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He shook his head. “Hurting people with magic is easy.” He paused. “I’m sorry. That probably didn’t come off right.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously.”

“I only meant, if we are going up against humans, we will have the upper hand.”

“I still think we should tread carefully. I thought about phasing all the way down to the temple room, but if there really are a lot of humans around, that’s going to be dangerous.”

“Why would it be dan—” the door to the landing one floor below us hinged open, forcing us against one wall.

Beneath us, someone had exited the floor they were on and entered the stairwell. When I couldn’t hear any footsteps, I dared get closer to the center part of the stairwell and look down. I couldn’t see who was down there, but there was someone down there, alright.

Lucien tried to pull me back, but I was already too far out of his reach, so he joined me instead, and watched the shadow of the man one floor beneath us. For a moment nothing happened, then suddenly he spoke, his voice echoing through the well.

“Yeah, hello, I just got an email from you guys about getting an extended warranty on my car?”

I looked over at Lucien, my eyes wide, my mouth agape. Lucien shrugged.

“Right, yeah,” the guy continued, “I just wanted to ask, how recently did you last go and fuck yourself? You heard me. Was it good for you? Did you enjoy yourself?” A pause. “Oh, yeah, that’s real mature. Well, I have your father right here, he wants to speak to you—oh wait, he can’t, because my dick is in his mouth. Ball-less piece of shit. Oh, I don’t have to be that vulgar? How about you get a real fucking job, asshole.”

I heard an electronic beep, then the guy one floor below us sighed. I couldn’t believe what had just happened, and neither could Lucien.

“Fucking told him, though,” came a smug voice from downstairs. A moment later, he was gone, back through the door he had emerged out of.

I didn’t say anything for a moment, letting the seconds pass, just in case he came back. When I was sure he was gone, I opened my mouth to speak. “What the hell was that?!” I mouthed.

“I don’t know,” Lucien mouthed.

“Who calls back a number on a spam email?”

“What mage gets spam emails? We’re supposed to be off the grid.”

“I guess that answers that question,” I ventured. “That guy didn’t seem like a mage, but we should still be careful.”

Lucien nodded. “Let’s go.”

Not wanting to linger in the stairwell, I moved quickly and silently down the next floor, and then moved just as swiftly past it to get to our target floor. The stairwell looked the same no matter what landing you were on, but this one felt different.

This one felt magical.

There was a slight hum in the air just powerful enough to feel it buzzing against my skin. All the other floors we had passed had felt inert, but this one, I knew we were in the right place, and that there weren’t more than a few doors between us and the crown.

Lucien pressed his fingers against his lips as he approached the door. He gently pulled it open and peeked. I watched him, holding my breath while he took the lay of the land. We could’ve been discovered at any time. My heart was pounding, my chest felt like it was in a vice grip, and my head was spinning, but I held it together until Lucien shut the door.

“Two of them,” he whispered, “In the corridor.”

“Where?”

“First door on the right.”

“That’s the temple… I’m sure of it.”

“We’re going to have to get past them, somehow.”

“How? They’ll see us as soon as we go through that door.”

Lucien considered. “We go in loud, then.”

“No, we can’t do that. We still have the element of surprise, we just need to get past those guys and into the temple. We can still do this.”