Morning came with paperwork.
A different kind this time.
Not release forms.
Authorization.
"Visitor clearance for condemned prisoner Nathan Bluefield," the clerk read flatly. "Approved under Platinum Adventurer Statute 7-B. Fifteen minutes maximum."
The guard processing it looked bored.
Stamp. Slide. Initial.
Standard procedure.
Legal.
Documented.
Brandon had done his job perfectly.
Michael accepted the stamped slate without comment.
Probability of entry denial: 5%.
Probability of surveillance beyond visible security: 80%.
Probability this was his only clean access point: 100%.
"Follow," the guard said.
Security at the entrance was methodical.
Pat-down.
Pockets emptied.
Boots removed and inspected.
Michael kept his breathing steady. Heart rate elevated but controlled.
The teleportation device rested where he'd positioned it at dawn—compressed into the hollow just above his remaining wrist, small enough to avoid bulk, pressed beneath slight residual swelling from where suppression cuffs had bitten into him days earlier.
The guard's fingers passed over the area.
Paused half a second.
Kept moving.
Probability of detection: 30%.
Actual detection: 0%.
Michael didn't react.
Didn't adjust posture.
Didn't swallow.
He re-laced his boots.
"Clear."
The gates opened with a grinding metallic groan.
They led him deep.
Past the general holding blocks first.
Cells lined both sides of the corridor—iron bars, etched wards, layered glyphwork that shimmered faintly in the bronze morning light filtering through narrow ceiling slits.
Prisoners watched him pass.
Some dangerous.
Some broken.
Some too quiet to categorize.
Eyes followed. Calculated.
Then the first checkpoint.
Runed barrier.
Identity verification.
Second checkpoint.
Heavier guard presence. Spear constructs humming with stored charge.
Third checkpoint.
Silence.
Maximum security wing.
The air here felt different.
Thicker.
Like the architecture itself expected violence.
This was where they kept individuals capable of leveling districts.
Until they could be safely destroyed.
A guard stopped outside a reinforced chamber door.
"Visitor room is isolated," he said. "Any attempt at spellcasting will trigger immediate suppression."
Michael nodded once.
As if that mattered.
The door slid open.
Small.
Deliberately plain.
Stone walls etched with dampening sigils.
One table bolted to the floor.
Two chairs.
Reinforced glass on one side. A guard visible beyond it—watching, impassive.
Audio monitored.
Probably.
Michael took his seat.
Hands flat on the table.
Pulse steady.
Thirty seconds later, chains echoed down the corridor.
They brought Nathan in restrained at five points.
Wrists.
Ankles.
Neck.
Suppression chains layered with power-dampening runes that hummed softly, a low vibration in the air like distant machinery.
He looked—
Smaller.
Not physically.
But diminished.
Like someone had hollowed him out and left only the outline.
The orange glow that used to burn behind his eyes was gone.
No heat radiated from him.
No restless tension.
Just exhaustion.
The guards seated him across from Michael.
Chains clinked as he lowered into the chair.
Metal scraped stone.
"Fifteen minutes," the guard said. "Then final processing for tomorrow's tribunal."
The door sealed.
Locks engaged.
They were alone.
Mostly.
Silence lingered.
Nathan didn't look up at first.
When he finally did, his eyes were clear.
And tired.
"You shouldn't be here," Nathan said quietly.
Michael studied him.
Assessing physical state. Mana leakage. Stability.
"How bad?" Michael asked.
Nathan huffed something that might have been a laugh.
"They dampened everything. I can't feel it anymore."
He flexed his fingers slightly; the chains responded with a faint pulse.
"It's… quiet."
For someone like Nathan, that might have been worse than pain.
Michael leaned forward slightly.
"You're being executed publicly."
"I know."
"Tomorrow."
"I know."
No denial.
No panic.
Just acceptance.
Nathan's gaze shifted briefly toward the reinforced glass.
"They told me how many," he said.
Michael didn't respond.
"Forty-seven."
The number hung between them.
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
"I remember pieces. Heat. Screaming. Then nothing. Then this."
His jaw tightened.
"They deserved better than that."
Michael didn't argue.
Didn't absolve.
