Riz screwed his eyes shut and hoped that Fabian could prevent himself from fighting her, because Riz could tell he was itching for a fight. He hated when he couldn’t solve a problem by kicking the shit out of it.

“I’m getting tired of this, boys,” the wizard’s steps were getting more erratic, her voice more panicked. She was getting desperate. Hopefully, all they had to do was stay here for a few more minutes as she passed. Then they could go find the others.

Actually, they probably didn’t need to wait for a few more minutes. There was a loud shriek, and a blast of crackling magic. Fabian relaxed under Riz’s hand, and he slowly removed his hand from Fabian’s mouth. The sounds of fighting would cover any conversation they had.

“Oh thank Cassandra,” Fabian said.

“What are you talking about?” Riz asked. Why was Fabian thanking Cassandra, they had no idea who was out there. “That wasn’t Adaine’s magic.”

“No,” Fabian said, smiling. Then he raised his eyebrow, “But it is Aelwyn’s. We should get out there and help her.”

Riz nodded slowly. It made sense that Fabian recognized Aelwyn’s magic immediately. They trained together a lot. But for some reason, that didn’t calm the racing of Riz’s heart.

Fabian looked at Riz, like he was waiting for his okay to go ahead to join the fray. Riz nodded, and then Fabian was off, pulling his sword and yelling. Riz heard Aelwyn laughing when she saw Fabian. She yelled, “Took you long enough!”

Fabian yelled back, “Fuck off!” The fight was on.

Trusting that they could handle this, Riz ran off to find the others, hoping the wizard would be distracted. On the way to the Eastern corridor he ran into Adaine and Gorgug running towards him. Adaine was most unharmed, but Riz could tell that Gorgug had been bleeding. When they reached each other, they all paused to catch their breath.

“Are you okay?” Adaine asked Riz. He nodded.

“Are you guys?”

Adaine looked at Gorgug who shrugged, “Had worse, I can keep going.”

Riz nodded, “Aelwyn’s here.”

Adaine smiled, “Good, she got my sending. Well, we handled our bad guy, and Fig and Kristen should be here soon, so let’s help!”

“Okay,” Riz said, and then they all ran towards Aelwyn, Fabian, and the wizard. When they got there, the fight was mostly over, but it was obvious that the wizard had landed a couple of hits on Aelwyn, but Fabian had taken the brunt of the damage. Once Gorgug got involved, the fight was over quickly. As it usually goes.

Fig and Kristen showed up, as they all looked at the body of the wizard. They all startled when Kristen asked, “Do you need me to revivify her for answers?”

“No,” Adaine said. “We found some of her scrolls and writings in her study. We have all the answers we need.”

“Good, because I don’t have the spell slot for it,” Kristen said. Then she and Fig got to healing all of them.

They hung out in the wizard’s tower, enjoying the finery it had to offer.

Riz and Fabian ate together, and Riz couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t with Aelwyn right now. Riz hated not having answers. So he just asked, “Why aren’t you eating with Aelwyn?”

Fabian side eyed Riz, “Because I want to eat with you.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Riz felt his heart do something. Weird. So he smiled at Fabian, “Good.”