Emily explodes into motion as her eyes fall o, tear-soaked diary entry, the reason for her sense of dread suddenly painfully obvious.

  They caught her. That’s why they called me.

  She bursts out of the room, rushing through the building and onto the street before making a break for the Mandrago estate. She races through the city at inhuman speed. Discarding The ant’s rule that dictates she shouldn’t reveal magic publicly, she casts lightning step as she moves, bzing a path through the city and ign the fused and panicked shouts of pedestrians as she flies past them.

  Within a few minutes, she arrives at the noble’s distrid charges towards the Mandrago estate’s gate. The moment it es into view, she cels her spell and digs her feet into the ground, deploying the spikes in her shoes and carving a el into the ly paved street as she grinds to a halt. Emily looks up at the gate and her breath catches ihroat.

  Above the delicately woveal roots and the proud crest of the Mandrago family, impaled on spikes of metal, are several heads. Oher side are a man and woman she doesn’t reise, aween them are Todd and Howard. In the tre, her expression frozen in an anguished scream of pain, is Anna.

  She’s dead.

  Emily’s hand instinctively reaches for The Clock’s pouch as Herber’s words echo in her head.

  ‘What have you done?’

  They called me over twenty-four ho.

  Her eyes ruhe gnarled scar running from Anna’s left cheek tht eyebrow.

  ‘What have you done?’

  They called me here to rub it in.

  The air arouarts to ioh a dull hum.

  ‘What have you done?’

  I ’t save her.

  The guards by the gate approach her, calling out to deaf ears.

  ‘What have you done?’

  I ’t apologise.

  The clouds above rumble with thunder.

  ‘What have you done?’

  She was terrified.

  Her eyes light up with an otherworldly blue glow, sending shivers down the spines of the approag guards.

  ‘What have you done?’

  She died hating me.

  Something inside Emily snaps as she lets out a scream e, the crag buzz around her being overpowered by a crash of thuhat she doesn’t hear as the buzzing grows ever louder in her head. Lightning falls from the clouds above, nding on her and spreading outwards, tearing the approag guards to shreds. Searing tendrils of electricity sh out from her, scorg the street and smashing into the gate, ripping it apart as Emily falls to her kears f in her eyes that instantly evaporate in the heat.

  Her gaze nds on the rge mansion in front of her where she sees mages and servants frantically rushing out to che the otion at the gate. Her eyes s across them, every Mandrago family crest she sees adding fuel to the fires of her despair as more lightning falls from the sky, shredding the lush greee and sending ripples across a rge magical barrier that surrounds the buildings.

  Her mana quickly drains, the rge pheaking its toll on her and bringing a sense of exhaustion that dulls her emotions, allowing the seething anger and sadness withio solidify into a cold resolution.

  I’ll kill all of you.

  She slips her hand into The Clock’s pouch, pressing its activation button as she sees the Patriarch rise into the air above his home, angrily gring at her. Emily doesn’t even flinch as he raises his hand and sends an invisible bde of wind towards her, slig her right arm off as time grinds to a halt.

  You’ll be first.

  ***

  Emily finds herself ba Calypso, lying on her ba a crawl space with a wren her hand, raised above her to ge a rusted se of piping. The buzzing scree her mind is still present, almost drowning out Podrick’s words.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks beside her as she suddenly stops mid-repair.

  “Nothing,” she responds with a frigid tohat sends a shiver down the young boy’s spine.

  She moves her scarf up to drape over her nose as she quickly fiaking the pipe apart to repce it with a fresh one, hoping the calming floral st will help to quiet her mind. The buzzing remains though, and with a quiward gnce, Emily sees her maa crag away in her cortex doing something without her scious and. A nagging feeling in her gut tells her to ig, so she does, l the scarf as she slides out of the narrow space, the smell only adding a bittersweet longing to her cold simmering fury.

  She stands up and looks Podri the eye, pushing away thoughts of the activity in her head and the annoying, slightly painful, buzzing that is still making it hard to focus, but he takes a step back as a look of slight fear and fusion fshes across his face.

  “Go find Ash. I have something to do,” Emily says, barely registering his rea before she turns on her heels and marches towards the bridge.

  I’m going to wipe out a noble family. Let’s see if Anton is willing to join me.

  Arriving on the bridge, Emily approaches Anton’s seat.

  “Hey, Anton. We o talk,” she says, drawing his attention.

  He turns in his seat, eyes widening in surprise the moment he sees her.

  “What’s wrong with your eyes?” he asks with a tone of .

  fused, Emily jures a mirror with a small flex of metal mana, shog the ’s inhabitants. In the reflective surface, she sees her face. Her eyes are alight with the glow of power as lightning flickers deep in her irises, reag to the seething anger writhing in her chest.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she says with a shrug, dismissing the mirror and ing both of them in a soundproof barrier. “That just happens when I’m angry.”

  “What the hell was that?” Anton asks, a mixture of curiosity and fear in his gaze as he looks bad notices he ’t hear Ange and Tony talking a few metres away from them.

  “Magic. It’s real and nobles use it. It’s the reason they seo the capital, to train in it. Anyway, there’ll be time to talk about this iail ter. For now, I want to give you a choice to think about.”

  Anton narrows his eyes, clearly struggling to process the new information, but he nods for her to tinue heless.