Didn't condemn.
Nathan spoke first.
"You shouldn't have come."
His voice wasn't loud.
It wasn't angry.
It was hollow in a way that had nothing to do with volume.
Michael studied him across the table.
"Why not?"
Nathan's gaze drifted briefly toward the reinforced glass.
"Because there's nothing to say." His eyes returned to Michael's. "I killed forty-seven people. Tomorrow I die for it. That's just math."
"Is that what you think?" Michael asked evenly. "That it's just math?"
Nathan's hands—cuffed in front of him, suppression runes glowing faintly—tightened until metal creaked.
"What else is there?"
"Context."
Nathan's jaw shifted.
"Reason."
A breath.
"The fact that you were trying to save someone."
"And failed."
The laugh that followed wasn't loud.
It was bitter.
"Sarah's gone. Forty-seven civilians are dead. I failed at saving her and succeeded at mass murder."
His eyes hardened.
"The math is pretty clear."
"You don't get to decide this."
Nathan blinked once.
"It's my life—"
"It's forty-seven deaths. And Sarah's kidnapping. And the survivors who still need you."
Michael leaned forward slightly, voice sharpening.
"You don't get to check out because guilt makes thinking hurt."
Nathan stared at him.
There it was.
The flinch.
"What do you want from me?" Nathan asked quietly.
"I want you to fight."
Nathan's brow furrowed.
"Fight what? The execution? I deserve it."
"Maybe."
Michael didn't hesitate.
"But deserve and should aren't the same thing."
Silence.
Nathan searched his face for weakness.
Found none.
"You sound like Brandon," Nathan muttered.
"Brandon gave up on you."
Michael's voice didn't rise.
"I haven't."
Nathan's breathing grew heavier, though he tried to hide it.
"I'm not running, Michael."
"I know."
"I'm not fighting this."
"I know."
Nathan frowned.
"Then why are you here?"
Michael didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he moved his hand slowly toward his wrist.
Careful.
Measured.
He pulled the device free from its concealment.
Small.
Unassuming.
A dull metallic disc etched with compressed glyphwork.
He set it on the table between them.
Nathan's eyes widened.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"What is that?"
"Short-range teleportation device. One-time use."
The room felt smaller suddenly.
"Brandon arranged this meeting," Michael continued. "Gave me this."
Nathan shook his head slowly.
"Michael, don't."
"I'm not letting you die because you've decided guilt is easier than living."
Nathan's restraint cracked.
"FORTY-SEVEN PEOPLE—"
"I KNOW."
Michael's voice rose before he could stop it.
The guard outside the glass straightened instantly.
Hand moving toward his weapon.
Michael didn't look away from Nathan.
"I know what you did," he said, quieter now but sharper. "I was there. I saw it. I counted the bodies. I watched the city burn."
Nathan's breathing faltered.
Michael leaned closer.
"And you're still my friend."
The words landed heavier than shouting.
Nathan's eyes flickered.
Pain.
Disbelief.
Something close to breaking.
"I don't deserve that," Nathan whispered.
"That's not how friendship works."
A sharp knock hit the glass.
"Keep it down!" the guard barked.
Time was collapsing.
Nathan looked at the device again.
"If you do this," he said hoarsely, "they'll erase you."
"Maybe."
"They won't just hunt you. They'll wipe you from records. From history."
Michael didn't blink.
"Maybe."
Nathan's voice dropped to almost nothing.
"Why would you throw your life away for me?"
Michael answered without hesitation.
"Because you're not done."
The guard was moving now.
Door unlocking.
Metal mechanisms disengaging.
"Nathan," Michael said, fast now, controlled urgency. "This isn't about absolution. It's about choice. They're going to take your choice tomorrow."
The door slid open.
Guards stepping in.
Weapons raised.
"Step away from the table!"
Nathan's eyes snapped to the approaching guards.
Then back to Michael.
"You're insane," he breathed.
"Probably."
Michael grabbed the device.
Pressed it into Nathan's chained hands.
"Live," he said.
The guard lunged forward—
Michael activated the device.
Light detonated across the room.
Reality lurched.
Not smooth.
Not cinematic.
