Gale hit the floor hard.

  Not the usual stumble of a poor landing, not the vertigo of portal sickness—this was violence, raw and jagged. The world had spat him out like something unwanted. His shoulder slammed into stone, his palms scraped against the rough boards of a hallway he didn’t recognize, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

  The silence was worse. No sound of the Crescent’s usual bustle—no murmured voices, no laughter, no music drifting from the lower floors. Only the creak of the timbers settling, the hiss of his own breath. The air pressed down against his ribs, thick with the copper-burnt tang of magic gone wrong.

  He forced himself upright, the impact still ringing through his bones. Every muscle felt off-balance, as though his body had been taken apart and reassembled one beat out of rhythm. His vision pulsed at the edges. Not the usual soft blur of travel, but something alive and menacing, as if the building itself were breathing in time with him.

  The corridor stretched too long, too narrow, each lantern flame leaning away from him as though caught in a draft. He took a step, steadying against the wall. The plaster was warm under his palm—wrong, far too warm for stone that should have been chilled by the dawn air. He pulled his hand back and saw faint blue sparks fading from his skin.

  Daimon.

  The thought sliced through the haze, sharp and certain. If the boy had opened a portal that felt like this, then something hadn’t just followed them through. Something inside him had shattered. And it was leaking out.

  He pushed forward, each step a fight, the corrupted magic a hook in his chest. The closer he came, the heavier it grew. He thought, not for the first time, of Fran—how he’d left one wounded soul behind, only to walk straight into another storm.

  The air thickened, humming with pressure; his teeth aching faintly as if an unseen storm was gathering just behind the walls. His hand twitched, instinct reaching for wards he had no time to shape. Whatever was happening, it was close—too close.

  He turned the final corner and froze.

  Light bled from under a door at the end of the hall—a sickly, convulsing flicker, as if the room inside were seizing. Shadows crawled out from beneath the threshold, viscous and slow. The stench of scorched copper was overwhelming here, a metallic tang that coated the back of his throat.

  His heart lurched. He knew this. He had felt it once, years ago, when a drifting mage had lost control in Velarith. That day had ended with walls split, men crushed, half a street reduced to ash. He had sworn never to forget it. And yet here he was—missing the signs, fool enough to call it portal sickness.

  “Dai,” he whispered under his breath, not even realizing he’d spoken.

  A shockwave answered him—not light or sound, but force, rattling the bones in his chest. He pressed his palm flat to the wall, every instinct screaming caution, every fear sharpened by helplessness.

  His hand hovered over the handle. The air was icy cold against his skin, only a single step between him and something he could never take back. But if Daimon was inside, breaking apart, there was no choice at all.

  The door gave way with a groan, and the world inside was no longer a room.

  It was a storm—a vortex of force and color, all edges and chaos. Gale’s first step was like plunging into a furnace; heat roared at him, prickling his skin, stealing the breath from his lungs. Light pulsed and snapped along the floor, crawling up the walls in jagged veins of blue and violet, shot through with green at the edges. Each pulse twisted the space into shapes that made his eyes water, bending the air itself.

  At the center, within a chalked circle blistering with runes, Daimon hung suspended in midair, his body contorted, limbs twitching in the grip of invisible currents. Magic bled from him in shuddering waves: a corona of sparks, ribbons of smoke and color tearing free from his skin and hair. Threads of raw power spilled from his mouth, wreathing him in a halo of fractured light. His eyes—one burning gold, the other deep, bottomless blue—stared at nothing, seeing everything.

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  “Phase Two,” Gale realized, cold with dread. “Gods above, he’s in Phase Two—”

  Ludmilla stood at the circle’s edge, feet planted wide, her bulk a dark silhouette against the searing glow. Chalk lines and runes glimmered beneath her, skittering with light—wards thrown up in frantic haste, a web of ancient magic that barely held back the chaos. With one hand she traced sigils in the air—sharp, deliberate strokes that burned in violet fire before slamming shut like seals across the floor. With the other, she cast tablet after tablet from her sleeves, each one spinning into place around the circle with a clap of thunder.

  Her voice was a weapon—low and resonant, spilling syllables in a language older than kingdoms, harsh and urgent, the tongue of deep water and warning. Each word dropped like an anchor, commanding, cajoling, pleading. Gale saw the sweat shine on her brow, her face set with a focus that bordered on terror. Every movement was precise and practiced—yet desperate.

