Desmond jinxed it.
They were halfway back down the shrine's outer steps, packing up for departure, when a voice called out from the treeline at the island's edge.
Cheerful, unbothered, and entirely unwelcome.
"Well, well. Didn't expect company all the way out here."
The man who stepped out from the trees was built like a barrel with legs, a truly enormous beard dyed a rust-brown color that no natural pigment achieved on purpose, and a grin that suggested he found the entire situation delightful rather than dangerous. Four more figures fanned out behind him, armed with an assortment of mismatched blades and the loose, confident posture of people who did this often enough to have stopped being scared of it.
"Brown Beard," the man announced, with the theatrical flourish of someone introducing himself for the hundredth time and still enjoying it. "And these lovely people are my crew. We don't usually get pilgrims out this far. Most of you lot fly straight past. But a noble lady's escort, stranded and half-recovered from a storm?" He spread his hands, delighted. "That's just good fortune, that is."
"We are not stranded," Desmond said, drawing himself up to his full, unimpressive height. "We are Lady Vidora Windstrom's official pilgrimage escort, and I would strongly advise-"
"Oh, I know exactly who you are. That's rather the point." Brown Beard's grin didn't waver. "House Windstrom pays well for its own back. Ransom's practically a courtesy at that point."
Vidora's expression didn't change at all, which was somehow more unsettling than if it had.
"Mister Beard," she said, before anyone else could respond, tone perfectly level. "I have buried men considerably more competent than you attempting considerably less foolish things. I'd reconsider."
Brown Beard's grin only widened at that, entirely unbothered by the threat, which told Xavier everything he needed to know about how many times this exact exchange had already played out for the man. "Confidence. I do admire that in a woman about to lose her whole escort."
"Boys," Vidora said, without looking away from him, in the flat, unhurried tone of a woman ordering tea. "Handle this."
Stephan, still favoring one bandaged foot, tried to draw Ember and immediately reconsidered when the movement pulled something in his side with a wince he couldn't quite hide. "Okay, actually, maybe I sit this one out..."
"Please sit this one out," Bruce said, already stepping in front of him.
The four bandits fanned out with the loose, practiced spacing of people who'd done this dance before: a broad-shouldered brute hefting a spiked cudgel in both hands, a wiry woman with a curved knife in each fist who peeled off toward the flank almost immediately, a lean man with a spear who hung back testing the reach of it against the air, and a fourth further back still, already unslinging a crossbow from his shoulder.
Xavier's sword was off his back in a single fluid motion, flame catching along the blade's edge in a hungry orange line that hissed faintly against the damp air. He didn't wait for them to finish spreading out.
The brute came first, swinging that cudgel in a wide, telegraphed arc meant to end the fight in one hit. Xavier let it come, sidestepped at the last possible instant, and felt the wind of it pass close enough to stir his hair — then drove his shoulder into the man's overextended arm, using the brute's own momentum to spin him off balance. The follow-up strike wasn't subtle: a flat-bladed slash wreathed in flame that caught the man across the back and sent him sprawling face-first into the dirt, cudgel skittering away, coat smoking at the shoulder where the fire had licked through.
He didn't get up.
The knife-wielder used the opening to close in fast and low, blades flashing toward Xavier's exposed side while his weight was still committed to the first strike. She would have found her mark, if Bruce's hammer hadn't slammed into the ground directly in her path a half-second earlier, throwing up a spray of loose stone that made her flinch and overcorrect. She recovered fast, pivoting to trade blows with Bruce instead, twin blades ringing off the hammer's haft in short, frustrated bursts, until Bruce caught one wrist mid-strike and simply squeezed until the knife dropped.
"Yield or don't," Bruce said, unbothered, twisting her arm behind her back. "Either way, you're not using that hand again today."
She yielded.
That left the spearman, who had wisely spent the entire exchange keeping his distance, jabbing testing thrusts toward Xavier whenever the gap closed enough to matter. It was, Xavier had to admit, a reasonably smart way to fight someone holding a sword. At least up until Xavier stopped trying to close the distance the obvious way and instead flung a compact bolt of flame low across the ground between them, forcing the man to leap back rather than plant his feet for the next thrust. The half-second of instability was more than enough. Xavier closed the gap in two strides, knocked the spear wide with the flat of his blade, and drove a knee into the man's stomach hard enough to fold him around it.
"Behind the pillar, Xavier! No, the other pillar! The- okay, you got it, never mind, you got it!" Stephan cupped his hands around his mouth for maximum volume, clearly delighted to have a job that didn't require moving. "This is way better than fighting. I should get struck by lightning more often if this is what I get out of it."
"Do not get struck by lightning more often," Bruce called back, still holding the disarmed knife-wielder's arm at an uncomfortable angle.
"I'm just saying, commentary's a good career move for me."
The crossbowman, forgotten for one crucial moment in all the noise, finally raised his weapon — not at Xavier, who was clearly too fast a target, but at Vidora, standing calm and entirely unarmed near the shrine's basin.
Xavier's stomach dropped straight through the floor of the world.
He wasn't close enough. He knew it the instant he turned, watched the bolt already loosed and screaming through the air, and had just enough time to think that he was about to watch someone die for the second time this trip before a rock — an actual, ordinary rock, thrown with surprising accuracy from a boy sitting against an archway with a bandaged foot — cracked into the crossbowman's temple and sent his shot wide by a critical, life-saving handful of inches.
"HA," Stephan shouted, both fists raised in triumph, wincing immediately after from the movement. "Worth it. Still worth it."
The crossbowman staggered, dazed, reloading with clumsy, panicked hands. Brown Beard's easy, theatrical grin finally, fully disappeared, replaced by something colder and considerably more dangerous as he reached for the massive, well-used cutlass at his hip.
"Right," he said, voice gone flat and businesslike. "Guess I'm doing this myself, then."