The device wasn't built for elegance. It was built for extraction.
Space folded violently inward.
The visitor room compressed—walls bending, glass warping, guards stretching into streaks of distorted color. Sound collapsed into a single crushing note.
Michael's stomach inverted.
His inner ear screamed.
Vision fractured into angles that had no right to exist.
Up became sideways.
Sideways became nowhere.
Then—
Impact.
Stone.
Hard.
Michael hit first.
He rolled immediately, instinct overriding nausea, absorbing the momentum across shoulder and hip. His remaining arm scraped against rough cobbled ground.
Pain flared.
Manageable.
Nathan landed a split-second later.
Without free hands to break the fall.
Chains threw off his balance. He hit face-first, metal clanging against stone. A sharp exhale tore out of him.
For a moment—
Neither moved.
Breathing.
Alive.
Michael forced himself upright despite the vertigo clawing at his senses.
Alleyway.
Narrow.
Gnosi architecture—tight-fitted stone walls, wooden balconies jutting overhead, faded merchant banners hanging limp between buildings.
He stepped forward to the alley mouth.
Through a gap between rooftops, he could see it—
The prison.
Black stone rising over the district like a scar.
Three blocks away.
Maybe four.
Short-range teleport.
Exactly as advertised.
They were in the city.
Not outside the walls.
Not safe.
Right in the center of hostile territory.
Metal clinked behind him.
Nathan was on his knees, breathing hard, suppression chains humming faintly around his wrists and neck.
"What did you do?" His voice was raw—anger and disbelief colliding. "Michael, what did you—"
"Saved your life," Michael said flatly. "You're welcome."
"I didn't want—"
The first bell rang.
Deep.
Heavy.
Not a standard patrol bell.
A military bell.
Then another.
Then three in rapid succession.
The alarm that meant a condemned prisoner had escaped.
The alarm that meant lockdown.
The alarm that meant every soldier in Gnosi was about to start hunting.
Nathan's face drained of what little color it had.
"You triggered the execution protocol—"
"I know."
Shouts echoed from the far end of the street.
Boots striking stone.
Multiple pairs.
Close.
"We need to move," Michael said.
"Michael—"
"Now."
Nathan tried to stand and nearly fell again. The chains restricted his balance, dampened his core.
"I can't—" he snapped. "Suppression's still active. I can barely feel my mana. These weigh—"
Michael stepped forward, grabbed him under the arm, and hauled him upright.
"Then I'll drag you if I have to."
Boots grew louder.
Voices shouting orders.
"They'll seal the district in two minutes," Nathan said, breathing uneven. "Gate lockdown. Street blockades."
"I know."
"Then why teleport into the city?"
"Because outside the walls they'd see us immediately."
Michael pulled him toward the alley exit.
"Which way?" Nathan demanded.
Michael's mind mapped rapidly.
North — prison. Incoming units.
West — administrative sector. Heavy patrol density.
East — residential. Civilians. Recognition risk.
South — market district. Crowds. Noise. Confusion.
{Southeast,} Kevin said smoothly. {Toward the market edge. Higher density, lower visibility per individual. You'll blend better—temporarily.}
"Southeast," Michael said. "Stay close. Don't talk."
They stepped into the street.
The city was already reacting.
Merchants pulling shutters down.
Civilians looking around in confusion.
Guards sprinting past intersections toward the prison.
Another bell rang.
Closer.
Nathan stumbled once; Michael steadied him without breaking stride.
"You just declared war on Gnosi," Nathan muttered.
"Probably."
"They'll escalate fast."
"I know."
A squad turned the corner two streets over.
Michael shifted direction instantly, cutting into a narrower passage lined with stacked crates.
"Head down," he ordered.
Nathan obeyed.
Good.
They moved quickly but not sprinting yet—running too soon would draw attention.
At the next intersection, the crowd thickened. Word was spreading.
"Prison breach!"
"Condemned sorcerer escaped!"
Michael felt eyes beginning to scan faces.
Time shrinking.
"Michael," Nathan said quietly, tension threading through his voice, "if they reapply suppression—"
"They won't get the chance."
The bells shifted rhythm.
New pattern.
Full district mobilization.
Michael calculated windows.
