NOVEL NEXT B3 - Lesson 32: “Regroup And Refocus."
The square still smelled of blood and dust, the acrid tang of scorched stone lingering under the sharp bite of the night air. The fight's echoes had faded, replaced by the low murmur of the wounded and the shuffle of boots across grit.
Sister Audrea swept her gaze over the plaza, the stern set of her jaw easing as her eyes found Maggy and Ann. Without a word, she strode forward, seizing both girls into an embrace so tight it made Maggy wheeze.
"By the Stone, you're both still in one piece," Audrea muttered, voice rough with relief. She pulled back just far enough to cup Ann's face in both hands, scanning for injuries, then turned to fuss over Maggy's scraped cheek and the soot staining her robes. "Foolish girls. Charging into that mess—"
Maggy squirmed. "We didn't exactly have a choice—"
"Quiet," Audrea snapped, though the sharpness faltered under the tremor in her voice. She dragged them both in again, heedless of the blood smearing between them.
Bartholomew lingered a few steps away, leaning on a dropped spear. Sweat matted his hair to his forehead, but he was grinning faintly, watching the reunion without interrupting. His eyes half-lidded with fatigue, he gave the impression of a man holding himself together out of sheer stubbornness.
"You," Audrea said suddenly, turning on him.
Bartholomew's brow rose. "What about—"
Whatever protest he'd meant to make was cut short as Audrea caught him by the arm and yanked him bodily into the bloody knot of limbs. "If you think you're too good for a hug after that fight, you're wrong."
He choked out a laugh, grumbling half-heartedly as her arm hooked around his neck. "Alright, alright, Witch, don't break me—"
Maggy's head jerked up at a movement over Audrea's shoulder. Her eyes went wide.
"Dr. Maria!"
She wriggled free and bolted across the flagstones, nearly bowling over a pair of temple acolytes who had finally made their way out of the temple in her rush. The older woman walked over from where she stood at the edge of the square, silver hair tucked beneath a dark hood, her figure small against the looming temple walls. Maggy hit her at full speed, arms locking tight around her middle.
"You made it!" Maggy's voice cracked as she buried her face in the woman's shoulder.
Dr. Maria's arms came up, steady and warm despite the night's chill. She patted Maggy's back, her voice gentling. "Sorry I'm late, deary. I was picking up some help."
She gestured with her chin toward the street. Half a dozen figures in neat nurse's uniforms emerged from the shadows of nearby buildings, their steps purposeful. They moved immediately to the scattered wounded, binding limbs, checking pulses, and, in some cases, hauling dazed thugs upright to drag them into rough lines. More temple acolytes emerged from the safety of the temple to assist.
Garrelt limped into view next, rolling one shoulder with a grimace. "I don't know why you bothered," he said, nodding toward the groaning pile of captured men. "Let the city guard deal with the trash."
Dr. Maria's eyes narrowed over Maggy's shoulder, her tone cooling. "Until we know exactly who ordered this, we can't trust the guard to handle them properly. Not with the city the way it is." Her gaze flicked briefly to the wounded criminals, then back to him. "And criminals or not, if any of them die on temple grounds, it'll be the temple that answers for it."
Garrelt grunted, not quite in agreement, but not pushing the point.
Audrea approached, her robes torn and smeared with dirt, but her bearing still formal. She bowed, low and deliberate. "You have our thanks for your aid tonight."
Dr. Maria waved her off. "If anyone's to thank, it's your Maggy. She's the one who called us here."
Audrea's brows rose, and she opened her mouth — but her words died as a shadow fell over the group.
The insect-armored figure from the battle advanced, his towering frame and chitinous plates still glistening in the moonlight. The temple defenders stiffened instinctively. Ann's claws flexed. Bartholomew's staff angled, just slightly, toward the newcomer.
Then, with a soft hiss, the figure's back arms folded tight against his sides, the segmented plates withdrawing into place. His helmet retracted with a smooth, mechanical sigh, revealing the familiar, weathered face beneath.
