The thing about all hell breaking loose is that unless it breaks loose right in front of you, you have no idea what to do.

While my brain dashed between run, fight, dive to the floor, or just stand there and shake, my hands took the more practical approach and got hold of some pointy steel. Other than Carnades, there were no bad guys to stab at the moment, but that could change. No sense being unprepared.

Meantime, the alarms continued to shriek like freaking banshees.

And the rest of our team wasn’t here.

Dammit to hell.

“What is that?” I shouted over the din.

“Call to arms.” Mychael ran to the door. “Allek?” he shouted down the hall.

“Attacks in the city, sir!” came the response. “We’re on it!”

Mychael spat something under his breath and extended his hand, palm up. A clear globe instantly appeared above his hand with an image of Vegard, from the shoulders up, visible inside.

“Report,” Mychael ordered.

“Breaches in the city.” Vegard had to shout to be heard over some din of his own. “The four outer districts. I’ve dispatched response teams.”

“Reinforcements are on the way,” Mychael told him.

“Sons of bitches are coming through as far from the citadel as possible,” Justinius said. “By the time our boys get there, they’ll have come, taken what they came for, and gone.”

I didn’t have to ask the old man where they’d have come and gone from. Mirrors and/or small Gates. Or what they’d come to take—any student or mage they could get their hands on and drag back with them. Until his monster Gate was ready, Sarad Nukpana was starting his fun and games with mirrors and smaller Gates.

“Are they Khrynsani?” Mychael was asking Vegard.

“Negative. Regular army, a lot of them.”

Mychael swore. Justinius swore. I broke out in a cold sweat.

Sarad Nukpana and the goblin king had started the invasion—or were about to—and more than half of our team wasn’t in the mirror room yet.