Pavo's swirling ether streams thickened and raced around in an expanding, warbling sphere of damaging scarlet magic that was rapidly gaining speed and potency. Even ten feet away, Khazmine could feel the intense heat emanating off the poor child, who writhed in pain on the table under Marquis Banebury’s hands.

“KISS-ME, PLEECE!” Pavo squealed in ear-splitting agony. The marquis refused to stop, even as the magic sphere expanded around him, reaching up the scientist’s forearms to slash and burn him up to his elbows.

The outcast's pupils dilated from severe slits to round discs as her bloodstream flooded with ether. Before Khazmine had realized it, her fingernails raked against Marquis Banebury, tearing through cloth to reach the meat of his arm and back. Beautifully embroidered damask was torn to shreds under her relentless, punishing attacks, until the outcast finally dug deep enough to claw at the sensitive, vulnerable flesh beneath.

“LET HIM GO, D*MN YOU!” Khazmine roared as she continued to grasp and claw at the marquis.

“Miss Khazmine, please do not interfere,” Banebury insisted with unflinching coldness. “The patient’s condition requires my concentration and precision. Please desist.”

Undeterred by Banebury’s words, and with all the might of an avenging fury, Khazmine’s ether-enhanced fingertips scraped ferociously against Rowyn’s exposed shoulder and back. She’d expected to inflict the same savage damage that Allyn and Jarrow had received back at the commissary earlier that very day, but for love nor money could Khazmine draw even a drop of blood from the marquis’s exposed back. All the outcast could remove was a thin layer of peachy, skin-colored powder that collected under her fingernails.

“Core integrity at fifteen percent and dropping,” Banebury recited aloud, though Khazmine couldn’t figure out what he’d meant. “This etherling’s core is destabilizing rapidly. Miss Khazmine, I must insist that you stop…”

Marquis Banebury continued to press poor Pavo against the table to prevent the wild magician’s flailing limbs from disrupting the ether sphere further. He’d meant no harm to the lad but had no choice other than to immobilize him to reduce the risk of his magic hitting young Khazmine as well. Delirious with panic, the half-breed had clawed mercilessly at Rowyn’s back, unaware of the creeping slices of damage crawling up both of Banebury’s arms.

“Master?” Ellory’s disembodied voice echoed in the chamber amid the chaos within. “Your elixir is ready. Depositing in containment unit two now.”

A vibrant green light filled the room from the same wall that Banebury had pressed against earlier to speak to his fetch-and-carry, which illuminated a sturdy metal drawer with a glass window in its center. Inside the drawer, a strange device leaned up against the glass, waiting to be retrieved and deployed. The bright light that came with it was enough to startle Khazmine, who paused her assault long enough for Rowyn to turn his head halfway to see her.

Khazmine froze where she stood, stunned into silence from the sight of Marquis Banebury’s mangled face. Pavo’s wild magic had reached the scientist’s torso, up his neck and head, slicing him to ribbons. Even a Solanai as strong or quick as Major Barshaw or Lieutenant Mevralls would be shredded by such potent ether sparking. Yet even as Pavo’s ether continued to swirl out of control, Banebury did not bleed.

“He’s a weirdo, a charlatan,” Rida had insisted back at his hovel. “He’s not like us.”

Khazmine hadn’t believed him—couldn’t believe him—when the southerner had tried to convince the outcast that Marquis Banebury wasn’t who she imagined he was. In lieu of a doddering, ancient human being, Banebury was actually one of the nightmarish Invaders, monsters, that made terrorized children scream themselves hoarse in violent darkness. The outcast had always thought the Invaders were simply legends from fairy-stories; tall tales and fables meant to frighten disobedient children into compliance.

But she was wrong, so very wrong…

This creature—this thing—wasn’t normal. Rowyn Banebury, or whatever he was, stood, unbloodied, with a face and limbs cracked with spidery fractures like a broken porcelain doll. Every patch of skin on his body wasn’t truly flesh at all, and more closely resembled a water-starved plot of earth, with intricate fissures creating a mosaic of disjointed plates nestled haphazardly against one another.

