Black lightning bolts launched into the air from the barrier. The bolts arced upward before crashing down onto the roof of the Codexium and the surrounding streets—narrowly missing the people at the front of the crowd.

The sudden appearance of the black lightning bolts was enough to send the entire crowd running in every direction, most of them away from the Greenwood Codexium. Even the town guards ran, though at least a few tried to herd the crowd in a safe direction, away from the chaos of the Unstable Spell Entry.

As for myself, I took a step back from the crackling and sparking barrier, which now surrounded the Nullifier like a crackling dome. The Nullifier jumped to his feet and tried to touch the barrier, but his fingers sparked against its surface. He cried out and yanked his smoking hands away from the lightning-charged field, collapsing to his knees and groaning in pain as the swirling energy within the barrier spun faster and faster.

“Aaron!” Jonah ran up beside me, with Ruth on my other side. Both of them stared at the Unstable Spell Entry with expressions of confusion and fear. “What is happening? What did you do to that guy’s barrier?”

I threw up my hands defensively. “I don’t know! I thought I’d destabilized its glyph structure and turned it off—but I got a notification saying it’s going to self-destruct within the next five minutes if we don’t fix it!”

“That’s why we should run like everyone else and get out of here before we get blown up too!” said Nimbus, thumping his foot against my shoulders anxiously. “I could teleport all of us out of the explosion’s range. We’d be safe.”

I shook my head. “And let this exploding spell damage or even destroy the Codexium? No. I’m going to fix it. Somehow.”

I added that last part because I genuinely wasn’t sure how. It wasn’t like I had the glyph structure of the barrier memorized. I’d really just torn through it without any plan because I figured that would be the quickest and most efficient way to take down the Nullifier.

But clearly, I’d been messing with something I didn’t understand—and now I was about to face the consequences for that horrible mistake.

Jonah took a step back. “Normally, I don’t like running away, but I think Nimbus has a point. We need to leave.”

I shook my head again. “No. At least I’m not going to run. Jonah—shield Ruth. I’m going back into the barrier with my Inscriptionist Console. If I can’t fix it, then you guys will at least be protected if nothing else.”

Jonah bit his lower lip, but he slammed the butt of his trident into the ground and formed a half-circle golden barrier in front of him. Ruth quickly ran behind him, glancing anxiously at the crackling and sparking barrier, but I paid them no more attention as I stepped forward and opened the Inscriptionist Console on the Unstable Spell again.

Once more, I viewed the glyph structure of the spell—only this time, it was far messier than before. Broken glyphs and shattered spell lines were everywhere, and it was impossible to tell which ones needed fixing and which I could safely ignore. The timer ticked down mercilessly in the upper corner of my vision.

Three minutes left before the spell self-destructed.

“Nimbus!” I said, wiping the sweat off my forehead as I focused on the glyph structure. “Can your Auto-Stabilizing ability fix the glyph structure?”

Nimbus furrowed his brows but shook his head. “No can do. It’s only works on one glyph a day. You need to focus on a specific glyph to make it work. And while I can’t see the glyph structure myself, I’m guessing you broke a lot more than just one glyph, right?”

I bit my lower lip in frustration but knew Nimbus was right. Even if I focused on one glyph at a time, Nimbus’s ability only worked once per day. That meant the rest would have to be repaired manually—and I didn’t know nearly enough about glyphs or glyph structures to fix something I’d broken, especially under such a brutal time crunch.

A minute and a half left.

Maybe Nimbus was right and we should run. Or at least hide behind Jonah’s shield. I cursed myself for my arrogance—thinking I could fix what I’d broken when I didn’t even know what I’d broken in the first place.

But before I could step away, I heard a voice behind me say, “Need help?”

I looked to my right. A hooded man—the same one I’d noticed standing in the crowd earlier—was now beside me, an intense expression of focus on his face. He looked young, probably about my age, with long dark hair streaked with strange glowing runes.

More importantly, I noticed he was carrying what appeared to be a pen, longer and slimmer than my stylus. The pen was covered in runes—similar to my stylus, though the exact runes were different. They looked more refined somehow, as if they’d been designed by someone with an obsessive attention to detail.

I stuttered. “Um, yeah, I guess—but how can you help—”

Another notification interrupted me, filling me with more dread when I read it:

Warning! Unstable Spell Entry will self-destruct within one minute.

“Let’s do introductions later,” said the hooded man, his voice cold and even. He turned his piercing blue eyes toward the spell and narrowed them. “What a mess.”

I frowned. “Mess? What mess?”