"Hugo," Maggy said in relief.
Before anyone could speak further, a faint whine of wings drifted from above. A small [Wasp] drone descended, its optic lenses winking in the dim light as it settled neatly onto Hugo's shoulder.
Maggy, still wiping at her eyes, turned toward it and bowed deeply. "Mr. Alpha — thank you for your help."
The drone's lenses flickered once. Alpha's voice, faintly distorted but unmistakable, issued from its speakers. "Think nothing of it. I only regret we couldn't arrive sooner."
He paused, the tone flattening into something grimmer. "This attack caught us off guard. I didn't expect anyone to come hunting this soon. Not with Robert still a few days away."
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That last line hung in the cold air, drawing frowns and sidelong glances. The relief of survival was already giving way to a quieter, sharper tension. Whatever tonight had been, it was only the opening move.
The crunch of boots on grit drew every head toward the far side of the plaza.
Jonah appeared out of the smoke like a verdict given legs. His bare feet left ghost-prints on the gritty stones, and the silver lines that mapped his skin pulsed once, like a heartbeat you could see. In one hand, he dragged the handler by the collar. The man's boots squealed over grit, catching on a crack, then lifted clear of the ground when Jonah hauled him the last few paces and pitched him into the open.
The body hit with a heavy roll and came to rest at their feet. One arm lay crooked under the man's back. Blood slicked his mouth and already darkened the collar of his coat. He groaned — thin, high, unbelieving — and tried to curl around the pain. He didn't get far.
Alpha's drone tilted on Hugo's shoulder, lenses angling to take in the heap of bruises and breath. "Useful," he said, as if marking down a delivery. "With luck, a few of these men will be generous with information."
Around them, the square worked at being a square again. Acolytes moved in quiet lines, trailing incense and bandages, ferrying the wounded to neat rows. The nurses Dr. Maria had brought spoke in crisp tones and clean motions. Someone righted a toppled lantern. The air kept its bite of dust and spirit-burn.
Sister Audrea had eyes only for Jonah.
She broke from Maggy and Ann with a speed that belied the tremor in her limbs, and closed the distance in two strides. "Jonah," she called, and the name carried like a bell. She caught his forearms before he could flinch away, her hands dark against the cold, gleaming geometry of his skin. "Child. Look at me. What happened to you? Are you hurt?"
Jonah didn't blink. Up close, the metallic tracery ran fine as hair down his neck and under his torn collar. His pupils were pinpoints inside those bright silver discs. The wings that had carried him skyward were gone; only a faint haze of blue light clung to his shoulders, ebbing and flowing with each breath. He stood as if listening to something far away and did not answer.
"He won't be able to respond right now," Alpha said. The drone's voice came soft, like it knew volume mattered. He did not elaborate.
Audrea's head snapped toward the sound. Her hands slipped from Jonah's arms and curled into fists. "Won't be able," she repeated, slow and dangerous. "And you know that how?" She advanced a step, the white of her eyes bright in the lamplight. "Did you do this to him?"
Hugo straightened at once, shoulders squaring, the faint hiss of servos whispering under his armor plates. Garrelt's weight went forward, one boot sliding half an inch. Beneath Audrea's bare feet, the stones heaved in a subtle ripple, seams widening like dry lips.
"Stand down," Alpha told no one and everyone, voice sharp as a chisel.
"You will answer me," Audrea responded.
"Wait!" Maggy wedged herself into the space between Hugo and Audrea's ire, both hands raised. Her cheeks were streaked with ash, her curls frizzed and wild, but her chin didn't tremble. "Sister, please. I don't know what's happening to Jonah, I swear it. But Mr. Alpha is on our side. He came when I called. He saved us." She glanced back at Hugo without thinking. "They saved us."
