“Answer me. What did you do?” Vanessa demands Cassandra.

  She wrests her hands off Mystic. “I…”

  Nadeden struggles against the wired handcuffs Vanessa pced on her as Cassandra attempts to speak with equal difficulty. Vanessa had purposefully wound the pstic tightly around Nadeden’s wrists so that she couldn’t break them with her own strength lest she risk injuring herself.

  However, all it takes is a quick gnce around the Pza’s lobby for Nadeden to form a pn. Her wooden leg cshes against the marble floor as she hurries to stand. The sound draws Vanessa’s attention, but before she knows it, Nadeden’s arms are around her neck and hurtling her toward one of the iron spikes.

  Vanessa’s beret falls from her head as she’s smmed into the hard metal. The bck tassel of the beret smacks Nadeden’s scorched eye before fluttering to the floor with Vanessa herself.

  With the sudden movement, the pstic wire binding Nadeden’s wrists is caught on the spike and sliced off in an instant. Nadeden swiftly tosses down her arms before the iron can do anything but scrape her.

  She spins around to face Mystic and Cassandra.

  Cassandra’s heart is soaring. This isn’t how she wanted it to happen, but she can’t help herself. The Scorched Archer is right in front of her.

  Nadeden is right in front of her! Cassandra just got to see her in action! And fighting against Vanessa no less! She sliced those pstic handcuffs off in the blink of an eye!

  The stories about her are true! They’re all true!

  Cassandra only wishes that it could have happened anywhere else. That anything else could have happened instead of what she has to contend with. Yet the same thought keeps shouting in her mind: It's really her.

  It’s Nadeden!

  It’s the fucking Scorched Archer!

  “Oh, hey, it’s Smith’s friend.” Mystic states with a finger stretched out toward Nadeden, who’s dumbstruck by the comment. “How do you know Smith?”

  “We’re uh… We’re...” Cassandra trips over her words as Mystic answers for her, “We’re friends of theirs. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “We?” Nadeden squints at Cassandra, “But I thought that-” Nadeden stumbles backwards as her sentence is cut off by Cassandra throwing her arms around her. “I love you!”

  Nadeden gently and unsurely pushes Cassandra away. Her face is still wet with tears, but is now flushed red as well. Nadeden simply doesn’t know what to say.

  This is Vanessa Soryu’s daughter, right? She thought that the girl would be close with Adamus, not Smith of all people, and she especially hadn’t expected this reaction from her or anyone, for that matter.

  “You’re…” Nadeden awkwardly sighs, “You’re way too young for me, and also I’m not, uh… interested in women in… uh… in that way.”

  “No! No. No… uh…” Cassandra is finding it increasingly more difficult to speak. She used to dream of this! These circumstances are all wrong! Everything's off.

  Cassandra should have known that this meeting was doomed to be an uncomfortable one. Why did I think someone as awkward as me could compare to someone as defiant as you, Nadeden? She scolds herself as she makes a fist in one hand and paws at the soft leather of her violin case with the other.

  The red on her face refuses to dissipate as Mystic chuckles. “She’s a fan of yours.”

  “I have fans?” That isn’t even the least of Nadeden’s questions. “What are you doing here? You’re just a kid. Where’s Gelmidas?”

  Mystic shrugs. “Top floor.” The floor shifts beneath her feet in a blue glow before she can snap her fingers. She curses herself and cries out in pain as the marble twists around her ankles.

  “That’s all I needed to hear,” Tendo snarls. He keeps his hand pressed against the floor, transfiguring the marble into a cw that clutches Mystic.

  Cassandra reaches out to pull her from the marble. Nadeden rushes at Tendo and sms a fist into his jaw. He unches into the air and falls with a thud. The light emitting from the runes on his arms flickers out, and the cw holding Mystic crumbles.

  “Everyone alright?” Nadeden turns back to ask the question, only for Tendo to press his palms together and send a wall of light speeding at her.

  Nadeden dodges the bst and strikes Tendo’s hands apart with a quick kick. Mystic prepares to snap her fingers again, but Cassandra stops her. “Don’t!”

