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She sobbed once and threw her arms around my neck. I cradled her close and rocked her, fighting my own tears. If I failed tonight, Ciana might die. We all might. And selfishly, I hoped that if Ciana died, I'd already have bled my life into the snow, because I didn't think I could live knowing I had failed her.

I sniffed and hugged her tightly. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you?” I asked, rocking her. “You are the child of my heart. And I love you with all my heart and mind and might. And if I had a soul, I'd love you with that.”

“I love you too.” I heard the tears in her voice, thick with pain. Her arms tightened so that my breath was stopped, and I nuzzled her hair, turning so I could breathe, drawing in her scent. To remember.

When I realized she wasn't going to let go, I reached around and pulled her arms from my neck. “Go inside,” I whispered. “See if you can activate the shield. Go on.” I pushed her toward Lucas, who had reappeared. He hugged her and whispered into her ear. With a final touch, he sent her on, leaving his outstretched arm empty. Kneeling in the street, the ice freezing my knees, I watched as Ciana walked into Thorn's Gems and reappeared in the display window.

She stared into the night and splayed open one hand on the glass like a benediction, her long Stanhope fingers oddly shaped. Her mouth moved, soundless in the distance, and energies rose in the foundation, lifting through the walls to the roof. The loft blazed with power, glowing with an energy pattern that looked like oily scales and dripping water. The shield was in place.

I took a frozen breath, inhaling air so cold it hurt my lungs, feeling raw on my scarred throat. The two-story shop and the building beside it weren't invincible, but they were now danged hard to damage. Satisfied, I rose from my knees and studied my champards as they began to return, armed to the teeth. They were checking weapons, looking toward the Trine, the three peaks lost in the night, sharing a word or two, but mostly they were silent. They were ready, or as ready as one can ever be to face death.

Eli was still waiting, and when my eyes met his, he stood and picked up Cheran. With a wrench of his shoulders, he dumped the mage at my feet. Cheran's face was white with frostbite where his cheek had rested against the ice, and his eyes were slit, anger and humiliation spitting from them. He was in shirtsleeves, shivering, wrists tied with rope at the small of his back, the witch-catcher strapped around his head, rods inserted in his mouth, holding his lips apart, his tongue depressed. Unable to keep his mouth closed, spittle had dried and frozen on his face. His ankles were snugged together with leather straps over his boots.

I inspected him with mage-sight, seeing the energy patterns like lacework over his body. “Take off his boots,” I instructed.

At the words, Cheran bucked up and Rupert promptly sat on his back. The small mage whuffed out a breath at the weight.

“I always get the nasty jobs,” Eli complained to no one in particular. Giving the mage a halfhearted kick, he bent down, saying, “Hope you ain't got smelly feet, bro.” Eli grabbed a boot and pulled, as the mage kicked and fought, both of them grunting for breath. A moment later Eli said, “He's got his ankles locked.” With a wicked grin, he added, “Want me to cut 'em off?”

“Yes,” Audric said.

Cheran made a strangled noise and relaxed his ankles. Quickly, Eli slid the boots off. Conversationally, he said, “I meant the boots, not your feet, bro. But whatever works.”

Cheran struggled again, mumbling what sounded like “uck ooo,” and Eli chuckled. “Now, now. Watch your mouth. We got kirk elders nearby. Wouldn't want to get branded, and scar up that pretty face. Hey, senior champard,” he said to Audric, holding up the boots, “I really like these. Mother, may I?”

“Spoils of war,” Audric said.

Eli wasn't much larger than the mage, and as he pulled off his own boots, replacing them with the nearly priceless mage-boots, I knelt in the snow and peeled down Cheran's right sock. Against his skin was a circlet of gold and copper, the wires braided and wrapped and shaped to fit his leg without chafing. It fit him so perfectly there were no marks, no blisters. Mage-work had gone into both the creation of the conjure and fitting it to his limb.

“Mamma mia. That looks nasty,” Eli said of the twisted wire.

“It is,” I said. “Very nasty.” Cheran bucked and writhed. Rupert rode the struggles like riding an untrained horse. I worried about his back, but smelled no fresh blood on the air and hoped the healing stones I had bound there were working. When Cheran wore himself out, I rested a knee on his calf and inspected the amulet.

