Darkness. Thea often enjoyed the darkness. When it came with the painless bliss of unconsciousness, even if for just a little while, it was her greatest ally. But now, in trying to escape, hiding from the true monsters of the world that children saw only the shadows of in their nightmares, it had turned on her. It clung to her mind like a cobweb coated in sap even once sensations broke through into her waking mind.
	She had no idea how long she had been out for. Minutes? Hours? Long enough for the familiar heaviness to settle and make the prickle of moving rake its sharp fingers over her. For all she knew, she could be back in her cell, the Sages waiting for her to wake to exact their ire on her.
	Panic settled in the black abyss as she felt a pair of hands lifting her from beneath her armpits, sending pricks of pain through her arm and side that her mind was not entirely capable of comprehending yet. She felt her body drag backwards before whoever had a hold on her managed to pull her up, forcing the sticky blackness to begin to peel away.
	“How are you so [i]heavy?[/i]” she heard a strained voice mutter behind her. The voice of the unfamiliar guard.
	She had been found.
	It was enough for her mind to finally return to awareness as her breath caught in her chest at the realization, every ache and pain creeping back over her and making her clench her teeth. He had her back against him. He wrapped one arm beneath her left one and around her chest, the other still at her right armpit.
	She gave a pained groan. Swallowing hard, the fire reigniting in her left arm as a reminder of its recent rough treatment, she yanked her right from his grasp. It felt as if she fought to move through molasses as she brought it forward, formed a fist, then rammed her elbow back as hard as she could. 
	Her elbow hit the metal of his breastplate with a cringeworthy thunking clang, sending a shock through her arm. Though far from the same intensity as using her left one, it was enough to make her grit her teeth to keep from crying out.
	The guard gave a shocked “Oof!” and released her, stumbling back. 
	Thea fell to the rough floor. She instinctively moved to catch herself to keep her face from smacking into the stone, but the sudden weight on her arms sent a nauseating wave of pain up the left one. She collapsed to the floor, gasping, face scrunched and right hand clutching the left, the metal just slightly warmer than the chill of the dungeons.
	Breathing heavily, she tried to focus on the guard as he collected himself.
	“Take it easy, would you?” he growled, his helmeted head just visible in the light of a lantern he had hung on a nail stuck into one of the stone walls. Only a sliver of light shone from the lamp’s mostly closed shutter, but it was more than enough for Thea to make out the room.
	Buckets, brooms, and mops coated in spider webs leaned against the walls. A couple wooden racks lined one wall, stocked with bottles so caked in dust and cobwebs it was impossible to see their contents. A few ragged, holey cloths draped in a discarded heap from one of the shelves.
	Thea tried to snarl warningly at him, the expression mixed with her pain as she struggled to her feet despite the eternal ache encompassing her.
	“I’m here to help you.” The guard raised both his hands in front of him as if to console her. 
	“Is [i]that[/i] what you think the Sages are doing?” she growled through her teeth as she managed to stand, her back bent slightly and still cradling her left arm. “[i]Helping[/i] me?”
	The guard’s growled sigh echoed through his helmet. “I didn’t say [i]they’re[/i] here to help you, did I?” He rubbed his chest where she had elbowed him. Surprise glittered in his greenish-blue eyes, and he glanced down. “You dented my armor!”
	“I’ll do more than that if you so much as twitch.” The quiver in her voice tainted the threat. She did her best to take a defensive stance, her left arm shaking as she raised it and formed a fist with both hands.
	The guard’s eyes narrowed. “I’m here to get you out of here. Your poor excuse of an escape attempt couldn’t have come at a worse time, but here we are.”
	Thea hesitated, confliction joining the other emotions warring for dominance on her face. “Give me a single good reason to trust one of the Sages’ guards,” she spat, taking a small step back. Her knee caved under her weight, making her lurch forward, but she managed to steady herself.
	“Use your head, girl!” Impatience saturated the guard’s voice. “I saw what you did to Gaillard. If I wanted to return you to them, I’d have called backup. Besides, you don’t have many choices. Either you can trust me, or head out that door,” he nodded to the rickety door behind her, “and get caught by the guards in ten seconds flat. They’ve all been called on duty to search for you. The place is teeming with them. It’s worse than an anthill on fire out there, and the more time we waste here,” he pointed a finger at the ground, “the more likely it is they’ll stumble on us. And I’m [i]not[/i] compromising my position for you!”