  Mystic gres at Cassandra, “If I don’t kill him, your idol will, and I still need him alive to get into the basement!”

  Overhearing the conversation, Nadeden snatches Tendo and throws him at Mystic. “Here you go then. I’m wasting time here. I need to get to Gelmidas before Vanessa kills him.”

  Mystic snaps her fingers and arrives at the basement door with Tendo. Cassandra freezes as Nadeden runs up the spiral staircase.

  She gnces back at the iron spikes and realizes that Vanessa is gone.

  Fear crawls over her. “Mystic!”

  “I’m not going to kill your Father.” Mystic coldly states as she sps Tendo’s palm onto the door. The barrier is undone as she shoves him aside.

  Tendo lunges at her, but she simply snaps and vanishes into the basement. Tendo curses as the door is sealed shut. A loud snap and avanche of rubble follow it.

  Tendo pces his hands on the door, but even with his runes, the path is far too blocked to break through. Mystic has trapped herself inside.

  Tendo sighs. Cassandra steps over to him. “You know what I have to do, kiddo.” He mutters at her approach. “Get out of here, please.”

  Cassandra stands firm. She may not be completely sure what her Father is now, but she knows that she can’t let him be just a pawn in Vanessa’s plot. “She doesn’t have to control you.”

  Tendo simply smiles in response to the decration. Although Cassandra isn’t sure why, she now realizes that her Father made his decision to serve that woman a long time ago and that he will continue to do so until the day he dies.

  Tendo pces his hands down. The entire structure of the Pza quakes under his will. It shifts around him. It listens to him. It understands him. It knows that Tendo wants to go up, and so it takes him up.

  Cassandra grasps onto the pilr as it bursts through the next floor.

  “Leave, Cassandra!” Tendo yells at his daughter as the Pza drags her upwards with him.

  Cassandra crawls her way onto the concrete and marble ptforms, now swirling about the length of the extensive pilr. The weight of her violin case pulls at her, urging for her to crawl back down or fall, yet she pushes on anyway.

  The Pza contorts itself around her, almost allowing her a safe pce to sit that will lead her to safety. She ignores it and continues to climb.

  The pilr, made up of what was once the Division Pza, speeds up its growth to the top floor, as if pleading with Cassandra to fall behind. She pays it no mind.

  If her pace slows, she’ll take the stairs and follow Nadeden, but as of right now, she’s moving faster than she’s ever moved before. Pushing herself further than she’s ever pushed herself before. Forcing herself to be stronger than she’s ever been before.

  She has to keep going. She has to stop Vanessa.

  Cassandra can’t let her Mother win. She can’t allow that woman who’s pgued her all her life to have the final say.

  The Pza’s interior becomes a spinning mass of blended cement and stone once it reaches the top floor. It obliterates the space in an instant, only adding to the twisted spiral gathered around Tendo.

  All those standing on the floor begin to fall. Tendo only bothers to save his family.

  Cassandra sees Vanessa nd on a tower of marble before spotting Nadeden gripping Gelmidas. She leaps off the pilr of stone and falls onto the closest piece of solid material she can find.

  She tracks Nadeden and Gelmidas’s descent as best she can as she runs down after them.

  Tendo breaks the pilr apart and spirals downward with the descenders, his arms glowing as he does everything in his power to kill them.

  If Cassandra can either put herself between the parties or wrest Tendo’s palms from the marble, she’ll be able to save both Gelmidas and Nadeden. She just has to hope that her Father isn’t bold enough to risk harming her.

  Although from what Cassandra has seen, she isn’t sure whether he will put her or his mission first. She’ll have to act quickly regardless.

  Cassandra jumps onto the next ptform below her and sms down her violin case. Gripping the shoulder straps, she adjusts them as far as they’ll go and hangs from them.

  Gelmidas and Nadeden will be in front of her in a matter of seconds. The timing has to be perfect. There’s no room for error. They’re both plummeting down right now, speeding right for her ptform.

  Cassandra has to do it now. She has to act without fear, without hesitation, and with every ounce of bravery she can muster. She has to reach out. She has to swing from the case, and-

  Her fingers slip.

