The outer courtyard was a steaming, hissing mess of melting black ice and dissolved purple mana. The green recruits were cheering, leaning over the defensive alcoves to look at the puddle of slush that used to be a terrifying splinter group.
I didn't cheer. I kept my grip tight on the wooden railing of the battlements, my eyes scanning the dark, howling blizzard beyond the broken outer gates.
"Ginji," I said quietly, the cold wind whipping my hair. "Foxes have better hearing than humans. Is it over?"
Ginji didn't sheath his uchigatana. His russet ears were pinned flat against his head, twitching erratically.
"No, My Lady," Ginji whispered, his amber eyes wide. "The footsteps... they didn't stop. They went underneath."
Before I could even process what he meant, the thick stone flagstones of the inner courtyard—directly in front of the main kitchen doors—violently exploded upward.