Underneath the plates of false flesh was a dark, glittering network of wires, lights, and marvels made from the same materials as all the finely-crafted machinery of Banebury Hall. It was as if the weather-worn, human exterior was a disguise meant to hide a wondrous mechanical geode within.

He was, for lack of a better explanation, a technology golem. Khazmine didn’t have the words to describe or understand, but her insides twisted in vile revulsion, instinctively begging the outcast to escape, lest she be torn apart by this fearsome abomination.

All of this horror manifested in a fraction of a second, as Khazmine watched helplessly when Rowyn raised a hand away from the ether-sparking magician. The outcast had just enough time to finish inhaling when a firm, painful palm strike landed against her chest, knocking Khazmine backwards, and slamming her against the flat of the far wall.

A flash of vindictive, red magic sliced into the air where Banebury’s hand had shoved the outcast, flaying another strip of “flesh” from his body. Had Rowyn not shoved Khazmine aside, the renegade spark of menacing ether would have cleaved Khazmine in half like a crimson scimitar.

The wounded half-breed slumped downwards with a thud and crumbled to the smooth, bitter-cold floor. Khazmine winced upon noticing the wound in her back had worsened, and every movement reminded her that this terrifying encounter was real—too real for pain to ignore.

“PLEECE!” Pavo’s continued screams rattled Khazmine’s ears as she tried desperately to crawl closer to the expanding ether sphere. The marquis had spared Khazmine a fatal blow from Pavo’s wild magic but was still struggling to contain the child and his energy amid his shrieks. Even the marquis’s eyes jittered at the piercing frequency Pavo was able to reach and the scientist turned away from Khazmine to resume his most pressing concern.

“Core integrity at seven percent and falling,” Banebury said as he wrenched the handheld device from its chilled wall chamber with his free hand and adjusted it for immediate deployment. Khazmine strained through blurring vision as the marquis pulled back on a metallic release on his device with his teeth and thrust the sharp needle on one end into Pavo’s exposed chest.

Banebury’s foreign, alien device bore a striking resemblance to a gigantic, silver swarmstinger wasp, with a handle attached to it like a crossbow’s grip and trigger. A long glass tube was mounted on top of it, filled with a glowing slurry of cobalt-blue liquid that sloshed around, which begged for release from the fiendishly pointed tip that was now embedded deeply into the outcast’s little brother. “This is the highest concentration I can administer without permanent damage… Miss Khazmine, brace yourself!”

The outcast’s arms raced to shield her face as glass vials exploded on the overhead shelves from one last desperate ether spark from wee Pavo. Tiny pieces of glass showered everyone in the room, accompanied by whatever liquids had been inside of them. Once the fractured drizzle had subsided, Khazmine steeled her nerves to face the marquis anew. The outcast lifted her head to spot Rowyn towering over Pavo as the swirling cloud of ether petered out and faded into nothingness.

For a chilling, anxious moment at least, everything in the laboratory was still and quiet. The hissing, shrill noises from Pavo and his magic had entirely vanished, and Khazmine tensed her ears to listen for signs of life.

I hear it… What is it? Khazmine’s arms shuddered with swaths of gooseflesh as she strained to take note of the marquis’s workshop with seized muscles and held breath. I hear machines, my own heartbeat, a whirring…

But not Pavo. No breathing, no movement—nothing. Khazmine scrambled to her feet as a rush of dizziness followed. The outcast shambled toward what was left of the marquis, who was leaning against the battered metallic table and gently shaking his head from side to side.

“I do not understand… That should have worked,” Rowyn muttered with a blank-eyed, hazy gray stare that bore into the motionless child heaped on the table. “That was one of highest concentrations we’ve ever achieved… I… do not… understand…”

Khazmine’s eyes darted between the shattered marquis and her precious little brother, welling with tears as realization set in. Marquis Banebury had promised to save Pavocinis, risked great personal injury in the undertaking—and had failed.

“I am… sorry… Miss Khazmine.” Rowyn sighed without air, with a hollow, metallic crackle in his voice. The broken scientist skulked away from the table to retreat to a separate, adjoining chamber, leaving the outcast to mourn her little brother. Only the sound of metallic or ceramic plates clinking against each other could be heard at Banebury’s departure, like a wind chime battling a storm.

