The dragon’s roar struck the corridor hard enough to shake dust from the walls.
Coco flinched backward. Tetia’s hand closed around her sleeve, while Richeh stood with her pen trapped between two fingers, staring at the creature as though her body had forgotten what came after seeing it.
Agott had opened her pen case.
She had not drawn anything.
The dragon lowered its head and advanced.
Its claws scraped across the gray floor. Blue scales shifted over one another with the sound of stones being dragged through a riverbed. Each step sent a tremor through my feet.
They were waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
I knew that feeling.
I had seen soldiers stand exactly like this while an officer shouted uselessly behind them. Fear narrowed the world until every choice felt wrong, and the body chose stillness because it required no decision.
I stepped between the dragon and the others.
“Agott, do you have an attack prepared?”
My voice cut across the roar.
Her eyes snapped toward me.
“What?”
“Something already drawn.”
The dragon took another step.
Heat stirred between its teeth.
Agott’s hand finally moved.
“Yes. Pyreball.”
“Use it when the head comes closer. Richeh, find us another route. Tetia, stay with Coco. When Agott fires, everyone runs.”
Tetia swallowed. “What about you?”
“I will follow.”
That answer did not satisfy her, but it gave her something better than panic.
An instruction.
The dragon opened its mouth.
Agott tore folded sheets from her case.
Each held a completed spell circle with only a hair-thin gap left open. She spread them between her fingers, placed her pen against the first gap, and drew one swift line across all three.
The circles closed.
Fire erupted from the pages.
It did not form a loose burst. Three streams joined into a single Pyreball, a twisting river of orange flame that struck the dragon across the face and neck.
The creature recoiled.
Its wings opened with a violent snap, scraping both walls. Fire rolled across its scales without catching, but the force and sudden brightness stopped its advance.
“Now!” I shouted.
The others ran.
I pressed my boots together behind me.
The divided levitation seal closed.
Magic caught beneath my feet and threw me upward.
The gray wall dropped away as I angled my legs and rushed over the dragon’s head. The heat from Agott’s spell rolled beneath me. For one breath, I could see the full length of the creature.
Its body was far larger than the corridor had made it appear.
Four legs supported a long armored frame. Two pairs of wings folded and opened along its back, each one broad enough to crush a carriage. Its tail disappeared around the distant corner.
The dragon shook its head, scattering the remaining flames.
I drew my sword.
My feet separated, breaking the levitation circle. Momentum carried me forward as I turned in the air and brought the blade down toward the narrowest part of its neck.
The strike landed.
Black Nichirin steel met blue scales with a violent clang.
The impact traveled through the sword and into both wrists.
Pain flashed through my fingers.
The blade did not cut.
It felt as though I had struck a temple bell made from solid iron.
The dragon’s neck still jerked beneath the force. Its front legs shifted, claws carving deep lines into the floor as it caught its balance.
I twisted before gravity could drop me onto its back, pressed my soles together again, and forced the levitation spell to pull me sideways.
The movement came late.
One wing swept past close enough for the wind to turn me in the air.
My shoulder struck the wall.
I pushed away, separated my feet, and landed badly on one knee.
Earthbound footwork had taught me how force travelled through the ground. In the air, there was nothing to brace against. Every correction changed the position of my entire body, and a sword strike that would have settled through my legs instead returned through my arms.
My wrists throbbed.
Useful information.
The dragon roared again.
I looked toward the others.
They had reached the end of the corridor.
“Go!” Coco shouted.
I ran.
The passage opened into something far larger than a building.
The labyrinth stretched across the inside of an enormous sphere.
The sky was dim, as gray clouds stretched endlessly overhead at an impossible distance, with towers, walls, arches, and stairways rising in every direction.
There was no mist on the ground.
Far away, roads curved upward until they became walls.
The dragon’s roar followed us into the open space.
Richeh reached the first dead end and stopped before a wall.
