The word barely left my mouth before the chamber exploded into chaos.
Evelina moved first.
Fabric erupted from everywhere: her sleeves, the air, the shadows between the torches, hundreds of crimson threads that shot toward the archmage like striking serpents. They wrapped around his wrists, his ankles, his throat, his chest, binding him in layers of magical cloth that shimmered with succubus-enhanced power.
He didn't resist. Didn't even flinch.
Kevin followed a heartbeat later, his serpent-coiled magic lashing out in a wave of violet light. Not an attack, not directly. His spell sank into the archmage's shadow, anchoring it to the floor, rooting him in place with chains made of darkness and starlight.
Vivianne's wind came last among the three, a screaming vortex that didn't aim for the archmage himself but for the space around him. The air pressure shifted, collapsed, compressed, a cage of invisible force that locked him in place from every angle.
Three layers of restraint.
