The spell never finished.
It came apart instead.
The air snapped—tightness rupturing into motion—as the second-floor hallway erupted in a violent rush of green and brown. Roots tore through stone and beam alike, thick and wet and alive, bursting between floorboards that had never known dirt.
They did not grow.
They arrived.
The man behind me cried out—more surprise than pain—as the roots wrapped his legs, his torso, his arms, binding him mid-gesture. His robes marked him immediately: layered cloth reinforced at the shoulders and cuffs, pockets heavy with components that spilled and clattered as he was wrenched backward. Whatever he had been shaping shattered in his hands, thin streaks of force collapsing inward with a sharp, brittle sound, like glass snapping under pressure.
The pause broke.
Sound crashed back all at once—splintering wood, the mage's breath knocked from him, my own heartbeat roaring as if I'd just been dropped from a height.
I skidded to a halt, blade still raised, the charge aborting itself a step too late.
The roots yanked him backward, slamming him hard against the wall beneath a shuttered window. Sconces rattled violently. Vines tightened, coiling with purpose, thorns biting through cloth and skin alike.
He struggled once.
The roots answered.
The spell had broken containment.
That was when she moved.
"Enough."
The voice came from below.
Calm.
Level.
Unmistakably in control.
I turned toward the stairwell.
A woman stood at the base of the stairs on the first floor, staff planted against the stone where the roots had first torn upward through ceiling and beam. From there, the magic had climbed—decisive and invasive—claiming the space above her without hesitation.
Green light bled faintly from runes carved along her staff, pulsing in time with the vines holding the mage immobile overhead.
I knew her.
Jaheira.
Not from memory.
From certainty.
One of the fixed points. One of the people the story expected me to meet.
Beside her, a man took the stairs two at a time, shield already raised as he moved on instinct alone, placing himself between me and the bound mage.
Broad shoulders.
Nervous eyes.
Shield-first courage.
Khalid.
They didn't know me.
That was the imbalance.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke.
Then someone moved at the edge of my vision.
Montaron stepped into the hallway from a side door I hadn't noticed. No armor. No boots. Bare halfling feet on cracked stone, toes gripping instinctively as if the floor itself mattered. His blade was already in his hand.
He didn't look at Jaheira below.
Didn't look at Khalid on the stairs.
His eyes went straight to the bound mage's hands.
The smile formed.
Montaron moved.
One step.
Close enough.
Steel flashed once—short, efficient—and the smile vanished with a wet, final sound. The body went slack in the roots, purpose extinguished mid-thought.
Silence fell hard.
Khalid reacted a breath too late, shield snapping higher as his eyes fixed on Montaron, breath caught somewhere between shock and restraint.
"G-Gods—" he started, then stopped, swallowing hard.
Jaheira did not raise her staff again.
She looked at Montaron.
Not angry.
Not approving.
Assessing.
"You act quickly," she said.
Montaron wiped his blade on the mage's robe.
"He wasn't done."
No apology.
No challenge.
Jaheira inclined her head a fraction.
"It is done," she said.
The roots withdrew, ripping back through stone and beam as violently as they had arrived, leaving cracked floorboards, gouged walls, and a body that would never finish deciding what came next.
My arm shook.
Not from fear.
From the sudden absence of it.
I lowered my blade an inch, breath finally catching up with my body.
Jaheira looked up at me.
Not at my sword.
Not at my stance.
At my face.
Her gaze held, steady and unreadable—and for a fraction of a second, the rest of the hallway seemed to recede. The roots, the body, the blood on the stone all slipped just out of focus, as if my attention had narrowed without asking permission.
It passed almost immediately.
I noticed the loss of it more than the feeling itself.
"…So," she said quietly.
And standing there—between a dead mage, a ruthless ally, and two people the world had clearly been saving for me—
I understood something new.
This wasn't a rescue.
It was an arrival.
No one moved right away.
The hallway still smelled wrong—stone dust, sap from the torn roots, iron where it didn't belong. The space felt bruised, like it hadn't decided yet whether it was done being violated.