Two minutes until perimeter grid activates.
Four until aerial scouts deploy.
Less if they prioritize magical tracking.
He tightened his grip on Nathan's arm.
"Faster," he said.
They broke into a run.
And the city began to hunt.
Gnosi at midday was alive.
Merchants shouting prices across narrow lanes.
Spice smoke drifting over crowded stalls.
Street performers flipping knives near a fountain plaza.
Children darting between adults, laughing.
A normal day.
A normal city.
Until two figures burst from an alley.
One missing an arm.
One wrapped in heavy suppression chains that hummed faintly with each step.
Running like death was behind them.
Because it was.
They made it thirty seconds.
A patrol guard turned the corner ahead of them.
Young.
Uniform still too clean.
His eyes widened in recognition.
"You! STOP!"
Michael didn't.
The guard reached for his crossbow—standard city patrol issue, compact, rune-stabilized—
Michael didn't slow.
He grabbed the nearest object—a loaded merchant cart stacked with ceramic jars—and shoved.
The cart lurched forward.
Wheels screeched against stone.
The guard tried to sidestep.
Too late.
He stumbled over the cart's edge, fell hard. The crossbow discharged into open air, the bolt embedding in a wooden awning overhead.
Ceramic shattered across the street.
Oil spilled.
Merchants screamed.
Civilians scattered in every direction.
Chaos bloomed.
Michael grabbed Nathan's sleeve.
"Move."
They moved.
It took less than a minute.
The chains gave Nathan away first.
Metal clinking.
Rune-light faint but visible.
Then the heat shimmer.
Even suppressed, his body radiated slightly warmer than normal, air warping subtly around him.
A woman near a produce stall froze.
Her eyes widened.
"That's him—"
Her voice cracked into a scream.
"The murderer! The one who burned the—"
The crowd reacted like a living organism.
Recoiling.
Splitting away from Nathan as if proximity alone might ignite them.
Someone threw a stone.
It missed Nathan.
Hit a shop window instead.
Glass exploded outward.
"THIS WAY," Michael snapped.
He dragged Nathan into a side alley.
Narrower.
Darker.
The smell of refuse and old rain heavy in the air.
Behind them, shouting intensified.
"Prisoner sighted!"
"Seal the southern quadrant!"
"Cut them off!"
They couldn't stay inside Gnosi.
Every citizen had seen the tribunal announcement.
Nathan's face had been displayed across public boards.
Forty-seven victims.
Public execution scheduled.
Now escaped.
Every guard in the city would be mobilizing.
Michael's mind ran options rapidly.
Main gates — impossible. Guarded, documented, layered identity checks.
Wall scaling — thirty feet of smooth stone. Nathan in chains. No chance.
Sewers — possible. But after the explosion four days ago? Almost certainly monitored.
He exhaled sharply.
Trapped inside a tightening grid.
{You need help,} Kevin said.
From who? Brandon can't intervene now.
{Not Brandon.}
Bootsteps thundered at the mouth of the alley.
Different cadence.
Not patrol.
Military.
Trained runners.
Michael shoved Nathan deeper into the maze of back passages.
They cut left.
Then right.
Then vaulted over stacked crates.
Nathan stumbled but kept pace, chains slowing him but not stopping him.
"How long until full lockdown?" Michael asked.
"Two minutes," Nathan panted. "Maybe less. They'll deploy aerial scouts."
Right on cue—
A horn blast sounded overhead.
Different pitch.
Signal for skyward units.
Michael glanced up.
Between rooftops, he caught a flicker—
Winged constructs lifting from guard towers.
Tracking units.
"Faster," he said.
They burst from the alley into a narrow service lane.
Dead end.
Brick wall ahead.
Thirty feet high.
Michael swore under his breath.
Behind them—
Boots.
Closer.
Voices.
"They're cornered!"
Nathan leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
"Go," he said. "Leave me."
"No."
"Michael—"
"No."
Michael scanned the wall.
No footholds.
No doors.
No drainage grates large enough.
Then—
A faint shift in the air.
The sound of something slicing cleanly through space.
Not a blade.
A seam.
The brick wall ahead shimmered.
Split.
