"Impossible!" said Awnadil. She raised a shaky finger accusingly at Lumina.

Lumina tossed her golden hair back and flashed a sparkling smile. "Impossible, she calls me. I rather like that, very flattering. But I think I prefer being called inevitable. Don't you think?"

"My apprentice tormented this town for weeks, and I saw and knew every hand that was raised against her. How could she have done all this if you were here?"

"I only just arrived, obviously. Only, please don't avoid the dragon in the room. That's not why you're so surprised," said Lumina.

Awnadil grit her teeth, glowering.

"Go on. Say it. Say something about fate," said Lumina.

Awnadil gritted her teeth, but held her tongue.

Lumina threw her head back and laughed. It lasted for a little too long, and it didn't catch on. The recovering townsfolk and the undead all stood stoically, watching her.

Lumina wiped a tear from her eye. "Now I see why you're dressed as a clown. Go on, say something foolish."

"We need not quarrel here," Awnadil said. "Even you could not protect all present from the suffering that I can unleash. I will depart, taking only my godson with me, my Aberthol. I do have such concern for him, you know. Oh, he's the dour thing there they call Brin."

The smile dropped from Lumina's face. "Foolish, true, but I think I should have said I wanted to hear something funny. And that’s not funny at all."

“He is mine by right. I am his godmother,” said Awnadil.

“My dear crone, I am his mother,” said Lumina. That elicited a gasp from several of the townsfolk. Battered, bruised, and broken, they still weren’t immune to a little bit of soap opera drama.

“I know his mother, and you are not her,” said Awnadil. It was Brin’s turn to gasp at the revelation. Aberthol’s father had been certain his biological mother was on her way to torture and death, but now Awnadil was talking about her in the present tense. She was still alive? He didn’t know how to feel about that. Well, actually he did. He hoped he’d never meet her.

Lumina shrugged, unconcerned. She didn’t so much as glance at Brin. “I adopted him.”

“The Wyrd does not recognize your claim. He is mine by natural right. A [Witch] is never stronger than when protecting that which is hers,” said Awnadil, and she wasn’t being hypothetical. Brin could feel the Wyrd now, and there was more power in Awnadil’s left pinky than had existed in the entirety of Siphani’s formation. It was more power than Brin had ever seen or felt before, more power than he knew was possible. “This is what a [Witch] is for. This is the power and purpose of my Class.”

“My Class is [Archmage],” Lumina said simply. There was no similar build-up of power that Brin could feel, but Lumina’s casual confidence almost made him feel safe.

“You will not deliver my godson to me?”

“I will not,” said Lumina.

“Then I curse you!”

Curses were invisible and insidious, but Brin thought he’d have been able to see this one even without [Know What’s Wyrd]. All the spite in the world seemed to be contained in the curse, and Brin wished he couldn’t feel its terrible intentions. Melt her eyes, a stew from her brains, cockroaches in the intestines, skin falls off…

Lumina reached out a hand and yanked the spell out of the air. She forced it to coalesce, to manifest physically. It became a thick black sludge, and as she wrapped her fingers shut the sludge disappeared inside her fist. She squeezed, and the curse winked out completely.

“I will repeat. I am an [Archmage]. Did you think your petty tricks were something too exotic for me? I am a master of magic. Your Wyrd is not weird to me.”

Awnadil’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t intend to let me flee. You won’t accept surrender.”

“Quite right,” said Lumina. “You’re too dangerous. I can give you that one compliment at least.”

“Then why speak to me at all?”

“Why else? To give my [Knights] some time to catch up. I had to—”

The green bunny blasted forward on a cloud of rotten mist, moving so fast that it almost looked like teleportation. Lumina brought her staff up just in time and warded it off with a bar of glowing flame, so bright it hurt Brin’s eyes.

Lumina shouted words of the Language, and the bar of white-glowing flame separated into darts that flew at the green bunny, dispersing wide swaths of its corrupted cloud everywhere they flew.

The bunny itself was quick as thought, dodging around the darts and instantly healing over any places where the darts burned through. Brin used [Inspect] when it held still for a fraction of a second, and to his surprise, actually got something.

Tigsi the Bunny. She’s the cute one.