There were many kinds of conjures, from the simple ones I usually employed—incantations to heat bathwater or to spark the flame on my gas stove—to complex conjures that moved storms over places of drought or shielded entire cities. This amulet contained a complex conjure. It glowed with peculiar energies, and as I studied it, I decided my first impression was right. This thing had dangerous mojo.

Careful not to touch the wires, I nudged Cheran's foot over. The talisman was imbued with curious patterns, in colors I associated with Darkness, though it smelled of mage energies, not brimstone. Because I had made the marble egg, I recognized the amulet was a relay, a switch to draw on stored power. It was a link to a formidable energy sink, more potent than the energy sink that powered the shield over the loft and shop. The sink activated by this talisman had to be ten times bigger, and because Cheran was a metal mage, it had to be stored in metal, tons of metal dedicated to one conjure. Metal was rare and growing more scarce. I had no idea where sufficient unclaimed metal could be found, but wherever it was, it was primed for activation.

The talisman controlled way too much power to carry around safely, proving that Cheran had great control. Without it, he could go blooey, a very messy way to die indeed, scattering bits and pieces of himself as he took out half the town. Or half of the state where the sink was.

I wondered why he needed so much power, and doubted that the entire neomage council that licensed and sent him knew about it. If not, this was proof of something sinister in the ranks of the Enclave council. A shadow council? I should tread carefully here. Should but wouldn't.

I pulled the Flame-blessed blade and held it over the coil of metal. Softly, addressing the blue plasma minor seraphic being who had inhabited my tanto, I said, “I am omega mage, yet I do not demand or command. I merely ask and seek.” The blade hummed against my hand, warm even through my glove. The vibration was almost like a purr, rhythmic and soothing.

“I am a stone mage, unable to access a metal conjure, yet I need the strength in this metal amulet.” At the words, Cheran screamed a wordless cry, spittle landing on the snow and freezing instantly. Rupert slammed his fist against the back of the mage's head, knocking him into the ice. He fell silent, only his breathing giving away that he was still alive.

“Is it possible for a Flame to follow and comprehend the incantation and the mathematics of a mage conjure?” I asked the blade. It grew warmer in my palm, as if excited. I took that as a yes. “Will you interpret this conjure, show me its workings, and give it over to me?”

The purring grew louder, the heat against my hand hotter. A sizzle, like static electricity, tickled my palm, a sensation close to pain. In mage-sight, the blade grew bright, a small, thin sun, and I turned my eyes to the side to protect them, seeing only with peripheral vision. The blade pulled down toward Cheran's ankle and I allowed the point to drop.

It hovered over the amulet. The braided wire absorbed the presence of the Flame, warming. The anklet began to glow, quickly heating red hot, burning Cheran's flesh. The mage began to scream. I almost pulled the blade away when I realized what was happening. But I didn't know if that would be worse. I had a vision of Cheran's foot severed from his leg. I steeled myself against the sound of his screams. Against what I was doing.

With mage-sight, I watched the action of the Flame as it revealed the incantation buried in the wires, seeing it as it expanded and divulged itself. Neomages—and it had to be a group working together, as no single mage could fashion so complex and deadly an incantation—had created a weapon of mass destruction, a bomb drawing on the creation energy of luxons. Not an atom bomb. Something far more deadly. Something for which I had no name.

Cheran was screaming in cadenced bursts with each breath, strangled grunts. The stench of scorched mage-flesh and the hot smell of metal rose on the air. In mage-sight, I followed the incantation, feeling my way through the math by instinct, teasing apart the differing strands of equations, but I was unable to hold them all in my mind. Settling myself to sit on the icy street, I opened a mind-skim as well, blending the two scans.

Nausea rose like a cresting wave, a sour taste in the back of my throat. Holding the sword in one hand, I put the other on the street for balance. When the queasiness decreased enough for me to be fairly certain I wouldn't toss my cookies, I looked again at the amulet.

The relay and trigger were woven together in the anklet. They were built into the amulet, twisted wire forming two knots, one on either side of his ankle. They both sang with potential, dual notes of devastation. I blocked out both the destructive notes and Cheran's screams and followed the leading of the Flame.

