Lux was fairly certain his heart had migrated up to his throat by the time he reached the bottom of the basement stairs. Each step felt like a slow drumbeat thumping out of sync, and goosebumps prickled down his arms, a cold sweat sprouting as he drew near the last stair. A musty, suffocating odour rolled up from below. He wrinkled his nose, bracing himself, and stared wide-eyed into the gloom.

  Bodies. There were bodies everywhere. They sprawled across the filthy, root-choked floor, and thick, gnarled roots wove through the corpses and between limp limbs. The hallways branched off, honeycombed with cells, and every cell had a figure inside.

  Lux’s eyes caught on movement, someone in one of the cells was awake. A man, staring back at him with hollow, bottomless eyes. The chill in Lux’s skin set his fine hairs standing upright, rigid as needles.

  Careful not to stumble on the bodies or roots, Lux threaded his way down the hall, dragging Twiggs behind him. The cell door closed with only a basic handle, not even a lock. Lux blinked, eyebrows shooting up. “What the hell?” He tried the handle, the door swung open without resistance. However, the person inside didn’t move.

  “Hey, you can come out now.” Lux tugged gently, but the man just stared, expression empty, gaze fixed and unblinking. “Okay…” Lux retreated a step, pulling Twiggs closer, hand clamped on his sleeve. “Twiggs, want to wake up now? This is way above my paygrade.”

  Lux spun around and nearly collided with another blankly blinking pair of eyes. “Is that a no?” Lux’s feet itched to run. Instead, he sighed, a long, shaky exhale, and tried to focus. “Let’s just keep going, see if there’s anyone lucid enough to make sense.”

  He didn’t wait for Twiggs’s answer, he mostly needed the sound of his own voice to keep the creeping panic at bay.

  Each cell he opened revealed more blank stares, more motionless people, nobody with the will or strength to leave when the doors were wide open. “Shit!” snapped Lux, his patience dissolving into fear. “Twiggs, get it together!” He shook Twiggs by the shoulders, maybe a bit too hard. Twiggs’s head flopped about like a broken puppet.

  “Oopps. Sorry about that, Twiggs. Don’t blame me if you wake up with whiplash.” Twiggs just blankly stared, so Lux shrugged. “I’ll take it as forgiveness.”

  A weak, strained call echoed down the hall, snapping Lux’s nerves taut. “Hey! Down here!”

  He whipped his head toward the sound. “Coming!” He hustled, dragging Twiggs behind. At the end of the row, someone clung to the iron bars of a cell, a man with cat ears, whiskers, and golden eyes that blazed with awareness, so sharp they almost hurt to look at.

  “Are you here to rescue us?” The man’s voice was thin, but alive, and he looked half-starved yet fiercely present.

  “Maybe? Sort of? There’s only the two of us, and, well, Twiggs is…” Lux glanced sideways at his companion, then scanned the corridor of cells. “So, basically, we can’t carry everyone out. Is there anyone in here with enough strength to help? And, uh, why won’t the others leave when I open their doors?”

  The cat-eared man slumped, giving a small, pained smile. He gestured weakly at a metal collar biting into his neck, the skin underneath red and raw. “Some in the far cells just arrived, they might be able to help… but it’s no use.” He tapped the collar. “We’ve been ordered to stay in our cells. Can’t leave.”

  Of course it wouldn’t be simple. Lux grimaced, staring at the collar, noting the etched runes glowing faintly, wickedly, against the cat-man’s skin. It looked just like the markings on the creepy parchment in his jar.

  Lux reached into his pouch and fished out the jar, unfurling the parchment for the cat-man to see. “I found this in the farmhouse. Any idea if it has anything to do with the collars?” Hope flickered, it had to be connected.

  As Lux held it up, a surge of strange energy ran through his hand. The cat-man’s collar suddenly flared with dazzling light, intricate patterns shimmering like trapped lightning. The parchment hummed, vibrating with the same energy.

  “Okay, that’s definitely a reaction.” Lux tapped the jar. “Do you think if I destroy this parchment, the collars will go too?”

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  The cat-man gave a slow nod. “I do not know, but it is worth trying. Staying here means death for all of us.”

  Lux gripped the parchment and tried to rip it in half. No luck, not a scuff, not even a fold. He puffed out an annoyed breath and turned to the limp figure beside him. “Twiggs. Can you destroy this?”

  A slow, blank blink was all he got. Lux winced, almost smiled, and decided to go for broke. “Twiggs, just shoot one of your root things at it, all right?” He set the parchment on the ground at Twiggs’s feet and took a step back. “Go for it.”

  Nothing.

