Illusion + Hydrokinesis

A quartet of Jaces lunged from beneath the table, each sprinting in a different direction to take cover beneath or behind some other flame-resistant obstruction, this one a pillar, that one another table. The thing that had skittered across the stone watched all four. Its ears lay back in confusion, and it stretched its mouth wide to utter an angry hiss that was the crackle of a dozen bonfires.

It might have been a cat, this thing, had it not been roughly the size of a hunting dog—and had it not been made entirely of a living, semi-solid flame.

Moving in concert, all four images of Jace leaned out from cover. From their outstretched hands, a thick spray of freezing water arced across the open-air café to drench the fiery predator. A geyser of steam shot into the air, and the hiss of water-on-fire almost drowned out the terrified shriek of the elemental.

Then the images, the water, even the steam were gone. The feline creature stood, utterly confused, its animalistic mind unable to grasp the concept of illusion.

And Jace—the real Jace, who had been none of the four phantoms but wrapped tight in an illusion of invisibility—rose up before the distracted, disoriented beast, hauled back a fist and struck.

***

Agents of Artifice, Chapter 8