Jack rubbed his fingers against the grain of the counter. It was hard to tell, but the slab of wood was absolutely dowsed in runes. He pushed away from the counter, his breath coming in quick staccatos.

  He strode over to the nearest shelf, grabbing a handful of the thin glass vials resting there.

  “It’s smart,” Jack said conversationally. “You fill the street outside your shop with that disgusting drug, and you either get a loyal customer walking through your doors, or you get someone like me, desperate not to get addicted. Anyone else is just a happy accident, am I right?”

  Gerome said nothing.

  Jack picked up some more vials, feeling Gerome’s beady gaze watching him from behind that counter.

  “And people like me, we’re usually so fixated on getting healed that we don’t even stop to consider why we’re in this predicament in the first place, huh?” Jack continued, filling his arms with vials and tinctures from every shelf near the alchemist.

  “Hey, be careful with–” Gerome started.

  Jack whirled on the man. “Oh, be careful? Be careful?! What, you don’t want me to spill all these? What, will you get poisoned? Are the fumes dangerous if mixed?!”

  Gerome backed up, his shrewd demeanor replaced with sinking horror. “Are… Are you crazy? If you mix all those, the explosion alone will kill the both of us!”

  Jack didn’t even flinch. Instead, he took the first bottle and flung it to the ground. Blue vapor exploded from it while its mercurial substance slipped between the floorboards.

  “What are you doing?!” Gerome yelped, leaning over his counter.

  Jack dropped a second one, letting its red mist mix with the blue. He could feel the skin on the backs of his hands start to itch as the magic in the room began building.

  “Give me a healing potion. Now,” Jack said.

  “A healing–Are you insane? That’s gotta be it! You’re insane! I actually have a potion that fixes–”

  Jack threw two more bottles, listening to the melodic sound of glass shattering while Gerome screamed in protest.

  “Healing potion. Or we both die.” Jack glanced down meaningfully at the dozen remaining vials in his grasp. “One potion in exchange for your shop and life. Sounds fair, right?”

  Gerome was incensed. “Do you think I want to die? If you’re caught with one of my healing potions, the bleeders will know who gave it to you! I’ll be strung up! They’ve done that for less, you know. Is that what you want? The bleeders killing off the only alchemist here in the slums? Do you know how many people I help? How many I save? You want all of that to go away just because you got a little high?!”

  “You are poisoning people, Gerome,” he replied calmly. “It’s time you knew what that felt like.”

  Jack threw another bottle.

  The magic was starting to gather, building in the air until he could practically taste it.

  “Who’s so important that you’ve got to risk everyone for it, huh?” Gerome screeched.

  Jack suddenly remembered the Blacksmith’s advice, and so he bet on honesty.

  “The potion is for Olric,” Jack answered, though he held out another vial to drop.

  Gerome froze. “Ol…Olric is dying? That old bastard never knew when to stop looking for answers best left untouched. You know, he probably deserves–”

  Jack dropped another vial. It exploded, and a kaleidoscopic fire started to eat through the floorboards. Jack jumped back.

  “FINE!” He set a leather pouch with a single vial sticking out down on the counter. “It’s your funeral. Get caught with this, and you’re dead. I’ll swear that you were going to kill me for it, which is what you’re going to do if you drop any more of my potions!” Gerome yelled. “And tell that bastard Olric that this pays my debt! Ya hear?! I’m done with his insane requests!”

  He watched the cruel alchemist for a long moment, the unnatural fire and smoke burning between them. As he suspected, the fire wasn’t encroaching on the man’s position, veering away from the counterspace entirely.

  Kill the both of us? Probably not. Destroy your shop? Absolutely, Jack realized.

  Cautiously, he walked around the edges of the growing flames, never taking his eyes off the alchemist. Then, just as he was within arm’s reach of the healing potion, he tossed the rest of the vials into the flames, letting them arc high and long through the shop.

  Gerome cried out, finally leaping over the counter with an outstretched hand. A blue shield sparked to life, but he reached through it. The barrier crackled around the man’s arm, and Jack could see the powerful enchantment protecting the shopkeeper from the danger.

