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Several nights later, Noa was trying to drift off to sleep when something snapped him awake. 

He sat up, looking around the room. Nothing looked strange…but it wasn't completely silent. Almost below the range of his hearing, there was a sporadic rumbling noise. 

Noa got up, pushing the jackets off him, and put an ear to the wall. Touching it revealed that it was shivering slightly. So it wasn't just his imagination. 

Noa stared at the ceiling, worried, but it held firm. The ground wasn't shaking, and it felt...familiar. 

Then came a sound like shuffling, and a couple of worrying clatters from upstairs. 

Beside him, the magic circle Miyori had given him on the first night chimed. Noa touched it to activate it back, then got up and pulled on his clothes. 

A few minutes later there was a tap at the door. 

He pulled it open to see Miyori in her pajamas hovering in front of him. "Are you okay?" she asked, voice high with stress. 

"Yeah," he said. "How about you?" 

"A couple things fell over upstairs," she said. "And the lights aren't working right. I wasn't sure whether it'd be better or worse down here." 

"Better, I think." Noa reached for his jacket. "Do you want to take a look and see what's going on?" 

Miyori shook her head. "Looking for sabotage again? But why would someone do that here?" 

"I'm not sure." But the idea that there might be someone out there doing something stuck with him. He couldn't help a prickle of curiosity. "But if the spell infrastructure's interrupted, it would be good to know sooner instead of later…" 

"My parents are still trying to clean things up upstairs," Miyori said. "I should probably go help with that…I just wanted to, you know, check that you're okay." 

"Thanks for that," Noa said. "I wish I could offer to help, but, well…" 

"Don't worry about it," Miyori said. "It shouldn't take long. You're not going to go out on your own if I leave you down here, are you?" 

Noa froze, and then grinned a little guiltily. "I...won't if you don't want me to?" 

She sighed, looking more fond than annoyed. "If you really want to go check it out, then I'm coming with you. Let me get my coat." 

She fluttered away upstairs again and Noa considered his bag. If this was more than a coincidence, he might get lucky and see one of those symbols again, and in that case…. He slung his bag over his shoulder and went to wait in the hall. 

Miyori was down in another minute, in a jacket and also dressed. She gave him an unconvincing stern look. "Mom and dad say we shouldn't go too far and to stick together." 

"Of course," Noa promised, pulling the front door open. 

He was already imagining what he knew of the building layout in his mind, guessing where they might find evidence of tampering. 

But as he closed the door behind him, someone came buzzing up to them at top speed. 

"Noa-kun? Miyori-chan?" It was Yuko, still in her nightgown with a jacket thrown on top, panting for breath. "Oh, thank goodness. Is everyone okay?" 

Miyori nodded, and Noa held out a hand for Yuko to perch on. She took it, panting. "We're fine. Some stuff fell off the shelves, but that's about it. Are you and uncle—" 

"We're not," Yuko said. "There was—the flooring didn't stay up right, and one of the facades came down, and it—Daisuke is—!" 

Her eyes were welling up with tears. Noa felt his heart start to race. "Miyori-san. Go tell your parents and get some more people to help." He looked to Yuko. "Hold on, okay? I'll get us back there as quick as I can." 

Yuko nodded, gulping. "We need to hurry," she said. 

Miyori fluttered up to the house to pass on the message, and Noa started to run. 

*** 

It wasn't obvious from the outside that anything was wrong. The front of the Matsudas' workshop looked about the same as ever, with the construction materials Noa had been working with for the past few weeks stacked out front and the newly installed steel shutters for the storefront closed. 

He turned to Yuko. "Where—" 

"Ground floor," Yuko said, sounding grim. "Or it is now, anyway." 

She opened the door with a well-placed spell, to utter chaos. 

What had been the ceiling was strewn across the floor, wooden beams and chunks of plaster. Tiny furniture had been broken in the fall and was lying at odd angles with bits and pieces scattered across the room. 

Off to one side, in a crazy lean-to of furniture and several crossed beams, was a tiny twitch of motion. 

Noa rushed over, but slowed as he approached. It looked like one wrong move could finish crushing the tiny body trapped underneath. "Daisuke-san?!" 

"Oh, hey, Noa-kun." Daisuke turned to look at him, ghostly pale in the low light. "Got a bit of an urgent job for you here, if you think you can help out?" 

"Of course. Stay still." Noa considered the mess piled on top of the pixie. He could start from the top and remove one thing at a time, but that might be risky. Better, if he thought he could get away with it, to…

Noa put a hand on the beam closest to him and shut his eyes. 

Magic had its limits for all sapient beings. Most people could lift about as much with magic as they could with their physical bodies, though the amount of control they had was based on practice and scaffolded with spell structure. 

This debris was a mess, so it wouldn't be easy to move carefully.
But if he could manage just a few moments of brute strength…

Noa shoved air out through his nose in a sharp breath, and pulled.
The entire mess rose up, trying to lose shape but pressed into place by Noa's magic. It stilled a few inches above where it had started. 

It stayed for one heartbeat. 

Two. 

Noa opened his eyes to slits and caught a glimpse of Yuko dragging Daisuke out from under the wreckage. 

Just a few more seconds…

Feeling his control start to slip, he reached out for the two pixies and pulled them out of the way. 

A second later there was a large crash. The debris tumbled back to the ground, settling into a new pattern. 

Daisuke whistled. "Wow. You've got a lot of power, there, huh." 

Noa shrugged, and Daisuke winced as the motion jostled him. 

Noa realized the hand that was holding Daisuke was damp. A too-warm trickle ran down his hand, soaking into his sleeve. 

"You're hurt," he realized. 

Daisuke nodded, face tight. "Couldn't get a good look at it, but it doesn't feel great." 

The lights overhead were broken, the second-floor lights distant. Moving as gingerly as he could, Noa hurried to the storefront counter, tapping the wall where he knew the activation spell was. As he'd expected, the human-built lights worked perfectly. 

As he lay Daisuke down, they showed a nightmare. 

Daisuke's foot was twisted in the wrong direction, and there was a nasty divot in the middle of his thigh. A small pool of blood began to form the instant Noa laid him on the table, and the movement of setting him down made him groan in pain. 

"Oh gods," Yuko said. "Honey, we need to get you to the hospital. Now." 

"I." Daisuke took a sharp breath. "Moving doesn't feel great right now. I can't—"

"How far is it?" Noa asked. "I can carry you—"

But the blood pool was already spreading, and Daisuke's eyes were already starting to flutter shut. 

He was already almost out of time.