But there wasn't time to untangle what Lexel actually was. Whatever he was doing, it had to stop.
"He's using her as a shield and a lever," Hono called out to his team, voice sharp over the settling debris. "Doesn't matter what his plan actually is. If Layla stays locked in his grip, this whole space keeps destabilizing, and that benefits nobody but him and his mage."
The Paladin, still shaking dust off his shoulders, tightened his grip on his shield. "So what, we go up there?"
"We free her," Hono said. "Whatever leverage he thinks he has, it disappears the second her hands are her own again."
Mavi was already moving, low and fast along the tilted floor, eyes fixed on the ledge where Lexel and Layla still stood.
"We are coming to save you, Grandmagus!" Hono called out, waving one arm even as he scrambled over a tilted slab of stone.
Layla smirked, wrists still locked in Lexel's grip. "What will you do now, o great Trickster?"
"Let them come," Lexel said.
