“They’re coming!” Henry bellowed from up the street.
Whipping around, he sprinted towards us. Callan and I were standing at the end of the street while the rest of our people were similarly placed in the mouths of the roads running parallel to ours. Only Paige and Sam remained a safe distance away.
When Henry was halfway down the street, the first constables rounded the corner.
My heart slammed against my ribs. This had better work. Otherwise, we’d be trapped in a battle we wouldn’t be able to escape from.
Callan’s half-translucent gray magic shot down the street when one of the constables hurled a fireball at Henry’s back. Yellow flames exploded into the air as they slammed into the force wall.
A moment later, Henry skidded to a halt between me and Callan before whipping around to face our enemies again.
“Ready?” Callan asked without taking his eyes off the men and women marching towards us.
“Yeah,” we answered in unison.
Thick white clouds currently blocked out the sun, which painted the whole street in gloomy gray light. No one spoke. The only sound was the thumping of boots that echoed between the wooden buildings, both from our road and the ones next to us.
I touched my hands together. Glittering green mist lit up the whole street as I threw the poison cloud towards the constables. Walls of water and wind rose up to shove it aside. But Callan shot a spinning force arc at them right after my attack.
Screams erupted as it slammed into a woman who didn’t manage to block in time. Blood spurted from her severed arm. I shot a hail of poison tendrils towards them. Lightning and fire tore down the street as they began attacking in earnest.
Their attacks cracked into the wooden walls around us as Henry expertly used his wind magic to shove the blasts aside.
Callan and I increased the speed of our attacks. Green and gray magic shot through the air, twisting and spinning around to avoid each other before slamming into our enemies. It forced the soldiers to grind to a halt and focus on blocking our attacks.
Behind them, the rest of their company kept pouring into the street.
Since they couldn’t very well shoot through their own comrades, only the first couple of rows were able to launch attacks at us.
Shouts and barked orders and whooshing magic came from the other streets as well, informing us that similar events were taking place there too.
Due to the sheer number of people facing us, very few of our attacks actually managed to slip through their mass of layered shields. But because of our fast and powerful attacks, they couldn’t advance either. My pulse thrummed in my ears as the road in front of us grew more and more packed with people.
They would try to rush us soon. And we wouldn’t survive that.
I shot poison cloud after poison cloud while anxiety tore at my chest. Where the hell was Sienna?
Three dark red fireballs shot into the air from our left and sailed across the partially blue sky above our heads.
Not hesitating a second, the three of us whipped around and ran like hell itself was chasing us.
Calls of pursuit echoed between the wooden buildings. They were followed by the pounding of boots and the whooshing of magic. Callan twisted around and threw a force wall behind us while he continued running. The move made him stumble slightly, and I had to throw out an arm to stop him from crashing into me.
Booms split the air and lightning flashed as their attacks slammed into his wall.
The end of the next street was so close now. We had to make it in time. I was falling behind Callan and Henry. Their legs were much longer than mine, so I couldn’t run as fast. Fuck, I had to—
A yelp slipped from my lips as Callan grabbed my arm and practically threw me the final distance and onto the next street while he and Henry dove after me.
Pain shot through my shoulder as I landed hard on the cobblestones and rolled in behind the wide stone statue of a horse that we had picked out.
Merely a fraction of a second later, the world erupted in fire.
Dark red flames tore through the buildings on our left and crashed into the ones on the right. The massive wave of fire washed away the wooden walls as if they were thin sheets of paper.
Callan flung an arm over my back, keeping me down behind the base of the statue. But between the horse’s white stone legs, I could see the incredible destruction that Sienna Hall was raining down on our enemies.
Screams were abruptly cut off as constables were burnt to ash in seconds. And the cries coming from the ones at the back, who had escaped the fiery wave, were drowned out by the roaring of the fire as it continued sweeping through the buildings.
Not for the first time, I thanked hell that I had never been stupid enough to go to war against Sienna. The sheer depth of her raw power was fucking terrifying.
When the dark red torrent at last faded out, the buildings closest to us were completely gone. As was the mass of constables who we had made sure were packed between them. The buildings farther back were still standing, but they were all on fire. It created a burning shield that kept the rest of the reinforcements from reaching us straight away.