“Richeh can make a hole.”
“Do it,” Agott said.
Richeh pulled a small piece of paper from her case.
Her hand no longer shook.
She drew several tiny glyphs rather than one large seal, connecting them through narrow lines until they formed a pattern no larger than a coin. Each mark was so fine that I could barely distinguish them from where I stood.
She pressed the completed spell against the wall.
The stone collapsed into powder.
A round hole opened through it, just large enough for us to crawl through.
Tetia stared. “You could have made it larger.”
“Richeh made it the correct size.”
We crawled after her and emerged into another passage.
The dragon entered the open space behind us.
Its head turned.
It had lost sight of us, though the hole in the wall would not hide our path for long.
Tetia removed her blue apprentice cloak.
“What are you doing?” Coco asked.
“Giving it something easier to see.”
Tetia spread the cloak across the floor and drew a levitation glyph near its center. Her hands moved quickly, though her breathing remained uneven.
She closed the circle.
The cloak rose.
Tetia pushed it toward a distant archway, and the floating cloth rushed through it, blue fabric fluttering like someone fleeing around the corner.
The dragon saw it.
Its wings opened.
A powerful gust struck the passage as it launched after the cloak.
Tetia watched it disappear.
“That was my new coat.”
“We will retrieve it,” Coco said.
Tetia looked at the corridor where the dragon had gone..
“I would prefer to retrieve it without having to get inside the dragon.”
We kept moving.
Richeh opened two more holes whenever the maze trapped us. Each Earthbreaking seal turned a section of gray wall into fine dust, allowing us to cross between passages the dragon had to circle around.
By the time we reached a narrow chamber beneath one of the towers, the creature’s footsteps had faded.
For several breaths, no one spoke.
The silence left room for everything our bodies had been postponing.
Coco slid down the wall first.
Her legs folded beneath her. She wrapped both arms around herself without seeming to notice.
Agott sat opposite her, still holding her pen.
Richeh lowered herself beside a pile of stone dust and began sorting through the papers remaining in her case. Her movements were slow now, exhaustion flattening the usual precision.
Tetia stayed standing.
Her hands trembled.
Then she began crying.
The first sound was quiet, almost lost beneath her breath. She covered her mouth, but that only made her shoulders shake harder.
“I don’t want to die.”
Coco looked up.
Tetia’s eyes moved toward her.
The fear in them sharpened into something harsher before she could stop it.
“Why did you follow them?”
Coco went still.
Tetia heard her own words after they had already landed.
Her face crumpled.
“I didn’t mean…”
“You did,” Coco said.
Her voice was small.
“I saw the person who gave me the grimoire. I thought if I caught them, I could make them explain why they gave it to me.”
“But you didn’t tell us,” Tetia replied. “You just ran, and we followed, and now there is a dragon!”
Tears continued down her face.
She looked miserable rather than angry, which somehow hurt Coco more.
Coco lowered her head.
“I’m sorry.”
Tetia immediately crouched in front of her.
“No. I shouldn’t have said it like that. I was frightened, and I looked at you, and…”
She wiped at her eyes with both hands.
“You are frightened too.”
Coco’s arms tightened around herself.
Agott looked away.
She understood blame used as a shield better than any of us.
I sat between Coco and Tetia, resting my aching wrists against my knees.
“The person who sent us here is responsible for the dragon.”
Tetia tried to control her breathing.
“Coco still followed them.”
“She did. We can discuss that after we escape.”
Coco looked at me.
I continued before she could apologize again.
“Right now, blaming her will not open a door. It will only make the person who trapped us very pleased with how efficiently we are hurting one another for them.”
Tetia rubbed her sleeve across her face.
“I don’t want to hurt Coco.”
“I know.”
Coco looked toward her.
Tetia hesitated, then moved closer.
Their shoulders touched.
“I’m still angry,” Tetia whispered.
“You can be,” Coco said. “I’m angry at me too.”
