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THE SOUND OF of shoes slapping against stone echoed behind Thea. Bex must've been right on their heels.
Thea whirled around, stopping abruptly and making Bex freeze as well. "Stay down there. Protect them if Aeres tries to break out."
"But Thea—"
"We've got this! Everything's fine!" Thea hastily yelled behind her, already running up the stairs and almost crashing into Peter in the process.
The couple burst into the icy foyer and didn't waste a second barreling through the doors of the Sanctum. The blinding influx of sunlight made Thea squint as the stinging burn seared into her eyeballs but there was no time to adjust to the fact that it was already daytime.
From the Undercroft, it was hard to tell that the sun fell and rose. It felt like the world had collapsed in an eyeblink. Her attention flitted to Peter and she surveyed his frantic state. For her, it was normal to spend over 48 hours without sleep and still function normally but Peter was working himself to the bone.
Thea bit back a huff. Stress was traded between them like a child of divorce in the parking lot of a Denny's.
Peter fired a web at the building across the street. Rhaeon and Vissera, who camped out for the night, recognized Peter and didn't budge from their rooftops. The elder unhinged his jaws and let out a rumbling yawn. Peter's mask lenses widened to the size of dinner plates as Rhaeon's dragon, Elion grumbled above him.
"Oh my God, that's a big one!" he exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. Shaking off the spike of fear, he launched himself into the air with the box under one arm.
A portal suddenly opened in front of his airborne body, teleporting him right back into the street like a time warp. Three heads whirled around to see Strange standing on the doorstep of the Sanctum. He crossed his arms over his puffed-up chest, lips twisted into a stormy frown like they stole his credit card or something.
"Give me the box," he ordered tiredly.
"No!" Peter protested. He lifted his arm with the laser shooter but a flurry of orange sparks swallowed the gauntlet, making it disappear in a second.
Thea was up. Dueling with Stephen Strange wasn't the plan but to be honest, he had it coming. What she lacked in access to mystical knowledge, she made up in tactical application. She lifted her hand as glimmering red glyphs rotated around her fingers and down to her wrists. A trail of fire suddenly burst from the ground, writhing like a snake. Strange lifted himself into the air, his enchanted maroon cape rippling behind his shoulders. The hellish fire suddenly split into two trails and shot up like geysers. The flickering tongues coiled around Strange's ankles, binding his legs together before flinging him over the Sanctum's roof. A painful thud echoed, making Thea flinch.