  He didn’t wait.

  Jack shot forward and snatched the vial and its pouch. In the same moment, there was a plume of air, and every single vial he’d just thrown paused above the fire. They levitated there, suspended by the alchemist’s magic. Gerome yanked his hand back, and the vials shot over to his grip.

  “I’m going to kill you!” Gerome was screaming, but Jack was already dashing through the hallway.

  The fire was eating away at the shelves that he passed, and soon it would burn this horrible place to the ground. Gerome might’ve been telling the truth. He might be a necessary evil who occasionally helps those here in the slums.

  But right then, all Jack could think of was that corpse, and the woman who’d tried to seduce him with her magic. They were products of Gerome’s alchemy. They were what happened when people like him were left unchallenged.

  It was time to change that.

  But first, Olric needed this potion.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Jack held his breath as he raced across the street, leaping up over six feet, then wallrunning up the building across from the apothecary. His right hand found purchase on the lip of a second-story balcony, and he swung himself around. Jack faced the burning shop. People below were finally beginning to stir. The dreamer’s den, which had taken up residence around his place of business, was scattering at remarkable speed.

  No one touched the corpse of the woman.

  He paused for a moment, studying the results of his anger. Of his ire. He thought he’d feel happier at the sight of a drug dealer’s base burn to the ground. Heaven knew how much he fantasized about doing that in his old life, especially after what happened with his sister.

  But here, now, all he felt was a cold sense of satisfaction.

  It might not be the best option, but I will not regret this.

  His eyes filled with the reflection of the alchemical fire. It was time to go.

  Jack climbed up the rest of the building, then scampered across the roofs. He was like the wind that night—cold and swift and unimpeded. He skirted past the lingering fires started by the massive riot next to the west wall. All of the fighting had ended, and yet now bleeders in their military reds were methodically perusing the fallen. Running, he watched as they stabbed those not yet dead.

  It was grotesquely rhythmic.

  Step, step, stab, groan.

  Rinse.

  Repeat.

  They’re… They’re farming EXP! Jack realized.

  It was the only thing that made sense. And yet, to see them so clinical with the dying humans was all the more appalling. His boots barely made a sound across the angled tin roofs, but his ears pounded with rage. This was all so wrong.

  Jack jumped, cast Law of Inversion on a loose stone, and repeated his double leap through the air. He landed hard on the rampart and didn’t waste any time jumping over to the marshland below. Behind him, he heard the bleeders continue their foul work.

  Step, step, stab, groan.

  You’ll pay for this, he promised them in his heart. You’ll pay for your cruelty. For these injustices. For making the world this way.

  He ground his teeth until they hurt, his eyes fixed on Olric’s farm in the distance.

  You’ll all pay.

  Breathless, he made it back to the farm and rushed up the steps. He strode with long, powerful steps until he reached the table. Olric wasn’t there.

  “Olric?! Olric?!” Jack yelled, panic rising in his throat.

  There was a groan by his feet.

  Jack looked down and saw that the old warrior had slipped off the table and crashed to the ground on the far side. He dashed around and picked up the farmer, carrying him to the long sofa. Olric groaned as Jack set him down.

  “There you go,” Jack whispered, pulling the healing potion from his belt.

  He popped the cork and lifted the vial to Olric’s cracked lips. His eyes fluttered open.

  “No…” Olric whispered, stirring at the smell of the priceless potion. “Save… it…”

  “Like hell I will,” Jack mumbled, pushing away Olric’s weak attempts to ward off the potion. “Who else is going to make me sourdough and bacon, or glare at me when I move the emberdraw? Just sit still and let me help you.”

  Olric tried to say more, but Jack tipped the vial into his mouth. The man almost gagged, but Jack lifted his neck and helped him swallow. The effect was instantaneous, just as it had been when Jack took one on his first day in Aethros.

  Golden energy glowed from beneath Olric’s skin, cleansing the necrotic poison in the same instant it sewed his wounds shut. The healing spread across every inch of his flesh. Within a minute, Olric looked leagues better, and even a bit of color had returned to his cheeks.