“That makes Tetia’s anger redundant,” Richeh said from beside the stone dust.
We all looked at her.
Richeh kept sorting her papers.
“Too many people being angry at Coco wastes time. Richeh thinks one is enough.”
Coco blinked.
Tetia gave a wet laugh.
Even Agott’s mouth shifted slightly.
I leaned back against the wall.
“We have five witches, one swordsman, several pens, and whatever remains of our ink. We also have Richeh, who can apparently insult someone while reducing the total amount of anger in the room.”
“Richeh was being efficient.”
“Exactly.”
The pressure in the chamber eased.
It did not disappear. Fear remained close enough that every distant vibration made us pause.
We could breathe around it now.
“We need to find the exit,” Agott said.
Her voice had recovered first, though she still held the pen too tightly.
“The Brimmed Hat brought us here for a reason. The witches who wear those wide, shadowed hats are known for guiding events from behind the scenes, choosing people and placing them where they need to be. If they were the ones who sent us here, then this situation is not random. There must be a way out, even if they expect the dragon to prevent us from reaching it.”
Coco lifted her head.
“I saw something.”
“When?” I asked.
“While we were running through the open part of the labyrinth. The largest tower had a circle near the middle. I only saw it for a moment, but it was too even to be decoration.”
Agott immediately shifted closer.
“What kind of circle?”
“I don’t know. It was enormous, with multiples lines.”
Richeh stood.
“Richeh wants to see.”
We moved toward a narrow crack in the chamber wall.
Through it, the spherical labyrinth stretched beneath the gray sky.
The largest tower stood near the center. It was wider than the others and rose from a platform surrounded by several open courtyards. Near its top, carved lines formed part of a massive spell circle.
Observe confirmed what Coco had seen.
Observe
Subject: Central Tower Formation
Classification: Large-scale magical circle
Current State: Active
Probable Function: Spatial control
Connection to Sealed Dimension: High probability
Access Difficulty: High
The dragon circled the tower.
It moved through the courtyards with its head low, occasionally lifting its wings to climb onto higher walls. Tetia’s cloak hung from one of its horns.
Tetia saw it.
“My coat.”
“At least we found it,” Coco said.
“That is a very optimistic way to describe this.”
A quest notification appeared at the edge of my vision.
Objective Updated
Identify a viable exit. (1/1)
The circle on the tower was our way out.
The dragon knew it too, or whoever designed the labyrinth had placed the creature there to ensure we could not approach.
“We need to move it away from the tower,” I said.
Agott looked at my sword.
“Can you hurt it?”
“My strike moved its neck. The scales did not break.”
“You hit it directly with that blade.”
“Yes.”
“And Pyreball did nothing.”
“It stopped the dragon for a moment. The heat did not damage the scales.”
Agott’s expression darkened.
“Then more fire would only waste ink.”
The chamber had been cooling while we spoke.
At first, I thought the stone retained the damp chill of the mist. Then my breath began appearing faintly in front of me.
Coco rubbed her hands together.
Tetia noticed.
She pulled a fresh sheet from her pen case and began drawing without explanation.
The glyph at the center was rounded and soft. Several curved lines surrounded it, each one wider than the signs Qifrey-sensei had shown us.
Agott watched over her shoulder.
“That structure is incomplete.”
“I know.”
“You are combining a warming sign with levitation.”
“I know.”
“The force will spread.”
“That is what I want.”
Tetia closed the circle.
A pale beige cloud burst from the paper.
It grew around us, thick and white, filling the chamber without hiding anyone from view. Softness gathered beneath my legs and back. Warm air settled through my clothes.
The cloud lifted all five of us slightly from the cold floor.
Coco’s eyes widened.
“This is wonderful.”
Tetia sank deeper into the cloud, some color returning to her face.
“I want to create the perfect cloud magic someday. Clouds that can keep people warm when they are cold, carry them when they are tired, and shelter them from rain.”
