Chapter 26: Bound

"So we're here," Quentin said, glancing around the fountain clearing as moonlight glistened across its surface. "Okay, wait where's Kai?"

"I don't know," Alice replied. "He said he wanted to go get the boundary component… but we've arrived. This is where it happened."

She stepped forward, her voice rising in quiet invocation.

"Place of his transformation... present yourself."A pause.

"There's a third step..."

Unseen by either of them, hidden behind the thicket just beyond the clearing, Kai stood motionless beneath an Invisique spell, the Gemini cloaking spell that rendered him invisible to sight, magical or mundane.

'Right on cue', he thought, eyeing the subtle distortion of energy now condensing within the area. 'So... if I were to snack on its magic, would I even get full of it? How much raw Wellspring magic can a body which is immortal absorb before something goes pop?'

Then he heard something.

Alice. Singing.

"Won't you come see about me..."

Kai blinked.

'Seriously? Is that... Breakfast Club?'

Just as he was thinking to himself, the air shifted. He felt it first as a tremble in his bones, a density in the weave of magic nearby. Then he saw it. A shimmer by a tree, a crumpled figure hunched down, smoke rolling off his skin like he had been set aflame from the inside out.

"Well, well, well…" Kai muttered under his breath. "Look who finally crawled out of the furnace."

It was Charlie. Or... what used to be.

Kai watched as Alice spotted him too and gasped. "Charlie? Charlie, is that you?"

The figure lifted his face. "Alice?"

"Oh my God, it's really you. I missed you so much I don't even know what to say," she whispered, stepping closer, hand extended.

But the moment their hands met

"Agh!" Alice recoiled, her palm sizzling with magic.

"You're hurting me, Charlie!"

Kai vamp-sped into the clearing, canceling the invisique as he appeared beside her, his hand intercepting Charlie's mid-grasp.

A sudden hum surged through the space where their hands met Kai's palm glowed red, absorbing the volatile, crackling essence.

His eyes widened slightly.

'Ohhhhh... shit. That's quite a reserve.'

Alice screamed, "What are you doing?! Stop!"

Kai, face tight with seriousness, said, "Back off, Alice. Now."

"No! He didn't mean it he's just confused!"

That moment of distraction was all it took.

Charlie broke free, eyes igniting blue as he threw Kai away with a burst of telekinesis. The heretic slammed into a tree, cracking bark and staggering upright.

But Charlie couldn't move forward.

He looked down his feet were surrounded by a glowing white salt circle, thrumming with a magical charge.

Quentin noticed. "Alice… look!"

"The hell?" Alice whispered.

"Salt Boundary Spell," Kai said as he rejoined them. "Drawn and powered with intent. Meant to hold specific entities."

He glanced at the Niffin, narrowed his eyes.

'Specifically made for you.'

Alice looked horrified. "No no, let him go! He's scared!"

Kai turned sharply toward her. "That is not Charlie anymore, Alice. That's a magical singularity wearing his face."

She shook her head. "You don't get to decide that!"

And in her panic, she blew apart a segment of the boundary with a burst of raw magic.

Everything moved fast.

The Niffin teleported, appearing before Quentin, knocking the niffin box from his hands and grabbing him by the throat.

"Q!" Alice screamed.

Kai was already moving.

A quick sequence of cast and he casted a Maiming Spell. Charlie's knee shattered with a crack, forcing him to drop Quentin.

Kai vamp-sped again, grabbed a nearby branch, hardened it with a structural chant, and impaled Charlie's other leg but the Niffin disappeared again in a burst of blue fire.

On the steps behind them, Alice spotted him.

"I can help you, Charlie! Please listen to me!"

She began chanting rapidly, her hand glowing ominously blue. Quentin shouted, "Alice, stop! You're going to kill yourself!"

Kai ignored them both.

He stood firm and began his own incantation:

"Imperium Monstrum!"

Magical barrier contained the Niffin as the containment spell took place.

Kai moved fast, standing directly in front of Alice just as her casting hand started to turn blue with magical burn. He reached out and grabbed her wrist.

Her palm glowed red, heat intensifying as he absorbed the excess energy.

"No, don't please stop! I can do this!" she cried.

Kai's grip tightened, absorbing the wild magic streaming out of her. "You're killing yourself," he said coldly.

Then, nodding to Quentin, Kai gave the signal.

Quentin raised the box again, chanting:

"Seni bağlamak!"

The box glowed with a violent, flickering light.

"No!" Alice screamed. "No, no, no!"

Kai held her firmly as she tried to break free.

"Seni bağlamak!" Quentin shouted again.

Light erupted.

Charlie's Niffin form collapsed into pure blue energy, as it was drawn into the box in a stream of glittering, agonized sparks.

The moment it was done, Quentin dropped the box, exhausted.

Kai finally released Alice's wrist.

Alice stared at him in disbelief. "You… you brought the box?"

"It was for the best," Kai said calmly.

Quentin added gently, "He was going to kill you."

Alice turned on them both, eyes wide with betrayal. "Why did you think you had to save me?"

She stared straight at Kai. "How could you?"

Kai's tone sharpened like a blade. "Between you alive or dead, Alice, it was an easy choice."

Then, with a voice cold and serious

"But if you want to die so badly, I recommend a knife. At least be honest about what this was… it was suicide, and you knew it."

Alice's lip trembled. "Fuck you."

She turned to Quentin. "Fuck you too, Q. Neither of you had any idea what I was doing!"

"Oh yeah?" Kai stepped forward. "Well, neither did you, Alice. You weren't close. The only thing you were close to was becoming a Niffin."

Silence.

Then Kai looked to Quentin. "You know what? I'm out of here. Good night."

Alice, quietly as she turned away: "It was my choice."

She stormed off into the night, leaving only Quentin and the glowing Niffin box behind.

After a long pause, Quentin exhaled and turned to pick up the box but it was gone.

He froze, scanning the area. "Kai?" he called.

No response.

The Niffin box… had vanished.

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