This isn't New Orleans.

Aadhya is there and it isn't New Jersey. Caio is there and it isn't Brazil.

"Oh fuck, did I -" breathes Bella. She was holding a torus of antimagic, as they went through the hall, with the three of them huddled in the middle. Most mals couldn't cross it at all; some had enough mundane form to manage, or enough momentum to be unable to turn back once they entered, and Aadhya's pike covered in argonet teeth and the poison Caio brewed was meant to turn aside those if they got to the magical donut hole, and Caio was maintaining a shield and he'd run himself ragged transmuting exotics for Aadhya's pike and making potions for them all to take so they'd be able to cast and jog and breathe and see where they were going through the shimmer of the torus at the same time.

Bella was supposed to be keeping an eye on the leading edge of her torus, and reshape it when they got close to the gates. She is probably not strong enough to break the gates but if she did they'd all be dead and a bunch of other people besides, so. And she was pretty sure she had it - she was so sure -

"Fuck, I'm so, I'm so sorry," she says, and she bursts into tears.