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“Get that damned thing off me!”Jonas threw aside the blanket that a concerned war mage was trying to put around his shoulders.

He sounded older than when I’d last seen him, with the once forceful voice a thin thread on the air.The magnificent mane of hair was different, too, shorn almost off like that of the rest of the men, I supposed by their captors.And the emaciated face was so hollow that it had completely changed shape.

But the fire in the eyes was the same when he spotted me.

“Ah!There she is!”He staggered over and took my filthy face in his hands.“Yes, yes,there she is!”

It seemed to be all he could say.

“Jonas,” I croaked and was crushed in a hug stronger than I’d have believed the old arms could manage.

Or maybe that was just me, as I had almost no strength left.My legs felt like water after bracing themselves on that crazy ride in a runaway hallway, and my arms were noodle-y from gripping onto Bodil.I wouldn’t have made it if Alphonse hadn’t carted me in.

As it was, I staggered when Jonas released me to grab onto Pritkin, who had just arrived, shedding sand and looking around agitatedly, only to be intercepted on his way over to me.He seemed a little surprised to be embraced by his old boss, as he and Jonas had had a complicated relationship.But all appeared to have been forgiven.

“Cassie?”Pritkin said, looking at me past the old man’s head.

“Okay,” I croaked.It was the best I could do.

He nodded, looking relieved, and then hugged Jonas back.“Are you all right, sir?”

“John!My boy, my boy!”

That sort of thing was all there was for a while, as small groups trickled in, so coated in sand that they looked more like statues come to life than people.I recognized Bodil because of her height; Æsubrand for that and the fall of pale hair that he was scratching at like an annoyed cat; Enid for her voice, which was yelling at the knot of witches that had also come along, and who were trying to curse every war mage they saw.They were wild-eyed and seemed confused about what had just happened, or maybe they didn’t care whether the mages here were the good guys or not.

As far as they were concerned, any mage had always been an enemy.

But this group was organized, at least, and we were soon whisked down another maze of corridors to one with a line of spartan bedrooms that reminded me of the ones in the old HQ.They had been little more than burrows carved out of the earth with few amenities except for a bed, a chest for clothes, and a few hooks on the walls that the guys had put up themselves.

This one had no hooks, but it did have an actual, working shower.I’d never been so glad to see anything as my eyes and nose were running, I was still wheezing with every breath, and sand had gotten into places I didn’t even want to think about.Pritkin had been supporting me down the hall and started talking as soon as the door shut behind us, but my ears were too clogged to hear it.

“Give me...a minute,” I gasped, trying to strip off the caked-on armor and mostly failing.

Until he helped me and then helped me some more to get into the shower, which was in an alcove off the main room.

The bathroom, if you could call it that, was tiny, and the shower even smaller.It was also cramped, as it had not been built for two.But I didn’t feel like complaining, especially when my new bath buddy turned me around and started soaping up my nasty hair.

“Oh, God,” I gasped, turning my face to the water and letting it beat against all that dirt.It felt like I was wearing a clay mask, even though Alphonse and I hadn’t been outside for more than a few minutes.But I was lucky I’d been wearing armor and had mud covering most of the bare parts, because the few areas that hadn’t been protected...

Damn!Everything hurt, with biting stings whenever the water hit places where bits of my flesh had been blasted off.And there were a lot of those, as my armor had taken a beating lately and no longer fit perfectly.Wherever one of the gaps had been, a line of rough, red flesh marked the spot.

The marks crisscrossed my body like the lashes of a tiny whip.But Pritkin’s fingers were gentle and soothing on my scalp, which I guessed my hair had protected as it was almost the only thing that didn’t hurt.God, that felt good!

After a while, my body decided to calm down, my pulse returned to something like normal, and my mind stopped racing.The water beat the welts into submission while those talented fingers proved that he had missed his calling; he should have been a masseuse.It was honestly the best I’d felt in a while, and I could have happily stayed that way for hours, if not days.

But I didn’t know how long the water would last in a desert or how much longer I would last without knowing what was going on.

“Rosier,” I finally rasped.

“I saw.”It was grim.

“But did he see you?”I turned to face Pritkin, who still looked like a mud monster, his face and hair running with it as the spray had loosened some dirt.Yet said hair was somehow still reaching for the stars, usually a sign that his magic was surging, whatever he had left of it.The war mages in the cave had looked that way, too, as if they’d just stuck their fingers in a light socket.

But he didn’t look startled so much as pissed.It was a weird contrast to how gentle his touch had been, but it was undeniable, with tension in every line of his body and a storm brewing on his face.That plus the fact that the danger was over, yet his wild mop hadn’t calmed back down...

Yeah, this was going to be fun.

And he didn’t waste any time getting into it.I guessed he’d wanted to be sure I was alive and well before he reamed me out.And that was rich, considering who had started all this!