The silver light from the Altar began to recede, leaving Seraphina standing tall, her presence now cold and sharpenend like a blade of moonlight. She gripped her rapier, her eyes fixed on the path back to the portal.
"The Shadow-Stalkers will be positioned at the throat of the exit," she said, her voice echoing with her newly stabilized Qi. "I can freeze the path for three heartbeats, but you will need to strike the center of their formation the moment we break through."
"A valiant plan, if we were interested in a suicide mission," Piet's voice rang out through Vincy's lips, dripping with aristocratic disdain. "But why fight a pack of dogs when you can simply move the fence?"
Vincy looked at his own hands, which were now glowing with a steady, deep violet light.
"Move the fence? Piet, the portal is anchored to the school. Elder Karl said if the coordinates are tampered with, the whole thing implodes."
"Elder Karl is a man who reads the labels on jars and thinks he knows the recipe," Piet snickered. "This realm doesn't belong to the school; it belongs to the Archive. And I am the Head Librarian."
Piet directed Vincy to place his palms against the base of the liquid-metal monolith. As Vincy touched it, the Altar didn't ripple this time; it roared.
"Kael thought he could lock me out of the system after he ran me through," Piet hissed, a flash of phantom pain crossing Vincy's face. "But he forgot that I'm the one who wrote the encryption. Watch carefully, Seraphina. This is how you treat a blockade."
Using Vincy's fingers as a stylus, Piet began to trace lines of violet fire across the silver surface. He wasn't just changing a destination; he was peeling the exit away from its original anchor.
"What are you doing?" Seraphina asked, her silver eyes widening as she felt the very space around them groan.
"He's changing the exit code," Vincy explained, his voice strained. "He's sending everyone else—the other students, the 'trash' disciples, and the fragments of Cyrus and Baron—out through the main gate. They'll be the distraction."
"Exactly," Piet added. "The Shadow-Stalkers and Lord Vane will be so busy dealing with a sudden rain of confused, screaming students that they won't notice two signatures missing from the count. As for us... we're taking the scenic route."
With a final, violent pulse of light, the Altar went dark. The Labyrinth of Glass began to shatter, not into shards, but into dust.
"Jump!" Piet commanded.
Vincy and Seraphina leaped into the swirling vortex of the portal just as the "Glitch" reached its terminal point.
Back at the Myriad School, the air at the Jade Plaza exploded. The Shadow-Stalkers lunged forward, crossbows ready, only to find themselves buried under a literal mountain of falling students. Dax was screaming, Grog was trying to catch the Dream-Eating Tapir, and the "Order of the Sparrow" was tumbling through the air like a flock of confused pigeons.
"Where is he?!" Lord Vane roared, looking through the pile of limbs and grey robes.
"Where is the Sparrow?!"
But the Sparrow was gone.
Vincy hit the ground hard, the scent of damp earth and pine needles replacing the sterile, metallic air of the Secret Realm. He rolled several times before coming to a stop against the trunk of a massive, gnarled oak tree.
Seraphina landed a few feet away, her silver armor clicking as she stood up with predatory grace. She looked around at the dense, untamed forest. The sky here was blue, and the sun was high—they were miles, perhaps leagues, away from the Myriad School.
"The Whispering Woods," she noted, her voice cold but impressed. "We are in the Neutral Territories. At least three days' travel from the nearest outpost."
Vincy sat up, rubbing his sore shoulder. He looked at his hands; the violet glow had faded, and Piet was once again just a quiet hum in the back of his mind.
"Not a bad landing," Piet mused, sounding remarkably smug. "No assassins, no Elders, and most importantly, no stables to scrub. Though, I should warn you, Vincy... the beasts in these woods haven't seen a human in a century. They might be a bit... peckish."
Vincy groaned, lying back on the moss. "Piet, you're the worst travel agent in history."