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Focusingon the empty lunch tables that used to be filled with first year mundanes wouldn’t help me. Panicking about whether or not they were going to take me with them wouldn’t help me. Running I knew for a fact wouldn’t help me.

There was nowhereto run in a closed off Caldera that they couldn’t find me.

I restedmy hand on the open book in front of me on the table and looked down at Nibblet. She was about the size of a rabbit but looked like a field mouse and a chinchilla had a love match and played roulette with their genetics. She has huge, fluffy white ears that were almost as big as her body, and a lovely, silky, fluffy tail. I barely got to see her nowadays, as she spent most of her time working in the school farm fields.

“Are you sure?”I asked her.

I knewthe room was a bit noisy for her, but she tilted her ears back to the Princes’, focusing on their conversation as best she could.

“Careful,”Anna murmured, keeping her eyes focused on her plate in front of her. “If they think you’re using your familiar to eavesdrop, it will be worse for us.”

“How much worse can it get?”I asked.

I shouldn’t have saidthat.

“Don’t ask that,”Anna whispered, her voice hoarse.

I tightened my grip on the fork, its polished tines imprinting faint crescents in my fingertips. The tremor persisted, so I exhaled, placed the utensil beside the plate, and flattened my palms on the tabletop. Focus on the sensations that so often overwhelmed me. Focus on my breath going in and out. Focus on all the things that were interesting to look at or feel that didn’t matter. Cool lacquered oak met my skin, the grain rising in fine ridges beneath a glass-smooth finish. Even the cheapest of the tables were finer than what I had back at home. Along the edges, sterilization runes formed interlocking rings; the wood silent as the sigils waited for the magic to power them, ready to cleanse the surface.

That was the one thing they taught me—how to power other people’s spells.

A muted clang of trays echoed from the kitchens beyond the double doors, while nearer at hand, chairs skidded, cutlery chimed, and low voices overlapped beneath the dome’s crystalline vault. Warm air carried the scents of tamarind, toasted peanuts, and citrus oil, mingling with the faint bite of ozone from activated spellwork.

I was a glorified battery.

Even with my hands braced against the table, a tremor quivered in my forearms. This was my second year; of the students who had filled my first-year lectures, more than half were dead.

It was made clear to us all during first-year orientation that we were all disposable.

I looked up.

I didn’t lookat the Prince’s table. Their table was on the same level as ours, set apart in the outer ring of tables where all the ‘Proper Students’ sat, a little fancier with chairs instead of benches, but not much different from the other high-ranking student tables. The only table in the room that was vastly different was the King's table, which was elevated, raised above the rest of the room on a platform. There should only have been five chairs there, but there were eight now, and only a few of them had Kings in them. I tore my eyes away from them.

Not that theywould save me from the Princes.

None of the so-called ‘Proper Students’ had ever lifted a finger to save a mundane. The Kings and the Princes, only two of whom were actual royalty, served merely as titles for the dungeon-diving crews, ranked by their triumphs in the weekly contests that unfolded on the sprawling, emerald school fields. The first afternoon I witnessed those matches, I stood on the bleachers and watched bodies and spells arc through the air. Their shields cracked like thunder, blades rang against conjured stone, and the sweet reek of scorched turf drifted on the wind. Their power, both physical and magical, rivaled scenes I had only ever believed possible with clever cinematography back in the mundane world.

My admiration dimmed the moment I realized that women were vanishing.

Not all women…only the mundane ones.

I’d noticed but hadn’t understood the pattern until Becky, after her first shift in the damp, brine-scented fish hatchery, explained to me in graphic detail what exact type of hell hole this place was. Thanks to her warnings, I’d managed so far to avoid the fate of the others.

Becky had died three days ago, torn apart by a Thutar.

My heart rate jumped again as anxiety dug its claws back into me.

I had to focus on something else.

Some of the monsters around me were attracted to fear.

I rested one palm on the runes carved along the tabletop’s edge, their grooves cool beneath my fingertips. Steam coiled from the plates of noodles beside me, mingling with the sharper aromas of citrus polish and sweat clung to the high-vaulted dome shaped room. I glanced over at the volume propped open beside my plate. On the vellum page sprawled an ink illustration of a pulsing mound of flesh, its tentacles flailing, its circular maw lined with needle teeth, the Thutar. Thick strokes of sepia ink suggested the creature’s slick hide; tiny cross-hatching hinted at mucus sheen.

I had never set foot inside the Dungeon myself because when I enrolled, women were barred from entry. That rule changed this year, after the Goddess awoke.

I put my hand on the page and flipped it to a different one, a familiar one.

The pageI kept coming back to.