Chapter 26: If a Slap Doesn’t Work, a Good Amount of Water Will

The first strike from the lizards against the ice walls hit like a bulldozer.

The frost dome shook violently under the impact, sending small chips of ice raining down onto Faye’s still face, tiny cracks already spiderwebbing across the wall.

Realizing she’d badly underestimated the raw power of the two beasts, she raised a single hand and began chanting again.

The first three lines matched her previous spell exactly, only the final phrase changed.

"Veil the world in ice mist."

At once, a thick white mist began billowing out beyond the dome.

The fog wasn’t meant merely to block their sight, but to slow them down.

Under the biting cold, ice began forming over the lizards’ red, steel-like scales, creeping across their massive bodies bit by bit, locking their joints in place. It wasn’t enough to stop them outright, but it did the job remarkably well.

Bracing for another assault, the creatures slammed their heavy heads against the dome once more, hoping to shatter it clean through.

Thankfully, their slowed bodies took the edge off the second blow, leaving nothing worse than a few minor cracks in the ice.

The beasts weren’t the only ones running low, though.

Faye’s smooth, pale face had gone whiter, as though every drop of blood had drained straight out of her.

Two spells alone had already eaten through most of her mana.

She looked at the empty scrap of paper on the ground, the one that had been holding her precious cookies not long before.

If she’d had even a bite of them, she could have regenerated enough mana to cast another spell. In the end they were made with ingredients high in mana, the sort that were rare to find and cost a fortune.

Even so, no flicker of despair crossed her face. She simply turned back to Magna, watching him quietly, waiting for him to wake.

Studying his features, her brow knitted together, as though noticing something for the very first time. "Why does she look like... a he?" A small crack broke through her flat, emotionless voice.

After his latest transformation, Magna’s body had shifted again, subtle changes, but unmistakable ones.

His muscles seemed to have recalibrated themselves entirely. His abdominal and leg muscles, in particular, looked as though they’d been fitted with extra gears, built to handle the new speed running through him.

His upper body had sharpened too, his shoulders broader now, with a sleeker line to them, his chest built out further, an evolutionary answer, it seemed, to high speed friction.

The most striking change, though, was his face.

His nose had grown sharper, more prominent, nothing like Faye’s soft, button-shaped one.

A defined jaw, sharp cheekbones, thicker black brows, all of it gave him a distinctly masculine look, one that clashed rather sharply with the feminine structure he was apparently meant to have.

It was more than enough to leave Faye thoroughly bewildered, never having seen a boy anywhere near her own age before.

As a Witch from a prominent bloodline, she’d grown up in near total seclusion, hardly any contact at all with the outside world.

Even the maids and servants in her household had always been women.

The only male she’d ever actually seen up close, in her whole life, was her father, Titus.

Just as she was trying to make sense of it all, another violent slam against the dome snapped her back.

"I need to stay focused," she muttered to herself, something like a command.

This emotionless state wasn’t something she’d fully mastered yet.

It shielded her from the worst of her feelings, fear and hesitation above all, which was the whole reason Winterborne Witches had been so respected.

In this state, not only did their calm hold steady, boosting their odds in dangerous situations, but their capacity for clear, strategic thought sharpened too, letting them react far faster than they otherwise could.

If Faye lost this state now, one she’d stumbled into purely by chance, she knew the flood of suppressed feeling would leave her utterly helpless.

She had to hold on, at least until Magna came back to his senses.

But with no sign of him waking, she decided to step in herself.

Raising her hand high, she brought it down hard, a sharp slap landing across his cheek, the sound echoing through the dome.

"Wake up," she said flatly, cradling the hand she’d just used to strike him.

’What’s his face even made of?’ It had felt like slapping solid rock.

Seeing he still wasn’t stirring, she turned to a spell instead, not wanting to hurt her hand any further.

She chanted the Water Sapphire spell, the simple little bit of magic the mother goblin used to cast all the time, barely a drain on her mana at all.

A sphere of water formed, hovered a moment, then splashed straight onto his face.

"Pugh! What the..."

To her relief, he snapped back to his senses.

The first thing Magna registered was that he was sitting inside some structure made of solid ice. ’Did I black out again?’

Beyond the frost walls, he could just make out the shapes of the two lizards, still trying to break through.

It didn’t take him long to piece together what had happened, looking at the girl across from him, her cold, empty eyes staring back.

"A-are you okay?" he asked, a flash of embarrassment heating his face, partly from being looked at like some total stranger, partly from realizing she’d had to protect his unconscious body from turning into lizard food.

"I’m fine. Are you?" Faye answered, still holding her hurt hand, red now from the slap.

Magna noticed the redness but, having no idea what caused it, didn’t ask. He had rather more pressing things on his mind.

"Yeah, I’m good. Thanks." He pushed himself up, testing his limbs, working out what had changed.

"How long do you think this ice can hold them off?" he asked while genuinely marveling at the state of his new body.

He could feel something explosive running through him, especially through his legs and lower body.

He ran through a few quick stretches and realized the transformation hadn’t just boosted his strength and muscle, his flexibility had shot up through the roof too.

Faye watched him drop effortlessly into a full side split, touching his toes on either side without the slightest strain.

She couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was doing, but answered him anyway. "Not very long."

She didn’t know the exact time herself, but looking at the cracks spreading across the walls, it hardly took a genius to see they were running out of it.

"Got it." Magna finished his quick check and stood back up. "Can you open a gap for me? I need to get outside."

If he was going to fight those lizards, there was no way he could manage it cooped up in this tiny dome. Speed was his biggest edge now, and speed needed room.

Unluckily for him, Faye shook her head. She didn’t have enough mana left to undo or reshape the spell.

That was bad news. The only option left, it seemed, was sitting tight and waiting for the lizards to smash the wall down on their own.

Then another thought crossed his mind, a way out of the dome that didn’t mean waiting for it to collapse.