The hooded man glanced at me like I’d just asked the dumbest question imaginable. “The glyph structure of the Unstable Spell Entry, obviously. It looks like you just tore it apart with no idea what you were doing. Frankly, I’m surprised the entire spell hasn’t already collapsed and created a malformed Spell Entry in the real world. I’ve seen messy and I’ve seen chaotic, but this is definitely on the chaotic end of things.”

He winked. “But that’s why I’m here. I’ll fix it.”

The hooded man raised his pen and began rewriting new glyphs along the glyph structure of the Unstable Spell Form. Surprisingly, I could see exactly what he was doing through my Inscriptionist Console—though I wasn’t sure if he was aware of that or not. Did he have an Inscriptionist Console of his own? That was the only explanation that made sense for how he could see and manipulate the glyphs like I could.

It was honestly mesmerizing to watch him repair the damage I’d done. His pen glided smoothly and effortlessly across the wreckage I’d left, reweaving broken spell lines and reinforcing damaged glyphs. I could’ve watched him work all day, but then another notification appeared in my vision:

Final Warning! Unstable Spell Entry will self-destruct in 30 seconds.

“I know, I know,” the hooded man said, dismissing the notification with a wave of his hand. “Almost finished…”

I was floored by how calmly he ignored both the warning and the ticking timer. I couldn’t take my eyes off the countdown in the corner of my vision—but at the same time, I couldn’t look away from how deftly he worked. His movements were too fluid, too precise. He moved like someone who did this sort of thing every day.

Part of me wanted to jump in and help, but then I remembered that I was the reason the spell was falling apart in the first place. The best thing I could do was stay out of his way.

Not that I had time to do much of anything, anyway.

Because the timer ticked down to one second left before the hooded man pulled his pen away and said, “There. That should do it.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the timer froze—paused at exactly one second.

That wasn’t the only sign of his success. The black barrier stopped crackling and sparking. The runes powering the spell steadied, glowing with a faint, stable rhythm. The Unstable Spell Entry had stabilized itself. Inside the barrier, the Nullifier—still cradling his burned hands—looked up in confusion and awe, clearly not expecting this outcome.

Then the following notification appeared in my vision:

The Unstable Spell Entry of the glyph barrier has been stabilized!

The glyph barrier is no longer in danger of self-destructing. It is now safe to approach and remain within its vicinity.

“Don’t tell me what I already know, Codex,” the hooded man muttered as he waved a hand in front of his face, dismissing the notification. His eyes narrowed. “Now we just have one rat to deal with.”

The “rat,” of course, was the Nullifier—who shakily rose to his feet. Though clearly shocked by the hooded man’s sudden intervention, he still managed to put on that same oily smile he’d worn earlier when trying to sway us over to his cause. “Thank you, kind sir, for stepping in and repairing the damage caused by that irresponsible little boy standing next to you. You’ve truly saved not just my life, but the lives of many others as well. A true hero.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Little boy?”

The hooded man shrugged. “Thanks, but I wasn’t trying to be a hero. Just cleaning up a messy situation I happened to stumble into. Pretty used to that, honestly—seeing as my Discipline is good for that sort of thing.”

The Nullifier nodded eagerly. “Indeed, it would appear to be so, my good friend. I can already see many ways your Discipline could be of great use. Have you ever considered joining the Nullifiers? We’re always looking for new recruits—especially promising young men like yourself.”

The hooded man nodded once. “I have, in fact, considered joining the Nullifiers. There’s just one problem with your group that I really need to address before I can consider joining in any capacity.”

A frown crossed the Nullifier’s face. “And what would that problem be exactly, kind sir?”

The hooded man’s expression hardened. “I hate people who create chaos.”

He tapped his pen against the barrier—and it instantly vanished. It didn’t collapse like a destroyed spell; it simply disappeared, as though the Nullifier himself had turned it off.

Wow. He overrode the Glyph Code and turned off the spell, even though it wasn’t his own. That shouldn’t have been possible.

The Nullifier took a step back, stammering, “What in the Logos—?”

SLAM.

That was the sound of the hooded man driving his fist straight into the Nullifier’s jaw. The Nullifier spun around and crashed onto the street, dazed and limp, while the hooded man stood over him, calmly flexing his fingers as if the punch hadn’t even hurt.

My jaw dropped. “Whoa. How did you—who are you?”

The hooded man looked over his shoulder at me, his expression cold and unreadable. “Silas. Silas Dravyn. Though really,” he added, glancing down at the unconscious Nullifier, “I’m more of a glorified Codex janitor.”