Rose let out a deep breath.

  “Now what?” Parek said, exasperation in his voice.

  She swung her small mirror around the column to her right to have a look at the adjacent row. Gears whirred as the guardian on the floor shot a mechanical leg forwards, five-pronged claw tunnelling into stone, sending little blue-grey chips pinging off the columns at its side. The one on the ceiling was emerging into the space just ahead and to the right of them.

  “Let’s move back. Use the mirror as a shield,” Rose said, already stepping behind the first column, Elsie beside her. Parek pulled on the mirror – it glided easily, hovering half a foot above the floor and towering a foot or so above them. With it, they needed to move slower, though not as slow as the spheres advancing towards them. With Parek tugging the mirror along, they used it for cover to move past the row the two guardians were in, before Parek spun the mirror to cover behind as they hid behind the next column.

  Rose used her mirror to peek past the edge of the column and check where the other guardians were. All three huddled close together near the centre of the room, pulling themselves on their mechanical legs towards Rose and her allies. She glanced at the columns on the other side from them – a good twenty metres away. Two [Blinks] should do it. Maybe a third to be safe.

  She spun around to face Parek. Elsie was skipping on the spot by her feet, bobbing her head side-to-side.

  “We need to get to the other side. The other three are getting closer and we need to put distance to these ones. Leave the mirror – we’ll try the one I saw over there. Do you have a way to get across?”

  Parek nodded. Rose spun back around, eyes on the far wall.

  [Blink], [Blink], [Blink].

  Her head smacked into the wall with a thud. She winced, dropping her staff so she could put both hands to her forehead and rub the bruise. [Blink] allowed her to move a set distance in the direction she was facing, but if there was an obstacle, the [Blink] would just throw her into it. As she rubbed her head, she looked to her left. Elsie was leaning with her back to the column, one leg crossed over the other, looking at her nails as she pretended to file them.

  She was made of thread! What nails?!

  Parek arrived a moment later, joining Rose but looking towards the far end of the room.

  “You were right. Six mirrors,” he said.

  Rose gathered her staff and followed Parek’s gaze. Just past the column was the first mirror hugging the wall, with another two further down, directly opposite the others she’d seen earlier. What was she missing? There were six mirrors but the one Parek had moved didn’t work on the guardian. Would one of the others?

  “Let’s get to the one at the other end, as far from these things as possible and then figure out what we need to do?”

  Elsie didn’t wait, moving so quickly, she might as well have teleported. She was already waiting at the last column before Rose had the chance to cast. Six [Blinks] later and Rose was at the seventh column, her small mirror zooming behind her to catch up. Parek was already coming to a stop beside Elsie.

  Between Rose and them was the tall mirror.

  Parek didn’t wait for her to join them, instead moving to the mirror and placing both hands behind it. He pulled and…it didn’t budge. Elsie walked over, placed a tiny hand behind it and with a slight tug, the mirror moved – just as easily as the one earlier had moved for Parek. Rose glanced back at the other two on this side of the room, then glanced between the columns to the mirror opposite, on the other side. She frowned as she worked her way through the problem.

  Six mirrors. Six guardians – two for each of them. Parek able to move one mirror. Elsie another. Parek’s mirror reflecting the white bolt aimed for Rose, but not damaging the guardian.

  But did that mean none of the mirrors would damage the guardian?

  “Maybe…we each get two mirrors to move…to attack the guardians targeting us?” she suggested.

  Parek slowly nodded his head several times, though his lips were pressed together like he was thinking. His eyes darted to Elsie.

  “Can we ask the doll to test the other mirrors? If she can move only one more of them, it adds credibility to your theory. And she can test if it can damage the spheres.”

  Elsie peered up, eyes narrowed at Parek, her pink threaded lips curved slightly down. Little black pins began materialising by her side.

  “Her name is Elsie,” Rose said. “Not ‘the doll’.”

  “Sorry,” Parek replied, eyes still on Elsie. The pins disappeared. “Elsie,” he smiled at her like he would a child. “Would you be able to check the other mirrors?”

  Elsie smiled back, then gave him a thumbs up before shooting off, back the way they came. She stopped at the mirror in the middle, gave it a quick tug and shot off again when it didn’t move. A split second later, a white beam blasted across the space where Elsie had been standing. Rose cowered, closing her eyes. Even Parek gave a little start at the loud clang when the beam hit the mirror and reflected back.

  “That seemed faster, didn’t it?” Parek said, standing slightly ahead of her. She didn’t reply but he was right. It had seemed a tad faster.

  Were they on some unknown time limit?