Khalid lowered his shield a fraction, then raised it again, uncertain what posture the moment required. His eyes kept flicking from the body to Montaron to me, as if trying to triangulate the new shape of the danger.
Montaron had already disengaged.
Bare feet silent on broken stone, he retreated a step toward the side door he'd come from—not leaving, just no longer participating.
Jaheira noticed.
Her staff tapped once against the floor—light, controlled. The sound cut through the haze without force.
"This place is no longer safe," she said.
Not a command.
A conclusion.
Her gaze swept the hallway, taking inventory. Cracked beams. Torn stone. The corpse pinned at an angle that would be hard to explain to an innkeeper who hadn't just watched roots erupt through their ceiling.
"H-he acted alone," Khalid said quietly. "B-but not without intent."
Jaheira inclined her head. "No. He wasn't careless."
That was all the agreement they needed.
Khalid exhaled slowly through his nose, the tension easing from his shoulders as the words settled.
A door creaked softly behind me.
Not the sharp, violent sound of splintering wood.
A hesitant one.
I turned.
Imoen stood a few paces down the hallway, half out of the room we'd left not long ago, hair still loose from sleep, one hand braced against the doorframe like she wasn't sure whether stepping fully into the hall was a good idea.
Her eyes moved quickly.
The gouged floor.
The broken sconces.
The body tangled in retreating roots.
Then they found me.
"Oh," she said softly.
Not fear.
Recognition.
She crossed the distance in three quick steps and stopped just short of touching me, like she was checking whether I was still solid.
"You okay?" she asked too quickly. "I heard—there was shouting, and then it went quiet, and—"
She cut herself off, eyes flicking to Jaheira and Khalid, then to the empty doorway Montaron had vanished through, recalibrating the way she always did.
"You're bleeding," she said.
I glanced down. A shallow cut along my forearm, already clotted.
"It's not mine," I said automatically.
She didn't look convinced.
Her gaze returned to my face, sharper now, searching for something underneath the answer. When she didn't find whatever she was looking for, she exhaled a little too hard.
"Next time," she said quietly, "wake me up."
It wasn't an accusation.
It was a promise.
Jaheira watched the exchange without comment.
Not judgmental.
Not indulgent.
Just noting the bond.
Khalid shifted subtly, angling his shield away to give Imoen space, his expression gentler than it had been moments ago.
"Guess breakfast's off," Imoen muttered, forcing a thin smile that didn't quite land.
"Looks that way," I said.
She nodded once, then squared her shoulders.
"So," she said, glancing around the ruined hallway. "What did I miss?"
Jaheira stepped forward enough that I could see her clearly now—close enough that the gravity I'd felt earlier returned, muted but present. It was harder to ignore up close, and I resented that about myself.
Her attention came back to me.
Not probing.
Not reassuring.
Measuring.
"You were awake early," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes," I replied.
Another pause. Shorter this time. Intentional.
"And you noticed him."
I hesitated—just long enough to tell her everything she needed to know.
"Yes."
Khalid's grip tightened—not on his shield, but on himself.
She studied me for another moment, then nodded, decision made.
"That may have saved your life," she said.
No praise.
No comfort.
Information.
Jaheira turned slightly, addressing the group without fully facing anyone.
"We should move him," she said, indicating the body. "And then we should leave. Quietly."
Montaron's absence answered for him—
but his voice carried anyway, drifting back from the side corridor.
"Inn won't like this," he muttered. "Broken stone. Screaming. Blood on the floor."
Khalid didn't look at the damage.
He looked at Jaheira.
"They'll be compensated," he said, his voice steady now.
Jaheira glanced at him once, approving without comment.
Her eyes flicked toward the stairwell, then back to me.
"You should pack," she said. "We will speak after."
I nodded.
She accepted that as sufficient and turned away, already coordinating with Khalid in low tones, voices overlapping in a rhythm that suggested long familiarity—trust forged under pressure, not tenderness.
Imoen stayed close.
I stood there a moment longer, staring at the damage carved into the hallway, at the place where the world had once again bent around me without asking permission.
Whatever came next, it wasn't going to be simple.
But it was an arrival.