	Thea stared at him for a long moment, the tremble of her left hand intensifying. The guard glanced to it, and she gently gripped it with her right, trying to steady it.
	“Who [i]are[/i] you?” she growled through her teeth, her gaze boring into him. She turned slightly as she took another step back. She sucked in a sharp breath when the movement sent a sharp stab of pain up the right side of her body.
	“Sorry, kid. Can’t tell you that. You going to let me help you, or not?” He slowly reached out a gauntleted hand toward her to take.
	Thea eyed it warily, glancing between it and the guard’s eyes. She saw no deception in them, no malevolence, only a fierce determination. She quickly weighed the risks, but, in the end, he was right. Her options were dismal, at best. The worst-case scenario of going with him, was he would turn her in instead of her getting caught in the halls while trying to find a way out. The best case, he was telling the truth, and she would get out of this forsaken hole. 
	“Fine.” She stepped toward him, the eternal ache finally beginning to diminish to a more tolerable level from use. 
	A familiar, enraged “ARGH!” echoed from the other side of the door, making Thea gasp and spin around, her heart jumping into her throat. She stumbled backward, but the mysterious guard caught her, preventing her from falling.
	“Not a sound!” the guard hissed in her ear. But she did not need to be told.
	“This [i]can’t[/i] be happening!” the Sage Scientist shouted, his voice accompanied by the sound of two pairs of footsteps.
	“Say it louder,” the Mage scoffed in his—or her—soft, gender neutral voice. The dark malice in it made Thea shudder. “Maybe she’ll hear you and come running.”
	She swallowed hard. It sounded like they had stopped near the door. 
	“We’re [i]this close[/i] to completion!” the Scientist growled, lowering his voice so it just managed to filter into the forgotten storage room. “Without her, the last year’s been for nothing!”
	“You think I don’t know that?” 
	“Can’t you use that connection you have to track her?”
	Thea inhaled softly through her nose. [i]A connection?[/i] She looked back, sharing a quick, almost panicked glance with the guard.
	The Mage snorted. “You know it doesn’t work like that.” The Mage paused. “What about your failsafe?”
	“It’s short range only. And I haven’t tested it yet.”
	“What are they talking about?” the guard whispered, his voice nearly inaudible.
	Thea only shook her head with terrified uncertainly, unsure if she could speak even if she wanted to. She pressed her back against his armor to get as far from the door and the Sages outside it as she could. He took a slow, careful step back, and she followed his lead, not daring to take her eyes from the door, her bare feet making scarcely a whisper of a sound.
	“Try it as we go.” Their footsteps began again, slower this time, as the Mage spoke. “Maybe fate will be on our side and it’ll trigger as we pass.”
	Thea was sure the two were walking by the door now, the Scientist’s footfalls the heavier thud of boots and the Mage’s more of the soft clip of something simpler. For a short, precious moment, forgetting to breathe, Thea thought that, for once, fate was instead on her side and the Sages would simply pass them by. But she was gravely wrong.
	Without warning, a searing, hot agony erupted within her. It ravaged through her like a raging, starving beast, making her knees buckle and a red film freckled by blackness consume her vision. She was scarcely aware of the scream that left her lips before one of the mysterious guard’s gauntlets pressed tightly against her mouth to stifle it, his other arm the only thing keeping her from collapsing to the floor.
	With a burst of adrenaline-fueled strength, he dragged her toward the back of the storeroom as the locked handle jiggled. He struggled to keep his grip on Thea’s writhing body, making it that much more difficult as he snatched his lantern in passing. It swung wildly in his hand, making frantic shadows dance around the room as he made it to the wall and stepped through the seemingly solid stone.
	With a burst of blue flame, the door tore from the hinges and slid across the floor with an alarming clatter. The Sages rushed inside. Blue electricity sparked around flames of a darker shade in the Mage’s hands, his face hidden by the hood of a black robe and a white mask pulled up in a wicked grin, leaving only slits for eyes. The Scientist, a bit taller than his companion, held a coiled whip in one hand, his own robe white and his mask, twisted in an agonized frown, black.
	But the silent storeroom was empty.