Like fabric being cut from the inside.
A vertical line of darkness opened.
Not shadow.
Absence.
Boots rounded the corner behind them—
"DOWN!" a soldier shouted.
Spears leveled.
Michael didn't hesitate.
He grabbed Nathan and lunged forward—
Through the tear in reality.
The seam snapped shut behind them.
Spears struck solid brick.
And the alley was empty.
They hit solid ground hard.
Not stone this time.
Wood.
Dust rising in a narrow, half-collapsed interior corridor.
Before Michael could fully orient—
A figure dropped from the rooftop opening ahead.
Boots landing lightly.
Michael's hand snapped to his hip.
Empty.
Severance was still locked in evidence storage.
The figure straightened.
Jason.
Breathing hard.
Hands faintly glowing with gathered mana.
Clothes changed — darker, tighter-fitting, unremarkable. Street runner's gear. Designed to blend.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Michael demanded.
"Saving your ass, apparently."
Jason gestured toward a cracked window overlooking a parallel alley.
"Reinhardt's at the east gate. Big distraction. Loud. You've got maybe four minutes before guards reroute and seal this sector."
Michael stared at him.
"Jason. You said you'd wait."
"I lied."
No apology in his tone.
Just fact.
"Come on," Jason added. "I know a route."
He moved immediately.
Confident.
No hesitation.
Through the abandoned structure, down a service stairwell, through a rear exit into a narrow passage most civilians would never notice.
Michael clocked the pathing.
Efficient.
Pre-scouted.
"You planned this," he said while dragging Nathan along.
"Obviously," Jason replied without looking back. "You think I was going to let you do this alone?"
"I told you to wait."
"You tell me a lot of things." Jason vaulted a broken crate. "I chose which ones to follow."
Nathan, chains clinking with every uneven step, managed between breaths:
"Kid… this is suicide."
Jason shot him a glance over his shoulder.
"Good thing I'm not suicidal then."
A tight smile.
"Just committed."
They cut through an abandoned textile shop.
Out the back.
Into another alley.
Shouts echoed two streets over.
Military units dispersing.
Reforming.
Grid tightening.
Jason veered left without slowing.
"How long until full lockdown?" Michael asked.
"Less than three now," Jason said. "Reinhardt bought you time, not freedom."
They turned a sharp corner—
And stopped.
Two guards.
Not patrol.
Military.
Heavier armor.
Runed spears already raised.
They'd anticipated the vector.
"HALT!"
No time to negotiate.
No time to redirect.
Nathan couldn't pivot fast enough in chains.
Michael shifted instinctively forward—
Jason moved first.
His hands came up.
Mana surged.
Not wild.
Not flaring.
Focused.
Condensed.
The air in front of them thickened.
Then hardened.
A barrier formed.
Rough-edged.
Translucent.
Edges uneven like fractured stone.
But real.
Solid.
The first guard's spear thrust forward—
It struck the barrier with a metallic ring that did not belong to air.
The impact rippled across the surface but didn't break.
The guard's eyes widened.
Second spear struck.
Held.
Jason's jaw tightened, teeth gritted.
The barrier trembled but remained.
"GO!" Jason shouted.
Michael didn't hesitate.
He grabbed Nathan and pushed through the side gap Jason left intentionally in the barrier's curvature.
They cleared the choke point.
Three seconds.
That was all Jason needed.
The barrier shattered outward in a burst of fading light.
Jason dropped it deliberately and bolted.
The guards recovered too late.
By the time they pushed through, the alley was empty again.
They sprinted.
Nathan struggling but upright.
Jason catching up quickly, breath controlled despite mana expenditure.
Behind them, the city roared louder.
Orders shouted.
Boots multiplying.
Aerial constructs slicing overhead between buildings.
Michael glanced sideways at Jason.
"That was good."
Jason huffed once.
"Rocks turned into walls."
Even while running, there was a flicker of pride in his voice.
"Just like you said."
Michael gave a short nod.
"Walls are useful."
Jason's grin flashed briefly despite the chaos.
"Yeah."
They rounded another corner—
Sirens rising again from the east.
Reinhardt escalating the distraction.
Buying seconds.