“You could help travelers,” Coco said.
“And children who are scared of storms. Or people who want to sleep outside and look at the stars without lying on rocks.”
Tetia looked down at the soft white surface beneath her.
“I want someone to use my magic and feel better because I made it.”
Coco smiled.
“Thank you for making this one.”
Tetia’s expression brightened immediately.
“Thank you for thanking me.”
The familiar answer returned some of the atelier to the cold chamber.
For a few minutes, we sat inside Tetia’s cloud and sometimes stuck our head outside to keep track of the dragon from afar.
Agott suggested trapping it behind a wall.
Richeh pointed out that the dragon had wings and walls existed in every direction.
Coco proposed blinding it long enough to reach the tower.
I reminded her that we would still need time to understand and climb to reach the enormous circle once we arrived.
Tetia sank lower into the cloud until only her face and pink hair remained visible.
Coco looked at her and laughed.
“What?”
“You look like the cloud is eating you.”
“Tetia is warm.”
Richeh leaned back as well.
“Beds can hold children and adults hostage for many hours.”
Agott looked at her. “That is called sleeping.”
“Richeh knows.”
Coco’s laughter softened into thought.
“Could we make the dragon sleep on a cloud?”
Agott stared at her.
“You want to offer it a bed?”
“This cloud makes me want to sleep.”
I could feel the same pull. The warmth had loosened the tension in my legs, and the soft surface supported every part of my body without pressure.
“With enough of it,” I said, “the cloud could slow the dragon and keep it comfortable. If it settles instead of attacking, we gain time to reach the tower.”
Agott scoffed.
“It weighs more than the atelier.”
“Then the cloud needs to be stronger,” Coco said.
“This spell cannot carry that weight,” Agott replied. “Tetia’s circle design is incomplete, and even a complete version would require an enormous amount of magical ink.”
Tetia lifted her head.
“It would also need something to give the cloud more substance. Mine is warm and soft, but it moves whenever someone pushes against it.”
Richeh ran one hand through the cloud.
“Too fluffy.”
The phrase sounded like criticism from her.
Tetia accepted it seriously.
I looked toward the wall Richeh had opened.
A mound of fine gray powder remained beneath the hole.
“Sand.”
Agott followed my attention.
“That is powdered stone.”
“Fine enough to mix through the cloud. If Tetia’s spell suspends it, the cloud becomes denser. The sand adds weight and structure without requiring us to create all of the material from magic.”
Coco sat forward.
“We could use Earthbreaking seals on the walls.”
“Many of them,” Richeh said. “Richeh can make powder, but one hole is not enough for a dragon bed.”
Agott looked through her pen case.
“We do not have enough ink to draw that many separate circles.”
The idea seemed to stop there.
We sat in silence, listening to the dragon’s distant claws scrape across the tower courtyard.
Tetia sank into the cloud again.
Coco began tracing possible circles against the white surface with one finger.
Richeh sorted her remaining sheets by size.
Agott stared at the mound of stone dust.
Her half-lidded eyes slowly widened.
“The repetition line.”
We turned toward her.
She pulled a sheet into her lap and began drawing.
Coco moved closer. “What does it do?”
“It allows one command to continue across linked points. Instead of drawing a complete Earthbreaking seal for every section of wall, we draw one functioning circle and connect the effect through a repetition line.”
Richeh crouched beside her.
“A repeated command becomes weaker if the spacing is bad.”
“I know.”
“Richeh can draw the small connections.”
Agott glanced at her.
“You can make them precise enough?”
Richeh’s expression remained flat.
“Richeh can make them smaller than yours.”
Agott’s pen paused.
Then she shifted the paper between them.
“Show me.”
Tetia sat up inside her cloud.
Coco opened her pen case.
I moved closer as the first lines appeared.
Outside, the dragon continued guarding the tower.
Inside our hiding place, five apprentices began drawing it a bed.