  Lux paced, trying to think. Then a wild idea sparked. “Ah, Twiggs, help! The parchment is attacking me!” He flailed, acting out a melodramatic struggle.

  That did it, a massive root erupted from the ground, impaling the parchment instantly. Bright sparks shot out in every direction, and the energy pulsed hot and wild against Lux’s skin. He dug in his heels, bracing for impact.

  Roots lashed and clawed, shredding the parchment to ribbons. With a final, convulsive shudder, the parchment crumbled into ash, the magical energy guttering out. All around, metallic clinks rang out, the collars fell like dead leaves, clattering to the floor. Lux pumped a fist in triumph, barely believing their luck.

  “Twiggs you’re a genius! Let’s get everyone out of this nightmare and go home.”

  It took thirty agonising minutes to herd and load all the dazed survivors onto the wagons. Every second, Lux bit his nails lower, half sure that guards would come roaring out of the dark at any moment. But the work got done, thanks mostly to Beatrice, a slender woman with fierce golden eyes and feathers framing her face. She organised the survivors with uncanny efficiency.

  “Lux, we have finished loading the people onto the wagons,” she said, blinking those steady eyes at him.

  “Thanks, Beatrice.” Lux shot her a grateful look. If not for her, the beds of the wagons would be empty. “I’ll do a last sweep downstairs, just in case.”

  He made his way back into the basement, stepping over the bodies now scattered in lesser numbers. Many of those on the ground had been wearing the same collars as the captives, from talking to some, he’d learned not all the guards were monsters. The ones lying dead deserved it, those were the ones running the interspecies kidnapping ring, the ones who laughed as they tortured the powerless.

  It took some of the guilt from Lux’s mind, now he could tell Twiggs he’d been a hero, saving lives and striking down villains.

  One last check of the cells, and Lux noticed a door at the very end of the hall. His heart did an acrobatic flip. The seeds! “The seeds must be in there!” With everything that had happened he had forgot about the main reason they had come to the farm.

  Thankful as he swept the door open, large sacks neatly stacked against cold brick waited for retrieval. He stuffed every last bag into his pouch and ran for the exit.

  He made it outside faster than he thought, but a new problem greeted him, not everyone would fit inside the wagons. Instinct ticked in. He remembered how in wild dungeons, Nogar carried him on his back. “All right, listen up!” shouted Lux, voice ringing over the crowd. “If you can walk, grab someone and get moving. We want to leave before any guard’s show!”

  No one complained. The stronger survivors piled the weaker ones onto their backs and took off without hesitation. Lux climbed onto the first cart, finding Twiggs waiting patiently, and with a snap of the reins, the wagons rattled away along the dirt road, guided by the enchanted stone Twiggs had given him.

  The journey back was a blur of turns and dust, but soon familiar shapes emerged through the haze. Novgar, Azure, and Violet stood waiting, tense. Lux was about to wave when Twiggs suddenly lunged forward.

  Without warning, Twiggs’s palm shot out, sending roots exploding from the ground straight at their friends. Lux heard a curse, “Damn it, who let Twiggs transform!”

  “Twiggs, stop! Those are our friends!” Lux shouted, but Twiggs was locked in his own world, roots lashing in every direction.

  “Fuck! Twiggs, you prick, that hurt!” Azura bellowed, one arm now pierced by a fat root. “We need to knock that idiot out!”

  Azura tore through his pouch, producing glass spheres which he handed off to Novgar and Violet. “Good luck and don’t die,” he quipped, even as chaos erupted.

  Three glass orbs soared through the air, crashing onto the wagons. A mist billowed up, settling fast over Lux. The droplets stung his skin, and his eyelids instantly grew heavy. He slumped forward, and just as he felt himself sliding off the seat, something brown and rough curled around him. In his last conscious moment, Lux cursed Azura, then gave in to the blackness.

  Daylight. Lux blinked awake, squinting at the bright band of sunlight knifing through his bedroom window. When he tried to lift an arm to block it, his muscles screamed in protest, and he nearly groaned aloud. “What the hell? Why does my whole body feel like lead?”

  He forced his arm up, then sat, working out the stiffness from his limbs. Standing was a slow ordeal. He wobbled but found his centre, got dressed, stretched until he could feel the blood flowing again.

  Outside, the world had changed. A wide paved road now led away from his house, straight to the edge of town. That hadn’t been there yesterday when they’d set out on the city raid. His memory flashed, three spheres, the wagon, the mist. “I wasn’t really out for days, was I?” Dread built as he looked toward the lake.

  On the far side, five stories tall, a new building towered above the grass. “Please don’t tell me that’s the first temporary apartment block!”

  Lux broke into a run, following the new road as it curved toward the construction site. With each stride, his heart beat faster.