Not minutes.
Michael's mind recalculated.
They weren't escaping clean.
They were surviving by inches.
And the hunt was far from over.
They heard it before they saw it.
A sharp concussion rolled through the streets.
Then another.
Not magical.
Chemical.
Controlled detonation — directional, contained.
Professional.
Reinhardt.
Smoke rose in three separate columns near the east gate.
Not clustered.
Spread.
One near the outer wall tower.
One near a supply cart depot.
One closer to the gatehouse itself.
Staggered timing.
Designed to fracture response patterns.
Guards poured toward the plumes, shouting over each other.
"Contain the secondary fire!"
"Check the tower!"
"Seal the inner gate—no, wait—"
Confusion.
Exactly what Reinhardt had intended.
The main gate stood partially exposed.
Not abandoned.
But thinly held.
Two soldiers remained at the outer threshold, both angled toward the smoke, attention split.
Michael slowed just enough to assess.
No mounted units yet.
No aerial scouts directly overhead.
Window: shrinking.
"Now," Jason whispered.
They moved.
Low.
Fast as Nathan's chains allowed.
Using overturned stalls and supply crates as intermittent cover.
Smoke drifted across the street, stinging eyes, masking silhouettes.
Fifty meters.
Nathan stumbled once; Michael steadied him without breaking pace.
Forty.
A shout rang out behind them — not at them, but about the fires.
Thirty.
One of the two remaining guards turned.
His gaze swept lazily—
Then locked.
Recognition hit instantly.
"You—HEY!"
Jason reacted before Michael could.
Mana flared.
A barrier snapped into existence between them and the guard.
Cruder this time.
Thinner.
Edges unstable from prior strain.
The guard lunged forward—
And hit solid resistance.
His shout cut short as momentum threw him back a step.
The second guard tried to circle.
Michael shifted trajectory, dragging Nathan through the widening gap between smoke and gatepost.
Twenty meters.
Ten.
The barrier fractured behind them with a glass-like crack.
Jason released it and sprinted.
Michael didn't look back.
They crossed the threshold.
Out.
The city wall rose behind them — smooth stone catching the bronze midday light.
Outside, the land stretched open.
Dry grasslands rolling gently toward distant low hills.
Wind unobstructed.
No cover.
But no walls.
Behind them, bells shifted tone again.
Not alarm.
Mobilization.
Systematic.
Orders carried clearly across the stone.
"Seal all gates!"
"Deploy riders!"
"Notify outer patrols!"
The city had moved from chaos to response.
Reinhardt's window was closing.
Pursuit would come.
Mounted units first.
Then aerial constructs.
Then tracking specialists.
Minutes.
Maybe an hour if response lagged.
Michael slowed only once they'd cleared immediate bow range.
Nathan bent forward slightly, chains hanging heavy, breathing hard but steady.
Jason turned, scanning the wall.
Smoke still rising.
Guards scrambling.
No immediate riders through the gate yet.
They'd made it.
For now.
Michael looked back at Gnosi.
At the prison on the hill — black stone cutting into the sky.
At the district where he'd lived.
At the barracks.
At the fragile stability he'd just burned down.
No regret.
Just acknowledgment.
He turned southeast.
Toward open land.
Toward the black-market routes.
Toward where Sarah was being held.
{Six days,} Kevin reminded quietly.
I know.
{Probability of success—}
Still calculating.
Wind moved across the plains.
Jason stepped beside him.
Nathan straightened slowly.
Behind them, Gnosi prepared to hunt.
Ahead of them—
Unknown terrain.
Unknown enemies.
A city-state's wrath closing in.
Michael took the first step forward.
Still calculating.
Still moving.
Still trying anyway.
They ran until their lungs burned and the city walls blurred into distance.
An hour.
Maybe a little less.
Far enough that the sound of bells no longer carried clearly.
Far enough that mounted pursuit would need tracking, not sight.
They found cover in a jagged outcropping of crystalline rock formations rising from the dry earth like frozen lightning.
Translucent structures, waist-high in some places, towering in others. Angular. Sharp. Natural barriers grown from mineral veins.
Common on Terra-0689.
Apparently common here too.
