The world was muffled. Pressure on her chest, grit in her teeth, blood in one eye. Nan stirred beneath the rubble, breath shallow and lungs burning with dust. Her ears rang from the explosion.

  She reached inward, clawing through the fog of pain and debris until she found the core of her mana. It responded slowly, sluggish and thick like cold honey, but it came. With a flicker of thought, she tethered it to the wreckage pinning her and the others. The rubble began to rise in staggered jerks, stone and timber lifting into the air like reluctant disciples answering her will.

  Nan pushed herself upright as the last slab hovered clear. The square unfurled before her, a battlefield of broken bodies and shattered order. People were scattered in every direction, some trapped as she had been, others bleeding, and more than a few lying unnaturally twisted. Screams rang out, panicked and raw.

  Emma and Doc were already moving, casting healing spells and triaging as best they could amid the chaos.

  She stood there for a long moment. Smoke drifted past her boots, curling like regret around her ankles. No orders left to give. No plan left intact. Just consequences.

  Hours later, the scent of ash still clung to her robes as she sank into the high-backed chair in her office. The window behind her was cracked from the shockwave, letting in a thread of cold, dusk air. She hadn’t changed. Didn’t bother. The blood on her sleeve had dried to a rust-coloured stiffness.

  Emma hovered at her side, fussing despite Nan’s quiet insistence that she leave. The girl, stubborn as always, had refused, clearly determined to see for herself that Nan was truly all right.

  The two figures slumped across from her looked far worse. Emma should’ve been focused on her father and sister, not fussing over her. Jon bore a deep gash across his brow, the skin around it already darkening to violet. Sarah’s face was a web of scratches, her armour scorched and torn in ragged strips. She’d been closest to the blast. How she had survived, only the gods could say.

  Nan let the silence stretch long enough to sting, long enough to make them squirm. Then she spoke, voice low and flat.

  “I gave you both one order.”

  Her eyes didn’t flicker. “Detain him. Not attack. Not ambush. Not ‘ignite half the god damn square in a public spectacle.’ Detain.”

  Jon opened his mouth.

  “Don’t,” she snapped. “Not unless you’re about to reveal you’ve developed the power to reverse time, restore the square, and bring back the leads we just lost.”

  Jon’s jaw clicked shut.

  Sarah stared down at her blood-smeared gauntlet, jaw clenched, defiant but quiet.

  Nan leaned forward slightly, hands steepled. "You rushed ahead, from what I heard you attacked him as soon as he left that leather shop, was that in my plan?"

  "Granny, he murdered Liam. What the hell else was I supposed to do?" Sarah’s voice cracked as she spoke, the grief clear, but the anger hadn’t gone. It still burned beneath her words, stubborn and hot.

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  "Oh? Sarah, you didn’t mention you’d managed to extract some new information before I arrived," Nan said, her voice steeped in dry sarcasm. "Did he confess? Did he conjure Liam’s body from thin air?"

  Sarah’s head dropped, the answer plain in her silence.

  "No," Nan continued, tone sharpening. "You let your grief drive your blade. Just because the System handed you a sword doesn’t mean it needs to solve all your problems. We’re supposed to be rebuilding civilization, and instead, my own blood is brawling in the streets like ferals."

  Nan surged to her feet, fury radiating off her in waves. The air thickened as her body rose with it, feet lifting inches from the ground, her long coat drifting around her like she stood in the eye of a silent gale. Books, scrolls, even a half-filled teacup, all suspended in her telekinetic orbit, trembling under the weight of her fury.

  Emma rushed to her side, murmuring for calm, but Nan didn’t slow. She hovered forward, a storm in miniature, small in stature but vast in presence, advancing on Jon and Sarah with all the weight of her fury wrapped in silence and suspended gravity.

  "We have the word of one man. We don’t even know if my grandson is dead, and the only person who could offer the other side of the story has now fled. I’ve sent out trackers, none have returned with so much as a trail." Sparks snapped off her fingertips, dancing through the air like shards of her temper.

  She caught herself descending, feet brushing the floor as gravity reclaimed her. No, she needed to steady herself. She was chastising them for losing control; it wouldn’t do to lose hers in the process.

  "I understand why you acted. But you need to understand what you’ve cost us. I don't fully trust the alchemist, he is too eager to be useful, it feels off. I wanted to find out what truth he told me." Nan walked back around the desk and sat, brushing debris off the surface like it was an afterthought. Like she hadn’t just levitated half the room.

  "You acted like you believed him. The way you spoke to Richter and that girl." Jon's voice was quiet but laced with accusation.

  "I needed to see how they responded to Doc’s narrative. That girl, there was more than simple resentment in her eyes. She loathed him. Not the kind of hatred you get from a bad doctor-patient relationship, something deeper."

  Jon and Sarah stayed silent. Nan sighed. She should have told them everything, shared the real plan from the start.

  Nan exhaled slowly, folding her hands with deliberate precision. “That’s enough for now. I need quiet, and you both need time to remember who you serve. Not your grief. Not your guilt. The people of this town.”

  Her gaze shifted between them, heavy with restrained disappointment. “When we founded Lakeside, I told you this wasn’t about us. It still isn’t. I know you loved Liam. So, did I. But next time, think before you turn that love into fire.”

  Her gaze lingered on Emma. “Take them. See to their wounds. I’ll call for you when I’m ready.”

  Now alone, Nan gazed through the fractured pane, her eyes sweeping across the quiet town below. On the outskirts, a flicker of light danced behind the windows of Doc’s apothecary. He’d been very specific about the location, nestled against the outer wall, half-swallowed by stone, away from the bustle of the main square. You could make this more sinister: No neighbours. No foot traffic. Just what a man trying to hide something might want.

  Strange, for someone who claimed to heal. Why choose isolation over accessibility? He’d had first pick when Lakeside was founded, and still, he chose the edge, far from the people, far from the supplies. When the other patients from his psych ward arrived, his apothecary already had facilities built in. Specialized spaces she’d never been invited to see. No one had. Since construction, those rooms had remained sealed, quiet, hidden, and deeply suspicious.

  Pulling up another panel, she skimmed Doc’s archived arrival logs, standard records: when he arrived, what he claimed, what the townsfolk thought they knew. Most of it was vague. But one detail stood out.

  Multiple early accounts didn’t say “psych ward.”

  They said “prison.”

  Just like that redheaded girl had said.

  Nan sat back in her chair, the weight of it settling in.

  They hadn’t just lost their only lead.

  They might’ve made a massive mistake.