  Elsie was already at the final mirror with not even the slightest concern that she might have been hit. She trusted herself. Knew what she was capable of. By contrast, Rose’s heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest. Every breath she took sounded loud in her ears.

  “Elsie,” Rose screamed across. “I think they’re shooting faster.”

  Elsie turned to face her, then saluted.

  Did this girl never take anything seriously?! Elsie operated on a level of ‘not-bothered’ that Rose yearned to reach.

  Elsie gave the mirror a quick tug. Nothing. She didn’t dwell on it, and ran back towards the corner they had fled earlier. Rose kept her eyes on the mirror opposite where they stood. Was that Elsie’s or hers? Her fingers dug into the handle of her staff.

  A moment later, Elsie appeared in front of that mirror. She gestured at it then pointed at Rose before darting back the way she had come. Rose pushed her small mirror out to view the middle of the room. The three guardians in the opposite corner – the ones they’d bolted from – were now making their way towards this corner, as was one of the others in the middle. The guardians seemed to be moving a little faster than they had been.

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  The last two were converging on the same point between the fourth and fifth columns, one grinding along the floor, the other one crawling across the ceiling, though it was the latter that got there first. It fixed its eye in the direction Elsie would be, exactly where the middle mirror was.

  It charged up its beam and fired.

  A moment later, the beam fired back.

  A thunderous crack reverberated around the room as the beam punched through the metallic grey sphere and for one frozen moment, the white beam split the room, the guardian’s body ripped in two halves at its centre.

  Then the guardian exploded.

  Metal fragments tore through the air, blasting into the columns and the floor and the ceiling above.

  Then came the rumble.

  Elsie was already back at Rose’s side, as a deep hum resonated through the chamber, getting progressively louder. In her small mirror, she could see the other guardians hadn’t stopped at all. If anything, they had gotten that bit faster as they continued moving towards them. Then she noticed the first row of columns on the other side begin to shudder, like in an earthquake, though the rest of the room was still.

  Then the entire row began to sink. Slowly at first, stone grinding against stone, but the columns dropped faster and faster and faster until they disappeared altogether, as if they’d never been there in the first place.

  “I told you dungeons don’t work how you want them to,” Parek whispered over her shoulder. “There’s always a new surprise.”

  Elsie made some gestures at Rose, pointing to the mirror nearby, then collapsing her tiny hands into fists before her fingers burst outwards.

  “The mirrors get destroyed along with the guardian,” Rose said. “The other five guardians are in the middle of the room, coming towards here. There’s one that’s closer to the other side than the rest. That one’s Elsie’s, and the one that’s furthest away from us is the one coming for me. That mirror across,” she pointed at the mirror opposite, “is mine.”

  Parek looked back towards the two mirrors on their side of the room. “I have a feeling the middle one’s mine.” He turned back to Rose. “Can you see my other mirror? Is it still there?”

  Rose pushed her small mirror further out to see past the guardian spheres. As she did, all five turned their eyes toward it, but continued walking towards them.

  “Yes, I see it. It’s just hovering there in the open now the columns are gone.” She pulled her mirror back and turned to face Parek. “We need to move soon. Less than thirty seconds before they’re all here.”

  “We have to assume the columns will fall when we take each one down.”

  Rose nodded. “What’s going to happen when there’s no columns to hide behind?”

  “I have no idea, but I think you and Elsie move to your mirror on the other side. She’ll help you to avoid the beam.”

  “What about you?” Rose asked.

  “I have abilities I can use, but mages aren’t exactly known for their deft manoeuvrability.” he smiled at her. He wasn’t wrong. She could use [Blink], but that was only in one direction and there was always a lag if she wanted to change course after a [Blink]. It was too disorientating.

  “Once you’re there,” Parek continued, “you can pull your two to you. I’ll swing round to my mirror on that side. Kill your one as soon as you can, and I’ll do the same with mine. Then we’ll have got rid of the mirrors on that side, and even if all the columns are gone, or there’s no cover on this side, all the mirrors are together. Should be easier for us.

  “What do you think?”

  She didn’t need to think. The guardians were close enough that they could hear the mechanical whirr of their legs extending, and the gears clicking and grinding as they pulled themselves closer.

  “I think it’s a great plan. Try not to die,” Rose responded. She had Elsie. He didn’t.

  She faced the mirror opposite and [Blinked] several times. Elsie already stood in front of the mirror when Rose arrived. She gripped her staff firmly, casting a small spell to have the mirror follow her but it didn’t respond. She sighed. It would have made it a lot easier for her if she could move it with magic.

