Maeve stood in the centre of Merlin’s Gate cavern, hands on her hips, hair slightly frizzed, robes dusted with ash, and absolutely no intention of admitting fault. Behind her, where there had once been a perfectly respectable stone wall, was now… not that.
Chunks of rock smouldered faintly along the edges of a neat-ish hole blasted clean through to a darker stretch of cavern beyond. Maeve tilted her head, considering it.
“I mean, structurally, it’s still holding,” she added.
The silence lasted only a second before Arietta snorted and Isabeau lost it completely. And just like that, they were all gone. Maeve had doubled over, clutching her sides as laughter spilled out of her, echoing wildly around the cavern.
“I told you,” she gasped between breaths, “I told you not tolayerthe sigils.”
“And I toldyouthe resonance would stabilise it!” Isabeau shot back, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Clearly, it did not,” Arietta wheezed.
Another wave of laughter hit, stronger this time because honestly, it had been aspectacularexplosion. Which, in their opinion, counted for something, and somewhere behind them, there was a deeply unimpressed huff. Maeve glanced over her shoulder.
“Oops,” she chuckled, then ducked her head to hide the smile.
Binky stood a few feet away, wings slightly puffed out, feathers noticeably singed at the edges. He looked like an extremely disgruntled, lightly toasted feather duster.
“This,” Binky said flatly, “is a personal attack.”
Maeve winced.
“A small one?”
“Aflamingone,” Binky snapped.
Beside him, Bas flicked his tail irritably, said tail now sporting a very unfortunate singed tip.
“I liked this tail,” Bas muttered. “It had character.”
“It still has character,” Maeve offered.
“It smells like burnt regret.”
“That’s also character.”
Bas glared at her. Nearby, Grundlepus, who had somehow managed to remain seated through the entire incident, blinked slowly, his enormous feline face utterly unimpressed.
His whiskers, however, were gone… or rather singed down to uneven, slightly crispy stubs.
Grundlepus turned his head toward Maeve with the kind of quiet, devastating disappointment that hit far harder than shouting ever could.
“I can fix that,” Maeve said quickly.
Grundlepus blinked again, stood slowly, and walked away, also ignoring his own witch on his way out of the cavern.
Arietta and Isabeau were no help whatsoever, still laughing behind her, their laughter turning into hiccups.
“You’re all very unsupportive,” Maeve added.
“You blew up the wall,” Arietta reminded her.
“It was a team effort!”
“It really wasn’t,” Isabeau said sweetly.
Before Maeve could argue further, they heard the fast stomp of footsteps hitting stone. Jessica burst into the cavern, eyes wide, hair slightly windswept, with Dave right behind her.