“No… No-no-no…” the outcast whispered through trembling lips as she approached the table that grew ever colder in the sterile mausoleum of a laboratory. Khazmine bent over to cradle the tiny child’s limp body in her arms and rubbed a tear-stained cheek against Pavo’s frigid face. With brows tented and breath ragged, the outcast wept. “N-no, please…”

He was so little, so fragile and light in Khazmine’s arms that the outcast could rock him back and forth, even in her weakened state.

A torrent of questions flooded in her mind as the outcast sobbed at this tremendous loss. Why had they failed? What could have been done instead? And what would she tell poor Aranthus back at the hovel? How could she even face him again?

The outcast hugged Pavo’s frail body in her trembling arms, squeezing him and praying to the Ancients—to anyone—for a miracle. Khazmine nestled her face against the shell of her little brother and inhaled deeply until she felt…

A spark. A tiny spark. She could feel Pavo’s ether core, as one might sense an unseen breeze or shift in an ocean current.

Khazmine’s eyes opened with a start as she detected the faint, fluttering traces of ether lingering in Pavo’s body. He was still here, even if breath had left him. Whatever the scientist had injected into Pavocinis had silenced the clattering shards of ether core that ricocheted off each other and fused them into a stable entity that could—at least in theory—hold ether properly again. As Rida had implied, Pavo’s “cup” could be repaired. The marquis had done as he'd promised—he’d fused Pavo’s core—now it was Khazmine’s turn to fill it.

The outcast licked her chapped lips and clenched her jaw at what must be done. Khazmine took one final inhalation of stale, chemical-scented air before making a last-ditch attempt to stoke the dwindling embers of ether in her little brother’s core. Lieutenant Mevralls had shown Khazmine how to fill her own cup like this before, but this was the first time she would intentionally use his technique to do the unthinkable by filling someone else’s ether core. To even try to fill another person’s core without a healer’s license was foolhardy at best, but this was Pavo’s last hope.

Tiny flickers of ambient ether pooled as Khazmine concentrated, casting from flesh to imbue wee Pavo with every scrap of magic she could channel. As Aranthus had done countless times before her, Khazmine bonded herself, her magic, her spirit to Pavocinis, flooding the freshly-fused core with Deceiver magic.

“Please, little one… Please wake up,” Khazmine begged as she kissed the crown of Pavo’s head. Stamina faded from the outcast as her magic dwindled, and the wounded half-breed could barely keep her eyes open as she whispered into Pavocinis’s pointed, caramel-colored ear. “Please, don’t leave…”

With her last bit of strength, Khazmine laid her little brother on the metal lab table, brushed a lock of black hair from his closed eyelids, and collapsed to her knees like one of the faithful in prayer. She’d tried to retrieve something for Pavo before collapsing, but it was no use; Khazmine had nothing left to give. A faceless choir of voices echoed in her ears as Khazmine resisted the increasing heaviness in her limbs that pleaded with the outcast to succumb to exhaustion.

Ressst… Sleeep…

Tingling numbness started at her fingertips and cascaded through Khazmine’s body as she began shutting down on the laboratory floor. The outcast didn’t remember losing her balance and slinking over to one side, landing on the cold, cruel tile with a muted thud. A familiar voice called out to Khazmine from above at the sound of her unexpected landing, distorted and muffled, much like her ghostly choir.

“Kiss-Me? Lady Kiss-Me?” Pavo’s words reached her ears as the half-breed blinked unresponsively from her crumpled heap on the ground. “Lady Kiss-Me, are you okay?”

“Yez, liddle won,” Khazmine slurred as her consciousness ebbed away. One corner of her mouth tugged into a gentle smirk as the outcast closed her tearful eyes and let the tension leave her body. Her fingers relaxed and opened up to reveal the tiny silver locket Khazmine had held onto for safekeeping. “We diddit. We save dew…”

The harsh, false light from the overhead fixture faded into nothingness as the world slipped away around her.