  “The Mandrago family just killed my sister,” Emily starts, the lightning in her eyes pulsing and rippling out along her skin for a moment, making Anton and both crew members watg through the barrier flinch. “So, I’m going to kill them all.”

  He starts in shock, opening his mouth to say something, but Emily keeps going before he .

  “I do it, and nothing you say will ge my mind. Your choice is simple, are you with me or not? Because once I’m done, I’ll be hunted. I quite like Calypso, and I’d like to escape on her. When I e back to the docks, there won’t be time to deliberate. If I ’t find a ship that wants to take me, I’ll have to take one by force.”

  Fear twists Anton’s face as he slowly nods.

  “Where will you go?”

  “Dennari.”

  Having said her peace, Emily turns on her heel without waiting for a response, dispelling the barrier around them and walking away. She hears Anto out an anxious sigh, and Ange and Tony start asking him about the silent versation and strange supernatural phenomena before she pauses and looks over her shoulder.

  “Oh, and I expect you won’t say anything once we dock. I don’t take kindly to people who betray me.”

  Anton gulps and nods, terror evident in his eyes as he watches Emily depart. She turns to return to her room, a pn to wipe out the Mandragos quickly ing together in her mind.

  ***

  The day, Emily leaves her backpa her room and heads straight for the ship’s hatch as it slides into the docks, already masking her mana by ing her circles in maa. She stands by the exit silently, and the other crew members waiting with her keep their distance due to the unnatural, bzing light of anger in her eyes. The moment the ship stops, Emily opens the hatd leaves without a word. She flips up the hood of her cloak and makes her way through the passage to the main hall.

  As she walks, she reaches into her belt and pulls out a thin needle and a small vial of a clear, odourless liquid: deyed death, a simple potion made for usage against mortals that guarantees a painful death exactly six hours after a single drop ehe bloodstream uhe antidote is ed. She takes off the cork and dips the needle inside before putting away the potion and holding the needle between two fingers as she ehe crowded hall and walks towards the exit.

  With a flick of her wrist, Emily throws the needle intory’s arm as she passes, sealing his fate for breaking their agreement without any care for what his excuse might be. She slips into an alley as the guards try to stop her again, esg their sight before making her way towards the Mandrago estate.

  Before she steps onto the open streets of the noble district, she takes out the Whisper with a new leather strap attached and slings it over her shoulder. She downs a vial of the brew of imperception, vanishing and breaking into a sprint, approag the estate quickly. She leaps over the hedge around the grounds without attrag attention and runs towards the rge main building, passing several servants tending to the garden and grittieeth, each crest she sees making it harder and harder to hold in her anger.

  Emily cycles her maa as she approaches the rge main building, using the cold energy to force her emotions into check as she walks through the open front doors fnked by guards. She follows the plush green carpet through the entrance hall, stepping onto the stairs leading up towards the imposing pressure of the Patriarch that she already feel with her heightened senses.

  She arrives before the ornate door to the Patriarch’s reception hall and stops, taking the Whisper from her shoulder and raising it to point at the door. Emily brings up the image of the hall, which is burned into her memory from her first visit, and angles her gun to point where the Patriarch’s heart should be.

  She pours her maa into the on, sending arcs of rippliricity across the gun as she uses Overdrive to the maximum. She flicks the firior into full and takes a deep breath before pulling the trigger. Her hand blurs to rack the bolt before dropping back to the handle again to pull the trigger. She fires over and ain until her magazine is empty, sending a stream of bullets enhanced by metal element engravings to improve their pierg power and impact force through the door.

  The bullets punch a hole in the door, blowing a rge k out of the wood and revealing the room behind to Emily. Her miers full assistive processing mode as she watches the four people in the room reag to the sound of the door breaking. The three people standing before the Patriarch flind start turning around, and the Patriarces up, barely having time tister the attack before the first bullet reaches him.

  The first bullet sms into an invisible barrier around his chair, sending visible cracks along its surface as if space itself is breaking, before the bullet crumples and falls. The sed bullet shatters the barrier and falls to the floor to join the first as the third bullet reaches the Patriarch’s chest. It sms into a swirling yer of wind mana that bursts from the Patriarch’s body the momeices the attack, sending a ripple along it and pressing the man bato his chair, but the bullet crumples and drops to the floor without further effect.

  The fourth and fifth bullets do the same, flying off at random angles after hitting the barrier, but the sixth disperses the protective winds before it’s deflected, causing the Patriarch’s eyes to open wide in shod panic. The seventh bullet bores a hole through his chest, and the eighth, ninth, ah widen it as he fli the forceful impacts.

  As the dust settles from the attack, blood gushes out of the Patriarch’s chest and the presehat Emily has felt siering the building dimihe three people before him, two men and one woman, all cry out in distress. The two men rush forward to help him as the woman turns to front his attacker. Emily sends the Whisper into her belt and kicks the door open, releasing her emotions as her face morphs into a vengeful gre that makes the ause iep, watg lightning flickering out of Emily’s eyes and along her skin as she walks forwards.

  “You!” the Patriarch spits in anger as he sees her, g a hand to his chest.

  Emily doesn’t say anything as runes flow out of her, ing around her legs as she casts sky step to begin her sughter.

  KeroKeron