Audrea's gaze flicked to Maggy, then to the bruised handler at their feet, then back to the boy with the silver eyes. The stones under her toes settled with a reluctant sigh. She kept her voice low, controlled. "I will hear you out," she said. "But I will have answers."
Alpha's lenses narrowed a fraction, an imitation of a nod. "Fair."
Dr. Maria, who had been watching the exchange with her arms folded, stepped forward. "If we're going to talk, perhaps we should do it somewhere less… public." She nodded toward the wider square, where acolytes and her nurses knelt over the injured, binding wounds and murmuring to those still conscious. "The wrong ears don't need to hear this conversation."
Audrea's eyes flicked over the scene, her frown returning. After a beat, she gave a short nod. "Very well. This way."
She turned on her heel and strode toward the temple's main steps, her tattered hem sweeping through the dust.
She lifted two fingers. "Kegan, Tali — with me. Lock the western gate. Acolytes, bring the injured to the hall and post watchers at every entrance. Move the prisoners to the secondary vestry and strip them of everything but their underclothes." Her gaze cut to Dr. Maria. "Your people may supervise treatment, but no one leaves without my word."
"Of course," Dr. Maria said. Her nurses were already moving, trading temple cloth for their own kits. One knelt by the handler, felt gently along the broken arm, and set a brace with professional indifference to the man's groans. Another slid a needle into a thug's neck with the same cool efficiency as a seamstress threading silk. The man went slack as a sack of rice.
"Garrelt," Alpha said, a degree quieter, and the huntsman leaned closer to the drone without making it obvious. "Count faces. If any of them 'wake up' too quickly or try to disappear, I want to know."
Garrelt's mouth ticked. "On it."
Ann hovered a step behind Audrea, still half-changed, the fur at her collar matted with drying blood. Her eyes kept straying to Jonah's profile. Bartholomew shadowed them both, the young man's dropped staff balanced loose in his hand, gaze moving over rooflines and corners.
"Jonah comes with me," Audrea said, her attention returning to Alpha's eye.
Alpha didn't argue. "He doesn't need to be restrained."
"I wasn't planning to," she said.
She reached for Jonah again, lighter this time, the hand of a woman who had tucked blankets around a hundred shaking shoulders. "Come, child," she said. "Inside."
Something in Jonah's posture softened. He turned his head a fraction, as if measuring the distance to her voice, then stepped when she stepped. The light along his veins dimmed to a steady glow.
They moved as a cluster. Audrea led, flanked by Ann and Bartholomew. Jonah walked at her side like a sleepwalker. Behind them, Maggy fell in at Dr. Maria's shoulder, close enough that their sleeves brushed. Hugo paced opposite, helmet open, ant-plates throwing odd reflections along the temple wall. Garrelt drifted on the outside of the group, attention cutting left and right, pausing on faces and the dark press of alleys.
Hugo's armored heel clicked over a broken tile. "You think the guard will keep their distance?" he asked.
"Unlikely," Alpha replied. The drone's optics flickered, and two more [Wasps] rose from the eaves like moths disturbed from a beam. "But we can buy a little time."
At the threshold, Audrea paused and swept the square one last time. Her acolytes had stringed chalk lines in quick, practiced circles around each row of wounded. Dr. Maria's nurses worked like surgeons before an altar. Already, gawkers pressed out of the shadows from nearby streets, perhaps sensing the worst was over. She frowned. Audrea didn't give it an hour till what had happened here spread through the city like wildfire.
As they neared the temple doors, she set her palm to the carved lintel. Grey light, earth-true, crept from beneath her hand and traced the old sigils. The wards thrummed awake, deep and low, like stones settling into place far underground. The doors parted wider.
"Inside," she said again.
Alpha's people exchanged a look — a small, wordless reckoning that crossed Hugo's lined face, Dr. Maria's steady one, Garrelt's guarded one, and the shining worry in Maggy's eyes. Then they followed her into the temple proper, the drone's red eye the last thing to slip beneath the stone, taking the street's noise with it.