James sank like a stone. Every ounce of armor dragged him further down, and no matter how he kicked, he only sank further.

  He reached for the lesson the mermaid had taught him. He wanted to feel the water solidify beneath his feet so he could kick off of it. He wanted the water at his sides to swirl around his body and propel him faster forward.

  Finally, he found it. This spell was so much more intuitive than the fire. Fire needed to be coaxed, persuaded, and guided into place. Water was different. Water wanted to play.

  Water Dance, he thought, and the water answered his call. James was propelled upwards, where he emerged with all the grace of a dolphin.

  The Demon King heard the splash, but James reacted faster. Before the Demon King could turn around — before his shield could be put in place — James reached out to the fire around him and spoke.

  “Fireball.”

  The attack connected. Flames splashed against the back of the Demon King’s neck and licked all around and down his back. He roared from pain and rage, and when he whirled around, he was finally taking James a little more seriously.

  “Credit where credit is due,” the Demon King snarled. “You’ve mastered your novice spells.”

  James shrugged, overly casual. “Isn’t that what you wanted? That skill of yours sent us back to the basics. Funny you had to use the System to do it.”

  For a moment, the Demon King actually looked wistful. “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the only way I could disrupt the System was with a System skill? But that was the best I could do before I died; I’m sure that with more time, I could have come up with a better, more permanent method. Maybe in this life, I finally will.”

  His eyes refocused, and a string of black runes lassoed towards James. The hero tried to skip away with Water Dance, but the Demon King’s spell work was nimbler than James’s feet, and the runes wrapped tight around his ankle.

  James gasped at the sudden pain. It was like someone had cinched barbed wire around his ankle, and it cut through his armor like it wasn’t even there.

  The lasso jerked, and James skidded back towards the Demon King.

  “Fireball!”

  The attack absorbed harmlessly into the Demon King’s water shield.

  “Water Dance!”

  James anchored his feet against a chunk of solidified water, but that chunk only moved with him.

  He had one more trick up his sleeve. If it worked, he might actually throw the Demon King off balance long enough for him to do something about it; if not, he’d be leaving Inara and Desiree at the Demon King’s mercy.

  In any case, he had to try. James thought back to his earth mentor. He recalled the peace and stillness of the earth, the strength and solidity of it.

  “Immobile.”

  Instantly, all motion stopped. The black lasso still tugged at James’s ankle. It still hurt like hell, but it wasn’t pulling him forward. And to his great relief, James was perfectly immobile, which meant he wasn’t sinking into the water, either. It was exactly what James had hoped for. It didn’t make sense, but then, magic didn’t have to make sense; that was the whole point of it.

  The Hero smirked. “Not so helpless now, am I?”

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  **

  Inara felt alive. For the first time in ten years, her skills were answering her call. They were weaker in some ways than what she had experienced before — though it was hard to be certain, since she had last used them so long ago — but the understanding was there.

  That, she figured, was why she was able to use them outside of the System. She’d fought at the side of the previous Hero for a long time. He’d arrived much earlier than James had, and they’d had years to train instead of days. Their progress had been slower. The two of them had taken the time to prepare for their first dungeon, and then the dungeon itself had been a higher level. It was as if the dungeon scaled to their ability, and in training, they had inadvertently made it more difficult for themselves.

  And they took their time searching it. Malachai had had more quests than James (Was there a correlation there? More time meant more quests, which meant more rewards? With only three quests, would James be strong enough to unseat Malachai, or would he continue to travel this accelerated path?), so they took their time combing every level and accomplishing subquests as they delved further and further.

  It still amazed her to see how this dungeon could be so different in some aspects and nearly identical in others. She had been hesitant from the start to accept Virgil into their group, and she stood by her suggestion that they kill him immediately. Had they done that, or had they even killed him in the previous level, they would not be fighting him now. Had they killed him earlier, her daughter wouldn’t be bleeding and crying out in pain from a wound that wouldn’t heal.

  Inara channeled that rage into her next move. Before James distracted him, Virgil had cast five summoning spells. Each hole in the ground continuously summoned magma demons and doubled as a trap. Inara did not intend to find out what would happen if she fell through. Fortunately, none of the demons were smart enough to try and back her up against the portals, but she had to keep it in mind as she jumped around the battlefield.

  Inara leapt upwards, and she pushed off of the air as though there were hidden steps made just for her. One of the downsides of a scythe was that to use it properly, she had to hold the blade low. An early skill she’d acquired allowed her to run through the air closer to head height, so she could lop off the heads of her enemies.

  Like a grim reaper, Inara swept her blade across one demon neck and then a second before falling back to earth. She landed with a satisfying thump in front of Desiree, who was on her knees at the edge of the island, still crying and watching the fight through her tears.

  That was two more down, but there were three more on their way. Inara wasn’t tired yet, but she could feel the burn in her muscles.

  She glanced at James and saw him walking on water and throwing fireballs at Virgil. Pride ghosted across her face. Even without the System, he was proving to be every bit the Hero she knew he could be.

  Inara rushed forward. The magma demons had long arms which gave them dangerous reach, but when she got inside that reach, it startled them into making mistakes. Demons were used to being the toughest bastards on the block, and it always caught them off guard when someone wasn’t afraid to fight.

  Which was satisfying as hell.

  Inara ducked under a clawed swipe and brought her scythe up at an angle. The blade flashed with its own light and for a moment, it was light as a whip in her hands. With only a whisper of resistance, the blade cut through the demon’s body and separated its upper half from its lower.

  Magma blood sprayed from the cut, and Inara ducked to the side to avoid it. A drop splattered against her armor.

  James reminded her of Malachai, from the early days. Malachai had had that same wide-eyed excitement for the world. He’d been so eager to learn magic and so curious about Grimora’s history. It had delighted her at the time; it was a rare man who found such joy in something as dry as the history books.

  Seeing the same thing in James, Inara began to understand. It wasn’t just history that excited them, it was the history of another world. In the same way children, tired of school, would gladly immerse themselves in the made-up lore of their favorite fairy stories, Malachai and James were excited to learn about a world not their own.

  “Mama!”

  Inara whirled to see a demon creeping up on Desiree from the side.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” she growled. She activated a dashing skill and beheaded the demon before it even knew she was coming.

  Inara spared one more glance at James. He had to hurry. She could hold her own against the demons, but five more were already crawling their way out of the summoning circles. No matter what she did, they just kept coming.

  Should she run out there and help him?

  Desiree screamed. Without even looking, Inara whirled around and beheaded another demon.

  No, she couldn’t leave. Her daughter was helpless without the System, and whatever was happening between James and Virgil, nothing would take her away from her post.

  Her grip tightened on her scythe, and she breathed deep, even breaths. No matter how tired she got, no matter how much her body complained, she would not let a demon lay another finger on her daughter.

  But damnit, James, hurry the hell up.