  The sound was deafening: the roar of wind, grinding stone, the crack and whine of spells fighting each other. The air was thick with copper and salt and the stench of burning, bitter as blood. Glass bulged in the window frames. Plaster split along the ceiling, dust raining down.

  Daimon screamed—raw, broken, a child’s cry mangled into something inhuman. His body bent in ways no flesh should, arching until Gale thought he’d see bone tear through skin. Veins of light split across his arms, his chest, crawling like fractures through glass. The boards beneath him blackened, curling as if under fire.

  The wave hit before Gale could brace: a blast of raw magic that hurled him back against the doorframe. Sparks burst across his vision, teeth rattling in his skull. When he forced his eyes open again, the storm had doubled—magic whipping loose like the ends of a torn tapestry, carving glyphs into the very air.

  “Ludmilla!” His voice was a knife in the din.

  Her head snapped up, eyes wild, and beneath the fury—just for an instant—Gale saw fear.

  He had never seen her afraid.

  “Stay back!” she roared. “You’ll make it worse!”

  The air itself pressed against him, dense, unbreathable. His hands shook as he reached for a ward, any ward, but stopped halfway. What spell could contain this? One wrong move might shatter her control—and the Crescent with it. If the circle broke, if her will faltered, he saw what would happen: not just the room destroyed, but half the block, the city itself split open.

  The circle flared, runes spitting fire as one of the wards buckled. Ludmilla snarled, snapping a new sigil into being with a flick of her wrist. With a sharp twist of her fingers, she forced one surge of magic to ground itself; a barked word shattered another before it could punch through to the ceiling.

  “Hold, boy!” Her voice was thunder now, yet between the syllables a crack of humanity slipped through: Stay with me, Dai.

  Daimon convulsed, body jerking against invisible restraints. His skin looked paper-thin, ready to rip and spill what was inside. For a heartbeat, Gale thought the boy would tear himself apart.

  Then his eyes snapped to Gale—burning, rimmed with a corona of white light—and for one terrible moment, Gale saw him through the storm. Terrified. Pleading. Drowning in his own skin.

  Help me.

  It wasn’t sound. It wasn’t words. But it struck Gale like a blade.

  Then the light surged. Power spilled from Daimon in a shockwave that sent Ludmilla staggering, the circle cracking with a sound like breaking bone.

  “Now!” She bellowed. With a final, desperate gesture, she slammed both palms to the floor. The runes blazed white—blinding, absolute. Tablets erupted like molten stone, the lattice wrapping Daimon in a cage of spinning symbols, each one biting deep into the magic that poured from his body.

  He shrieked—an unearthly, soul-shredding sound that tore through stone and marrow. Gale staggered, eyes streaming, helpless.

  Ludmilla’s voice rose into a command-song, relentless and raw, each syllable hammering the storm into silence. The runes spun faster, salt flared at the boundary, burning with impossible light.

  The storm broke.

  Daimon collapsed. The light drained from his skin, his body hitting the floorboards like a puppet with its strings cut. Silence roared in its place, broken only by Ludmilla’s ragged breathing.

  She staggered, one hand braced on the floor. Then she lifted her other hand, fingers trembling, and the boy rose gently into the air, cradled by a spell as delicate as the storm had been violent. She laid him on the bed, pulled a blanket over his shaking frame, and pressed her hand to his brow as though he were only fevered.

  The chamber reeked of copper, salt, and pain. Gale stood just inside the door, unable to move, the imprint of the storm still vibrating in his bones. His legs threatened to give. He realized he was shaking.

  Ludmilla turned at last, sweat streaking her temples, eyes burning straight into his—lined with exhaustion and fear, but steadier than he felt.

  “You blind fool,” she rasped. “Did you really think this was portal sickness?”

  Gale’s throat closed. He’d named it too late—and not the right shape of it.

  Ludmilla turned back to Daimon, her hand gentle as she traced a final sigil above his brow—one last ward to hold the Drift at bay. The boy lay curled and small, hair damp, fingers twitching, his mismatched eyes closed at last.

  “A Drift,” Gale whispered, voice barely above a breath. “But… none of them ever looked like this. What is he, truly?”

  She was silent for a long moment, her gaze never leaving the boy’s face.

  “A child made for breaking,” she said at last. “And one day, if we’re not careful, for breaking everything else.”