  She tugged on it instead, smiling as it came free from the wall and hovered next to her. She used her small mirror to check on the guardians coming. As expected, three of them were moving towards her direction, one on the floor in line with the second column, another on the ceiling by the fourth column and the last crawling across the ceiling by the fifth column. The final two were closer to the opposite side of the room, both standing on the floor, their bodies rotating as if they were looking at something through the columns on the other side.

  She couldn’t worry about Parek though.

  She dragged the mirror towards the third column, keeping the mirrored side faced towards the guardians. She wanted to get closer to the two on the ceiling. She was sure those were the two that were targeting her – the two that had been on the ceiling crawling towards them when they had first tested Parek’s mirror earlier.

  At the third column, she stopped, moving her small mirror to the side to peek past the column and see where the guardians were. The row of columns missing made this more difficult for her as the three guardians advanced, the closest of which was no further than ten metres away. The other two were further back, drawing ever nearer across the ceiling. All three had a direct line of sight to the gap between the third and fourth columns.

  Rose took a deep breath, pushed the mirror so it hovered in the gap between the columns, halfway to the wall so she had enough room to dart in front of it.

  She glanced down at Elsie. “Don’t let me die,” she said with a grin. Her heart was still pounding but she felt a lot more comfortable with Elsie by her side. Elsie winked back at her.

  Just as she was about to step out, another thunderous crack echoed through the room. She checked the small mirror. She hadn’t even realised that as she was getting into position, so had Parek. And he had been faster. She barely caught the aftermath of the exploding guardian, but immediately, a rumble began. The column beside her shuddered. She turned her head slowly in its direction, looked towards the very top and saw it move. Downwards.

  It was sinking.

  The whole row was sinking.

  If her heart had been merely pounding earlier, now it was hammering to get out. Their cover would be gone in moments.

  “Elsie!” she shouted as she ran in front of the mirror. She kept her eyes closed, gripped her staff firmly. She trusted in her friend as that low hum began that she was becoming all too familiar with.

  Any moment now.

  She flew forwards, as the shrill whine sounded behind her. Air rushed past her face, whipped her hair. Another thunderous crack echoed through the chamber, followed by the rumble and the sound of stone grinding on stone. She dared not open her eyes, she was moving too fast.

  She came to a stop with a sudden jolt. When she opened her eyes, Elsie stood by her feet, Parek beside her. They were in the corner of the room nearest to where they had entered, a single row of columns left that they were hiding behind. She glanced to the left, seeing all three mirrors.

  “I had the chance to check,” Parek said. “Like I thought, the middle one’s mine. This one’s yours.” He gestured with his head at the mirror nearby. “Kill your last one first. Then Elsie and I will do ours.”

  It was quite easy to get the guardian targeting her. It was the closest one to them and she simply waited in front of the mirror until it came into view, Elsie at her side. The guardian looked at her, the outer edges of the black disc glowing white and working inwards as the hum rose in intensity. Elsie pushed her as the white beam shot forth and was reflected back, splitting the guardian in half with a booming crash.

  Parek and Elsie wasted no time in running to their mirrors, Parek in the middle, Elsie at the far end as the last row of columns sank into the floor.

  She had a clear view to the other side of the room and the two guardians towards the middle that had been moving towards Parek and Elsie. Both stopped, legs tunnelled into the floor.

  Their bodies swivelled much faster than before, both almost instantaneously looking in her direction. Her eyes widened.

  There was no white glow on the outside of the black discs.

  There was no low hum rising.

  There were just solid beams of white light coming right at her.

  Even had she had the skill or the speed, she doubted she could have reacted in time. As it was, she had neither. The beams pummelled her against the wall, an intense pressure slamming into her chest. The heat was unbearable, like being plunged into the sun.

  But then she realised she couldn’t feel any pain, though the lids of her eyes bled red in the intense glare of those beams.

  Elliott’s shield.

  It was protecting her, but for how long?

  With all the strength she could muster against the intense pressure on her chest, she screamed out. “KILL THEM!”

  She couldn’t tell if it had been a second or an eternity, but the pressure subsided as suddenly as it had come. She collapsed to the floor, her dress still drenched, her heart still hammering, her breath shallow and fast. Her eyelids were no longer red. She fluttered them open.

  Parek and Elsie were by her side, Parek helping her get up, though she wasn’t ready to stand yet. She felt if she tried, her legs would collapse beneath her. She might not have taken any damage, but those beams were still powerful enough for her to feel their heat and their pressure.

  As she took a moment to gather herself, a chime sang out across the room like the tinkling of glasses. All three of them looked up to see a cloud of golden dust on the opposite side of the room, where they had first sighted the guardian spheres. The cloud writhed and swirled and coalesced, pulling the golden dust towards its centre until it formed a shape.

  A key.