Metal magery was a conjuring so far from stone magery that I could barely follow it. But both used heat, intense, unimaginable heat, to store and generate power. Both used luxons. With the prompting of the Flame, I followed the pathway of light particles through the incantation. South. To the place where the energy sink was stored.

“Well, kiss Habbiel's pearly toes,” I said, so surprised I uttered the small swear.

“What?” several voices asked.

“It's underground. It's stone and metal combined.” I leaned in and let my eyes trace the smooth lines of power that slid from the anklet, seamlessly south, far south, beneath the ground. Toward an iron ore deposit deep in the earth. “Rupert. You saw his papers. Did his train stop in Birmingham?” I asked.

“For several days,” Rupert said, his voice sounding far away.

Birmingham. Yeah. The sink was in an undiscovered iron ore deposit near Birmingham. I studied the conjure as the stench of burned flesh grew. I spotted the hand of four mages, two metal mages: one stone mage, and one earth mage. And I would bet my pants that the earth mage was Élan, the acting priestess of New Orleans Enclave.

“Thorn?” Rupert called, his voice still sounding far away. “Unless you want him permanently maimed, you might better stop.”

“Sure. Okay,” I said, surprised when my lips didn't seem to be working. I smacked them once and they felt numb. Shivers wracked my body. I opened my eyes to find it was full night.
Tears of Taharial
, how long had I been working?

Blinking, I pulled back to see the mage's ankle. Shock sparked its way through me. Cheran had stopped screaming, passed out from the pain of the glowing amulet.
Feathers and Fire,
what had I done? My mouth went dry. The wires had burned into Cheran's tendons and bones, leaving blackened flesh around the amulet and raw, bleeding flesh above and below. I leaned in closer and someone provided a flashlight. In its beam Cheran's toes were still pink, so I hadn't severed the circulation. Yet.

I lifted a healing amulet from my necklace and snapped the string that held it in place. Working on instinct, I placed the amulet on the mage's exposed and blackened anklebone and touched it with the tip of the mage-steel point. Instantly the Flame blazed again, and new skin sprang out from the edges of the mage's healthy flesh. The bone snapped as charred areas fell away to litter the snow. Fresh bone filled in and rounded out, and Cheran's muscles quaked and seized at the rearrangement of calcium and protein molecules. He groaned, coming awake, his voice sounding scratchy and strained. And still the healing continued as tendons swelled and stretched into place and skin seemed to crawl out of the blistered edges and seal it up.

“Angel snot,” Eli said. “Would you look at that.”

I managed a smile at his words. Minor Flames had healed humans after the battle against spawn. That had seemed nearly miraculous, but this was even more so. Healing in fast-forward. And the Flame wasn't drained by it. I was still using the blended scan and watched the Flame pull energy through the anklet from the iron ore deposit as it healed, using whatever power source was most handy. And it did so without triggering the bomb, though I hadn't told it to.

And the really cool part? I understood how to do that now too. Both how to use the energies without triggering the bomb and how to trigger it at will. Using the Flame-blessed steel blade, I knew how to steal the power from a metal mage's incantation. And if I could steal the power, I could also redirect it.

I sheathed the tanto and found the clasp that held the amulet on Cheran's ankle. With cold-clumsy fingers, I unlatched the wire and lifted it away. The metal was still hot, but no longer dangerously so, and I slipped the wire around my left wrist beneath the glove. It clicked softly and shaped itself to my wrist bones.

Now that's a really cool amulet.

I had made impromptu plans for the coming battle. Not delicate, intricate strategy, but simple tactics along the lines of “Kill the Darkness any way we can.” Now I might—maybe—have a way to make it all work. If I didn't blow up the town and half the state of Alabama along the way. Carefully, I eased back from Cheran.

Deep night had fallen while I worked, and the large flakes of snow had disappeared, leaving only sleet and smaller, irregular flakes that stung as they landed. My hair was wet beneath my cloak hood, which someone had belatedly pulled up. My primes were both warm, activated to protect me from the melt, but they had done nothing for my hands and feet, which were aching with cold. My muscles had stiffened where I had been sitting for so long.