Erin jumped between the rooftops beside Alex, and he seemed to be running slower than he normally did. Usually, he would be off and ahead of her, but she actually had to stop to let him catch back up every few rooftops they jumped between.


    She didn''t have time to ask, but something was wrong. Every few steps, Alex would stumble before catching himself, and he was breathing harder than he should. He had just been in a fight with a captain, but that wasn''t enough to explain it.


    "Wait," Alex said, stopping on a rooftop and dropping his hands to his knees as he caught his breath. "Just let me take a breather."


    "What''s wrong with you?" Erin turned and slid down the slanted roof tiles to him. "You''re acting like you''re having a stroke."


    "I''m only thirty," Alex said, clutching his chest. "I think it''s my curse."


    Erin frowned and put her hand on his shoulder. He was shaking, and his entire body was slick with sweat beneath his duster. The only treatment she knew for a stroke was to let him wait it out, preferably not on a rooftop.


    "I''ll be alright." Alex waved her arm away. "Just give me a minute. I''ve just been getting spikes since I closed my gate."


    "That shouldn''t happen," Erin said.


    She had never heard of anything like that happening with curses. Curses were part of the body and didn''t inherently harm a person. However, the problem was that Alex had an artificially created curse.


    "Stick to the plan." Alex looked up, and blood trails ran from his nose.


    Erin didn''t like it, but he was right. Her ''Thorn Garden'' technique wouldn''t hold the captain forever. She shook her head and moved so her shoulder was underneath his. Giving him her support, they both began running across the rooftops.


    "Let''s just hope Sayed doesn''t wreck the ship," she grumbled as they climbed to the top of the slanted roof and then down again.


    Jumping together took some effort, but they made it across the gap. As they came up to the top of the next rooftop, she saw a shadow against the night sky in the distance. A ship, the Robin, cut through the night sky toward the rooftops. Erin helped Alex down on the roof, and he held onto the corner of the top while she took a seed out of her pocket and reached up high.


    She opened her gate, and the twining energy of growth flowed out from her heart and through her arms. Her hands glowed green as she held the seed aloft, and the plant shot out and up from her into the night sky.


    "Moon Flower."


    It reached higher above her than it would ever grow naturally. That was the power of her curse. She could cause living things to grow faster and greater than they would normally, all fueled by the green light flowing from her body. It made a beacon that no one would miss. An orb-shaped bulb opened at the top of the flower, and a new moon shone brightly in the night sky.


    The slipship turned in the sky and came for them. For a moment, Erin was concerned. Sayed had almost no experience piloting a slipship, but he had been the best option of the three of them for the task. If he messed up now, then the entire plan would have been for nothing.


    "He''s got it," Alex mumbled from where he lay on the roof, still holding onto his chest.


    "You''ve got more confidence than me," Erin said, looking around the rooftops. "Shades."


    A shadow crossed across the path they had taken in the distance, and Erin didn''t have to guess who it was. She climbed up the roof to Alex and worked on helping him up. From the sky, the ship tilted down. From the rooftops, Captain Grayson ran toward them.


    "This is going to be close," she said, reaching into her pockets for a seed and pulling out a green one. "Can you hold onto me?"


    "Hey, that''s something I would say." Alex''s head dropped onto her shoulder, and she almost fell over as more of his weight hit her.


    "Stop!" Captain Grayson yelled. "Step!"


    Hrrm. Groan. Crunch. Slam.


    "Vine Whip!"


    Whip. Crack.


    In that one instant, the ship came close to the rooftops, and the bottom of the ship cut across a nearby roof, breaking through the shingles. Erin poured energy into the seed in her hand, and a green stem shot out from it, reaching out with a crack to catch the ship''s edge as it passed. Grayson reached for her, a hair''s breadth away from grabbing hold of Alex.


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    In the next instant, the vine ripped at Erin''s arm, carrying her and Alex away from the Captain''s grip as the ship pulled up and away into the night.


    "Shades!" Erin''s arm screamed at her in pain from her wrist all the way down to her shoulder, and her open gate flooded the energy of growth throughout her arm as the ground flew away beneath her.


    She tried to pull up on the vine, but holding onto Alex was taking everything she had. Erin focused on keeping hold of Alex as Zanhai''s lights faded into obscurity in the distance. She was certain he wouldn''t survive the fall if she let go of him now.


    "Did I get them?" Sayed boomed from above, and soon after, she saw his face looking over the railing. "Ah, there you are, my brothers! Just a moment, and I will pull you to safety!"


    With a grunt, Sayed pulled up on the vine, hand over hand. Each pull ripped at Erin''s arm, and Alex almost slipped from her grip with each tug. Her muscles burned, and sweat poured into her eyes, but she held on for both of their lives.


    "And over!" Sayed pulled one last time, and Erin was thrown through the air to the ground with Alex. "Quite the maneuver, brothers. I expected Alex to jump up with you instead."