  He let out a deep sigh and fell into a deep sleep.

  “Good. You rest,” Jack ordered the unconscious man.

  He pulled a knitted blanket from off the top of the sofa and stretched it across the muscular farmer’s body. Nodding at his handiwork, he stood up, glancing around. The house was still a mess. A part of Jack’s mind immediately went into clean-up mode, but he ignored it. He could not stay here. He no longer feared Olric’s intentions. The man had not been a human trafficker as he’d originally feared.

  No, he’d been trying to save people from shroud poisoning. He’d been trying to help in every way he could.

  It was past time Jack did the same.

  Jack strode over to the couch where he’d found that travel pack and slipped it over his back. Inside were a mortar and pestle, dried rations, and a canteen of water. Along the leather straps was a bandolier of empty slots for what might be vials, bullets, or something else narrow and cylindrical. Jack put the vial he’d stowed away into one of the notches, and it fit perfectly.

  He quickly scribbled a note to the farmer, then headed for the door.

  Jack glanced back at Olric one last time.

  “Watch for the light, old man.”

  And with that, Jack left the farm and walked through the shroud wall. When he’d fled the shroud, he’d been nothing but Jack Thatcher, the mechanic from Earth. Now, he returned to it as the long-awaited Banisher, and it was finally time to bring light to the darkness.

  ***

  “Headed out at this ungodly hour, rustbitch?” Derrick shouted after Yelena, who was in the middle of fixing a twisted strap of her dagger bandolier.

  She raised a profane gesture in his direction with one hand, while she finished wrestling the strap in place.

  Derrick jumped down from where he sat next to one of the ballistae by the south gate. “How long do you think it’ll take before Booth decides he’ll forgive you? Two weeks? Three? You expect to have any of your war pups by the end of it, or should I go ahead and assign you a fresh squad for when you get back?”

  Yelena met his gaze. “We’re coming back. All of us. And when we’re all promoted to the front line for reaching level 40, we’ll be sure to send you a box of shit for your concern.”

  The lieutenant commander put a hand on her shoulder, and she resisted the urge to stab it. “You best be careful out there, rustbitch. The slums are all in a riot tonight, I heard. Took the entire Fireclaw squad just to keep them in check. Who knows what those pigfuckers have in store in the shroud? I’d sleep with both eyes open if I were you.”

  “You should consider writing a book,” Yelena spouted, shrugging off his grip. “I’m sure all the young squires could learn from your boundless wisdom.”

  Derrick looked genuinely offended. “A book? What do you take me for? Some ninny noble too weak to lift his own sword? Books are good for one thing.” He leaned in close, and Yelena could smell the sickly sweet dreamsnatcher fragrance clinging to his cloak. “Kindling.”

  Yelena shoved him away, much to his laughter, and she strode to her warhounds.

  “Listen up!” she shouted, and they all turned with precision uncommon amongst the knights of Thistlebrush. “We’re going into hell tonight. What we see, what we slay, what we destroy, all of it belongs to death. Let’s make sure to give them all a quick journey back to where they belong, shall we?!”

  Shouts and cheers from every one of her thirteen, but she was surprised to hear several of the other knights join in from their various defensive platforms.

  “Tonight, we make them bleed!” Yelena continued, unsheathing Archimedes with one hand. She held it high, letting it glint off the torchlight of a hundred warriors. “Blood for the fallen!”

  “BLOOD FOR THE FREE!” came the roared response, every Red Knight joining in the call, save Derrick.

  “We return when the pigs have been uprooted and slain. When our blades are dyed as red as our armor, as the dawn, only then shall we breathe in the air Ardent provides.” Yelena only had eyes for her squad. “Warhounds, move out!”

  All thirteen raised their weapons, bathed in the cheering of their comrades as they entered the shroud. Yelena paused right before its shadowy embrace. She took in one final breath, tasting the unpoisoned air for the last time.

  She had the answers. She knew now where to look.

  This world may be corrupt, Jack Thatcher, but not for too much longer. Not if I can help it.

  Captain Yelena Stark entered the shroud.