  Cassandra swings from the case but is sent flying by fingers drenched with sweat into Gelmidas and Nadeden. The pair are driven apart by the impact of her thin speeding body.

  Cassandra realizes how much she’s royally fucked up instantaneously and screams out the vilest, crudest swear she can think of as she braces for oblivion.

  Nadeden, however, refuses to go down so easily. That’s the exact thing that Cassandra always admired about her. The woman doesn’t know when to quit.

  She tches onto Cassandra’s long bck hair, pulling at it as she tears off her prosthetic leg and pnts it in Cassandra’s hand. Before she knows it, Gelmidas is gripping the other end.

  Cassandra did it. She actually managed to help the Scorched Archer. She ughs, overcome with so much joy that she hardly even minds having her hair pulled.

  Tendo, however, is distraught. He bsts another ptform out of the pilr, being sure to grab one with a bed that softens Cassandra’s nding.

  She’s still ughing when she flops down onto it.

  Nadeden grunts as she rises from the mattress. Gelmidas stands before she does and tosses her leg back to her. She hurries to screw the cracked wood back on.

  “You know,” Gelmidas smirks, adjusting his stained gsses. “It’s kinda funny when you think about it, all these years, and we still end up in a bed together.”

  Nadeden smirks back, “That’s far too dirty and clever for you.” She finishes locking her leg in pce and stands to meet him. “Where did you learn that line of thinking?”

  Cassandra ceases her ughter and sits up against the bedrest. “Something tells me he got it from your son. He’s an asshole, by the way.”

  Nadeden is shocked by the vulgar comment, but Gelmidas just shrugs and says, “She’s out of line, but I’ll admit that Adamus can be… brash at times.”

  Nadeden seizes him by the shoulders with a smile. “You can tell me all about him when we get out of here,” She pats Gelmidas’s head, ruffling his hair before turning back to Cassandra. “You trying to get some sleep in, or are you gonna get out of here with us?”

  Cassandra hops out of the bed with a wide-toothed grin. “Really? You want me to go with you?”

  The question confuses Nadeden; in fact, the entire girl confuses her. “Well, unless you want to find your own way out of here.”

  Cassandra shakes her head. “No! I was just…” She’s silenced by Gelmidas nudging Nadeden. He gives her a proud, radiant smile.

  Nadeden stares at it. She studies the expression, unsure of its meaning until it comes to her. Nadeden pnts her hands on her hips and looks into Cassandra’s eyes. She clears her throat before speaking in an overly pyful tone. “Please, Ms. Soryu! Guide me on my journey!”

  Cassandra ughs at Nadeden’s absurdity, but pys along anyway, “It would be my pleasure, Scorched Archer.”

  She takes Nadeden’s hand, blushing as she steps onto the next ptform with the trio, where Tendo and Vanessa greet them.

  “I don’t know how you did this, Tendo dear, but I am not one to shy away from an opportunity.” Vanessa’s voice cuts into Cassandra like a bde of ice, freezing her in pce and shivering her nerves.

  Vanessa grips Nadeden’s arrow and holds it out toward Gelmidas. “Now are you going to step aside, or am I going to have to-”

  The Pza trembles as a raw, unnatural roar of a supremely chaotic creature echoes throughout all of Rome.

  Triminiv was the first to hear this sound, for she is the one now standing before the beast that has consumed Adamus.

  “What is that thing?” Sinmartin mumbles, shrinking back at the horrific sight of the skeletal monstrosity lumbering towards him and his men, who are already running in terror.

  The beast roars once more amid the smoke, fire, and ruin that now consume Rome. The mere sound is enough to snuff out fmes and send buildings flying.

  Triminiv’s voice is more than that. It is a voice that has destroyed armies and dreadnoughts with but a whisper. It will be enough to stop this creature, at least she hopes it will.

  The beast speeds toward her in the blink of an eye. The rupture of air bsts a shockwave across the city.

  Triminiv jumps up to face her opponent.

  She yells one bitter, destructive word.

  “Split!”