared at the fissure with wild, disbelieving eyes. "We're out." Her voice was hoarse. "By all the gods... we're actually out."

  She turned to me. Shock, relief, concern bleeding through. "You're bleeding. A lot."

  I pushed to my feet. My body trembled with aftershock. My eyes fell on our clothes. The answer hit me like a physical blow.

  Our blood had dried. Completely. The kind of dried that took hours—half a day, at least. But for us, we'd been fighting for what... twenty minutes? Thirty at most?

  Lena looked down. Her eyes widened in horror. The blood from her wounds was completely dry, stiff, flaking.

  "A conversation..." she whispered, hollow. "You're right. It wasn't just an illusion."

  The truth settled over us like a weight. "A few minutes of terror inside… had been hours out here. A full day." I let the words sink in. "It was draining us in every way."

  Lena's fists clenched. "Our strength. Our hope… and our time."

  She looked toward the distant villa. New fear crossed her face. "Hebe… she'll be out of her mind with worry."

  The victory felt fragile. This wasn't just a dungeon. It was a temporal predator.

  "Yeah… let's go." I pushed myself to stand straight, wincing, and fell into step behind Lena. "We weren't a good match for this." The admission tasted bitter.

  "Not something you can punch. Or tear apart. We need a guild smart enough. Hermes-sama. Athena-sama. We were just… a bad match."

  The words hung in the salty air.

  Lena offered her shoulder without a word. I leaned on it, grateful. The bravado was gone. "A bad match," she echoed, low. "Yeah. You can't burn a memory. Can't out-muscle despair."

  She glanced back at the fissure. "Athena's owls… or Hermes's tricks. They'd know what to do. We just… survived."

  -?-

  The walk back was quiet. The sun was already setting, rose and amber painting the sky.

  We crested the final hill. The villa came into view. And there she was.

  Hebe, standing at the gate. She'd been there all night—I could tell because the dew had soaked through her robes. There was a burnt patch in the grass where she'd been pacing. Anxiety-fire. When gods couldn't control their emotions, their Sthénos leaked out.

  She was seventeen in this body. Seventeen and alone in a villa too big for her, waiting to see if her only two retainers would come back. Or if she'd failed again.

  She saw us. The composure—that careful, divine poise—shattered completely.

  She ran. Tripped on her robes, didn't care. Her hands found my face first, then Lena's, pressing against our cheeks like she was checking we were real.

  "Nihl! Lena!" Her voice cracked. "A day and a night! I felt the bond strain and I thought—" She stopped. Couldn't finish the sentence.

  Lena caught her wrists. "Hey. We're here. We're okay."

  "You're NOT okay!" Hebe's voice rose. For a second she sounded exactly like what she was—a scared kid who lost her job, her home, her family, and now almost lost the only two people who stayed.

  "Look at you! You're bleeding! You've been gone for twenty-six hours and I couldn't—I can't—" Her breath hitched. "I can't lose you too."

  The words hung in the salt air. Ganymede replaced her. Her parents allowed it. The Olympians forgot her. And now she was gambling everything on two ex-brigands who barely survived their first real quest.

  If we'd died in there, she'd have had no one.

  Lena's fierce expression crumbled. She pulled Hebe into a rough, one-armed hug. "You're not losing us, you dramatic goddess. We're not going anywhere."

  "You almost didn't come back," Hebe whispered into Lena's shoulder.

  "But we did." My hand found the back of Hebe's head. "We came back. We'll always come back."

  Hebe's quiet sob against my shoulder was the most mortal sound I'd ever heard a goddess make. For a long moment, we stayed like that. Three people who had all been abandoned, holding onto each other like we were the only solid things in the world.

  Maybe we were.

  Her wide, terrified eyes took in our battered state. "What happened? What did you find?"

  "The Labyrinthos—it charms you. Twists you." The words came out haltingly. "Lady Hebe, for us, it felt like an hour and a half. But… it plays with your sense of time. They were just ghosts. Claws glinting. Stalking us like hunters."

  Hebe's hands stilled on my arm. The color drained from her face. "Echo Phantoms… temporal perception…" She murmured.

  "This is not a simple maze. This Labyrinthos… it's born of Lethe. The Primordial of Forgetfulness."

  The name hung heavy in the air. "It doesn't just test you. It consumes you. It drinks your past and steals your future." My mouth felt dry. "Until you are nothing but another Echo. Trapped in an endless, fading present."

  A snort came from the doorway. Lena leaned against the frame, arms crossed. "So it's a cheater. Great. Can we overcharge it for the emotional damages?"

  Hebe looked momentarily flustered. "I... don't believe its treasury is a standard—"

  "Whatever." Lena cut in, ember-eyes glinting. "Point is, it's not invincible. We just kicked its teeth in. It bleeds. That means we can kill it."

  "You are right, Nihl. This is far beyond us." Hebe recovered her composure, moving with purpose. "A petition to the Aetherion Forum is our only course. They must be told. Immediately." She headed inside to draft the formal petition.

  The immediate danger had passed.

  The adrenaline faded. Exhaustion flooded in to fill the space. The chilling residue of the Labyrinthos began to fade, replaced by the simple, solid truth. We'd made it home. We were safe. But outside, the Mouth still waited. Its charm intact. Its hunger, undiminished.

  Thursday becasue of the release week]. See you then!