    "There were complications," Erin said, standing and walking a few steps away to steady herself.


    Thanks to her curse, her body was mending, but she felt like she had just been stretched out. She took a few moments to orient herself. She could see the cabin at the front of the ship and knew they needed to hurry. If there were any other Military Police vessels nearby, it would only take a report from the captain to get trouble on their tail.


    "Carry him to the helm," Erin said as she staggered toward the cabin. "We need to get out of here first."


    "Understood," Sayed said, reaching down and picking up Alex before proceeding to walk ahead of her to the helm.


    After about ten steps, she was fine but still felt frayed at the edges. Ever since she had met Sayed and Alex, she had been pushing her curse harder and harder. She had never heard of the adverse effects of using a curse, but she had to wonder if relying on it too much would affect her.


    That was a problem for another time.


    Sayed put Alex against a wall inside the cabin before kneeling next to him. Erin approached the helm, grabbing hold of the wheel and looking over the controls. For a Military Police vessel, it was a fairly standard affair, and with a few levers flipped, she could push the ship forward and into the night.


    "Is he breathing?" she asked Sayed as she focused on getting them out of the island''s bubble as quickly as possible.


    "Yes," Sayed said. "I think he may be sleeping."


    "The pain''s put him out." Erin hoped that was the case because the alternatives were worse.


    "Do you know what is wrong with him?" Sayed asked. "You are a healer, are you not?"


    "I have no idea what''s going on with him." Erin bit her lip but didn''t correct Sayed. "He said that he thought it had something to do with his curse. Have you ever heard of a curse hurting the person that uses it?"


    "No, blessings would never harm the wielder," Sayed said. "That would defeat the purpose of having blessings."


    "We could try to take him to a doctor," Erin said as the ship began to shake in her hands. "Brace for exit."


    Rumble. Pop.


    Through the windows, the dark night sky faded, and the stars disappeared, only to be replaced with the nightsea. A void of darkness with bubbles of light strewn across it lay before her, and whispy light trails stretched out across the darkness from many of them. With that, they exited Lundao''s bubble, though Erin wouldn''t dare look back at the island until they were far away.


    Erin flipped a switch, and a screen on the ship''s console lit up. A map of the nearby nightsea glowed a steady green on the black screen. With the press of a few buttons, she set the coordinates of their destination: Death''s Yard.


    "Alright," she said as she stepped away from the console. "They''ve got a basic autopilot on this thing so that we can step away for a while without any major issues. Let''s get him below decks and into whatever they use to sleep around here. Then we''ll figure out what we need to do."


    "Yes, brother," Sayed said, picking up Alex in his arms like a child and starting down the nearby stairs.


    Erin followed him, only taking a moment to check the windows around the ship. The entire area was clear, but she didn''t like leaving the helm alone. Plenty of dangers out in the nightsea could take out an unaware crew.


    A single light lit the far side of the cargo hold as Erin walked down the steps to follow Sayed. In the distance, she could see several boxes lining the walls. Thankfully, the hammocks were right at the front of the cargo bay, so Sayed could set Alex down without them having to explore the entire bay in the near darkness.


    "Go watch the helm, Sayed," Erin said. "Just make sure we don''t run into anything, and come get me if you see anything odd."


    "Yes, brother," Sayed said, climbing back up the stairs.


    Erin set about examining Alex. She peeled off his duster and shirt and looked over his chest. Nothing by itself seemed out of the ordinary. He did have a massive metal object embedded over his heart, but that was part of his artificial curse. Doctor Ozymandius, head of Section Six, had done something to Alex in a lab on August, though she wasn''t privy to the information. She only knew that Alex attributed the metal object to his curse, and she had no reason to doubt him.


    However, she didn''t have something similar, and no curse user she had ever met needed something implanted over their heart. Curses were just something that happened in the nightsea, and people had them. Maybe if she wanted to do autopsies of dead curse users, she might be able to figure out more, but she stayed as far away from healing work as she could since she had come to Erth.


    That was part of her life that she had left behind on Erys.


    "What should I do?" She reached out and touched the metal with her fingers, only for it to burn at her skin. "Ah!"


    That wasn''t helping anything, but now she was more certain that the pain was related to the metal object. She was no Doctor Ozymandius. She wasn''t sure she could do anything with the object without hurting Alex more. She needed someone who had real expertise with curses.


    "Your friend is in pain," a deep voice sent hackles up Erin''s back, and she jumped up and away from Alex.


    She turned toward the darkness of the cargo bay around her and reached for the dagger on her belt. In the shadows of the single light, she could make out a cage in the center of the cargo bay with long black bars. At its center, she saw a dark-skinned man kneeling in blue robes. Her heart raced in her chest.


    How had she not seen him before?


    "His curse is growing," the man said again, a white toothy smile stretching across his face in the darkness. "He''s reaching for the next grade."