The second boulder came before the first spray finished falling.
Arthur was already moving right. It hit the stone behind him and burst sideways, the shockwave catching his ankle, and he stayed upright through pure stubbornness and kept going.
Alfia didn't chase him. She didn't need to. She pulled the water from the air, from the spray still hanging, from the burst still spreading across the floor, and it gathered at her palm in a dense rotating mass that was bigger than the last one.
He counted. That was the second shot. He'd fired once and clipped her sleeve. She'd fired twice and both misses had still hit him with spray.
This was going great.
"EVERRETH REFORMING INSTANTLY. THE OUTPUT ON THIS SECOND-YEAR IS OPERATING ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LEVEL—"