Michael guided them into a hollow between two taller shards. Hidden from direct line of sight. Protected on three sides.
Nathan collapsed immediately.
The suppression chains dragged him down with metallic weight. He landed on one knee first, then both, breathing hard.
Jason dropped beside the crystal wall, back sliding down it, hands trembling faintly from sustained mana use.
Michael stayed standing.
Scanning.
Horizon line.
Wind direction.
Dust signatures that might indicate riders.
Nothing yet.
That didn't mean safe.
Just not found.
After several long minutes of nothing but breathing—
"Where do we go?"
Nathan's voice was still hollow.
But different.
Not resignation.
Not quite willingness either.
Just acknowledgment of continued existence.
Michael finally turned toward him.
"We rescue Sarah," he said. "Then we figure out the rest."
Nathan closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, they were clearer.
"She's in Gnosi."
"Chrysanthemum Market," Michael corrected. "Southeast border sector. Underground auction house. Six days."
Nathan frowned faintly.
"How do you know that?"
"Erika. Cellmate in detention. Former Guild clerk. She knew trafficking patterns."
Nathan absorbed that.
Then exhaled slowly.
"Michael."
"What."
"This is insane."
"Yeah."
"You broke me out. Fine." Nathan's voice tightened. "But going back into Gnosi? Into a black-market operation? While actively hunted?"
"Yeah."
"The odds—"
"Are terrible. I know."
Nathan stared at him.
"Then why?"
Michael didn't look away.
"Because she's my friend."
A beat.
"You're mine."
Another.
"And I don't leave what's mine behind."
The wind shifted between the crystal formations.
Nathan looked down at his chained hands.
Didn't argue again.
"I might be able to help."
Jason's voice was quieter than before.
Both of them looked at him.
"With what?" Michael asked.
Jason swallowed once.
"With getting into the auction house."
Michael's expression didn't change.
"Explain."
"I'm a Creation Sorcerer." Jason's hands tightened against his knees. "Eight billion Chrysos. That kind of valuation attracts buyers."
Michael felt something cold settle under his ribs.
"If they think I'm…" Jason hesitated. "…available inventory. They'll let me inside."
Silence.
Then—
"Absolutely not."
Michael's tone wasn't loud.
It was final.
"It's the cleanest entry point," Jason insisted. "You need access. I'm access."
"NO."
The word cut sharper this time.
"We are not using you as bait."
"Then how do we get in?"
Jason held his gaze.
Not defiant.
Not reckless.
Logical.
Michael didn't answer.
Because he didn't have one.
Yet.
Evening began its slow descent.
Bronze light deepening toward copper across the plains.
They sat in the shadow of crystalline structures, three silhouettes against open land.
Three fugitives.
One missing an arm.
One wrapped in suppression chains.
One who could summon walls for three seconds at a time.
Against:
Gnosi military response units.
Professional traffickers.
Time.
Six days.
Wind whispered faintly across the crystal edges.
{Probability of success,} Kevin said quietly.
Don't.
{Five percent.}
I said don't.
A pause.
{Probability of trying—}
"Hundred percent," Michael muttered under his breath.
Jason glanced at him. "What?"
"Nothing."
Michael looked at both of them.
Nathan — broken, guilty, but alive.
Jason — afraid, shaking slightly, but committed.
Behind them, somewhere beyond the horizon, Gnosi was organizing pursuit.
Ahead of them, a black market that sold people.
"We rest two hours," Michael said. "Minimal profile. No fire. No light signatures."
Nathan nodded slowly.
Jason nodded immediately.
"After that," Michael continued, "we move southeast along low terrain. Stay ahead of mounted patrol vectors while planning extraction."
He met their eyes one at a time.
"And we don't stop until she's safe."
A beat.
"Understood?"
Nathan's answer came quiet.
"Understood."
Jason's was immediate.
"Yeah."
Michael finally lowered himself to sit against the crystal wall.
Exhaustion hit all at once.
Heavy.
Physical.
But not paralyzing.
Six days.
A hostile city.
An underground auction.
A rescue that statistically shouldn't work.
Michael closed his eyes briefly.
Still calculating.
Still moving.
Still trying anyway.