“Let’s go,” Callan said as he jumped up from the ground.
Henry and I climbed to our feet as well.
After one last look at the smoking ruins, we turned around and jogged back to our rendezvous spot. Half of Levi’s forces ran in the other direction. With a large section of the constables dead, and a flame barrier between them and us, those dark mages should be able to keep the rest at bay. Especially if the people we had recruited were also harassing them from behind. We had no way of knowing if they were, but this was as much protection as we would be able to create for ourselves, so we’d have to make do regardless.
Everyone except Sienna was already gathered in between the buildings. One shared look confirmed that we were all thinking the same thing. Thank hell that Sienna was on our side.
Sam was healing a cut on Grant’s arm. I had no idea how he had gotten it, but it didn’t look like he was in pain at all. Though with Grant, it was hard to tell because of his mastery of emotion magic.
“Did it work?” Sienna called as she came running from the street from our left.
We all shared another long, knowing look.
“Yes,” Malcolm replied, sliding his gaze to her. “Well done, Sienna.”
She grinned at him.
“Alright, our backs are protected,” Levi cut in. “Now, how do we get up the hill?”
Sienna flicked her hair behind her shoulder. “Why can’t I just do the same thing I did now to those constables on the hill?”
“Because,” Callan began, “as opposed to those idiots who were trapped between the buildings, the people on the hill can see an attack coming from miles away. Both because they have the high ground and also because it’s a long way up from the street. I doubt even you could manage an attack from that range.”
She pursed her lips, but then tipped her head to the side and nodded as if conceding the point.
“So how do we launch an attack that they don’t see coming?” Sam asked.
“About that…” I began. “I think I have an idea.”
Callan huffed out a short laugh. “Shocker.”
I rammed my elbow into his ribs. “Shut up. Someone has to be the brains of the operation.”
“The idea…?” Malcolm prompted, eyebrows raised in an exasperated expression, before Callan could retort.
“Since we don’t have to fight fair, we might as well go all in with that. Listen up.”
Most of them looked back at me with expressions that ranged from surprise to approval. From her place next to Henry, Paige outright grinned at me. The King of Metal, on the other hand, scowled at me by the time I had finished.
“You want me to do what?” he demanded.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Are you saying that you can’t do it?”
“Of course I can do it.” He shot me an affronted look before he went back to frowning. “But it’s… ridiculous.”
“I think you mean brilliant.”
“If it works.”
“It will work.” I turned to Paige. “Can you get it done?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Is that even a question? How many fake notes have I forged by now?”
A chuckle escaped my lips. “I’ll take that as a yes.” I slid my gaze to our healer, who had finished with Grant’s arm. “Sam, stay close. This first wave is going to get messy.”
He nodded.
“Alright, let’s say it does work,” Levi began, dragging the conversation back to his skepticism. “Then what? The whole corridor inside the doors is no doubt crawling with constables too. And once we’re up there, we’ll be vulnerable, so we can’t stand around trying to come up with another plan. Once we get inside, we can bolt the door behind us if need be. But how do we make it into the first room inside the building?”
“Grant,” Malcolm said. There was a smug smile playing at the corner of his lips as he turned towards the emotion mage. “You and I discovered a surprisingly effective attack out in the hills. What do you say we show them what we can do?”
Harvey Grant’s mouth curled into a smile so cruel that the hairs on my arms rose. By all hell, I really hadn’t known these people at all. Out in the hills, we had all been so busy fighting each other that we had never actually gotten to know one another. This war, for better or worse, had given me a glimpse into what the other dark mages were truly like. In some ways, it had made me even more wary of them. But it had also made me respect them more. Made me feel some kind of connection to them. And I was pretty sure that that wasn’t a bad thing. After all, we villains of the world had to stick together if we wanted to survive the sweeping tide of heroism.
“Gladly,” Grant replied, that terrifying smile still on his lips.
An idea flickered through my brain, and I turned towards Callan while an equally wicked grin slid home on my mouth.
He raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“Who said we need to use the front door?”
