Round 108 Transcript

At bathroom in a New York high rise penthouse suite, the pressure shifts from waiting to immediate risk. The ward answers the party's presence with a fresh pulse through the stone and no one can mistake it for safety. The nearest sign of danger is now structural collapse imminent. Someone has to answer that change now.

The building groans like a dying beast above us. Jeane's hands are bleeding on the door handle—useless sacrifice against something that doesn't care about physical barriers. I push off from the corner wall, slide across the wet floor with practiced balance despite the lube pooling everywhere. "Mirror as barricade? That won't stop wardstone energy." I crouch and work lockpicks into both hinges simultaneously. "We're trapping ourselves in a wet room with no exits except that door."

I look up at Jeane's face—fear mixed with desperate hope, the kind that makes her reckless. "If you start channeling arcane fire again to 'seal' anything, I will personally knock you out and drag your unconscious body through whatever hole I find first." The picks scrape metal as they bite into hinge pins. "We need structural integrity, not magical theatrics."

I glance at Halie gripping the mirror across from me, then back to Jeane. "Everyone here knows I'm the one good with locks and escape routes. So either shut up and let me work or get out of my way." The first pin gives way with a satisfying click. One down, three to go before this door becomes significantly harder to open from outside. The wardstone pulses again, stronger this time—the building shudders. Water splashes from the broken shower stall. We're running out of time and good options.

The wardstone pulses are wrong—too fast now, too strong—and I can feel it through my hands even with the door between us. The wood groans like it's alive with hate, and I'm bleeding onto the handle because this makes perfect fucking sense to keep me pinned here where the magic leaks in easiest. Hera is looking at me with those wide eyes that make me want to scream or hold her down until she stops shaking—either one would solve the problem. Silra is picking locks on a door I'm already holding shut, which is either genius or suicidal because there's nothing behind it but more of this cursed building and whatever's waiting. I back away from the door and let my hands slip free, the blood slicking everything as it always does when things get real enough to start cutting. The spell I've been throwing at that lock for twenty minutes finally snaps off with a crack like teeth breaking apart, and I'm done playing nice with physics. "Enough," I say, and this time there's something showing through that the girls haven't seen before—something sharp and old and not entirely me. "Silra, stop wasting effort on what doesn't need opening. We're building a fucking wall here or we're getting crushed while whatever's under us gets to watch."

I grab a shelf from the back of the room with my mind alone, pulling it sideways across the door like a sliding puzzle piece forced into place. The wood screams against stone but holds. "Stay away from that side," I tell them all, even though Hera is already backing further toward the corner like she knows better than to argue. "We're not done here yet."

I feel every pulse through my hands—the wardstone answering our fear with hunger—and I see Hera in her corner, skin gleaming like something broken and precious. We can't hold this door forever, not with a mirror and wet floor and Jeane bleeding out magic and life onto the handle. Silra's right—this is a death sentence disguised as hope—but what choice do we have? The building screams overhead and I feel every groan in my teeth.