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“Seraph stones,” I whispered. They hadn't wasted any time. Audric chuckled under his breath and I resisted the urge to sink an elbow into whatever body part was closest. I managed a smile and a wave at Jasper's wife, Polly, who raced from the fireplace and enveloped me in a breath-stealing hug that rammed my head between her breasts. I felt myself flush with embarrassment even as I suffocated.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said from over my head, rocking me back and forth, smothering me. “Thank you again and again and again.”

Gently I pushed her away, filling my lungs, the grin I had faked becoming real. “You're welcome,” I said. Okay. This wouldn't be so bad. I liked Polly. We could have tea. Visit. “The bathroom is in the back. It's clean. The floor isn't well insulated and gets cold, so keep the gas logs up high. And keep a kettle simmering on the fireplace so it doesn't dry out too much.”

“You sound like an old mother hen,” she said, squeezing my shoulders.

My flush deepened and I patted her arm, turned, and looked right into the lens of a camera. I caught myself before I cursed on live TV, but it was a near thing. Romona Benson, camera on a shoulder, stuck a mike under my chin. “You found a way to provide mage protection over the two buildings here.” Behind her, the door opened with a jaunty jangle and a stream of kids entered. I stared at Romona, who was blond, like Polly, though with the polish of the big city. “Can you tell us why you can't cover the whole town?”

I could feel my smile freezing into a semisnarl. Audric, sensing that I was about to make a blunder, stepped up beside me. “My mistrend is working at the full extent of her gift. A ward for an entire town requires many mages working together.” Before she could ask, he said, “The two mages in Mineral City have gifts that do not meld well.”

Another voice took up the narrative. “And so, Thorn St. Croix of Mineral City is offering Thorn's Gems, and Darlene Smythe is opening her dress shop next door, making available all the buildings that are protected by Thorn's ward,” Rupert said, stepping between the camera and me. “The children and the elderly of the town may sleep in safety for as long as needed.”

The elderly too?
I fought the need to sit down fast. So much for being asked to provide space. Someone sneaky had planned all this behind my back and the town fathers had dumped it on me. Looking at Rupert, I had a good idea who.

“Her champards will be bunking in with her,” Rupert continued. “I have offered my loft, also under protection, to accommodate the numbers.” He swept out an arm and the camera followed the motion, Rupert leading Romona into the human clutter. My friend and partner was dressed in navy robes, the cut made popular by the seraph Uriel, when he visited the White House last fall. His eyes were ringed with navy and his hair was loose on his shoulders. He looked fully healed. And spectacular. And very dramatic as he stared into the camera, gesticulating, talking.

However, I smelled blood and knew his back was still a problem. He ought to sit down, but I wouldn't spoil his fifteen minutes of fame by pulling him to a chair. Instead, I used the opportunity to slip upstairs to my loft. There were humans in the stairwell, preteens using the relative privacy to huddle and giggle, and still more in Rupert's loft, adults dividing up space and laying out bedrolls. I nodded weakly to them, slid into the privacy of my own loft, and closed the door, sinking against it. This sucked Habbiel's pearly toes.

It wasn't quiet. The building was old and the walls were thin, and the muted roar of many voices, punctuated by the occasional high-pitched scream, made their way through. Even here it was chaos, Rupert's and Audric's things piled in front of the couch, weapons and clothes and what looked like Pre-Ap board games, Scrabble, Yahtzee, a pack of playing cards. “Blow it out Gabriel's horn,” I said. “I'm in hell.”

Feeling trapped in my own space, I draped the amulet necklace over a chair back, changed into jeans and a fuzzy sweater, opened the
Book of Workings,
and looked up Trapping Darkness in Stone. The
Book of Workings
was constructed of blackberry ink on handmade paper. The book itself wasn't a thing of power, not a book of spells or incantations, nothing so mundane, only a guide, a map of sorts, showing mages the path to our gifts. It was divided into thirds and the directions for the incantation were in the final third of the book, the section dedicated to warfare. I seemed to be studying that part of the book often these days.

I had always believed that incantations seldom used blood for conjures, but had discovered that really difficult workings required either several mages or blood, though never on the full moon, which made it black magic. It was only the easy conjures, the daily incantations for cooking or heating bathwater or illumination that could be done with just the mind. If I had studied the book like Lolo had wanted for the ten years I was banished, I would have known that. There was so much I didn't know, so many misconceptions. I needed a teacher.

Cheran Jones came to mind, and I flipped through the sheaf of papers he had left. Nothing I could use. Mostly cryptic notes that hinted at solutions to several neat incantations, but nothing with a big arrow that said, “Do it this way!”

I could ask him, beg him, to teach me how to use the visa to call for seraphic help, but he hadn't done so himself last night, when his own life was in danger. Maybe there was some prohibition against calling for help, like the proscription from calling mage in dire unless a human innocent was near death, or a mage's life was threatened by humans or Darkness. Or maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he was here to watch, judge, and teach me, but that didn't include saving humans in danger. There wasn't time now, but I would go to him in the morning and ask for his help. A small part of me insisted I didn't have to like him to let him teach me.

But for now, I had nothing, absolutely nothing, and a Dragon, a Prince of the underworld, was coming. Threads of true fear coiled under my skin, burning with cold. I stared at the incantation suggested by the new priestess.

Trapping Darkness in Stone was an incantation for seven mages. Big help there. It needed a lot of power. A
lot
. Power I didn't have. Unless I drew on the Trine again. Or on the wheels. Or commanded seraphs to help me. I closed the book.

If I drew on the Trine again—all that stored, polluted power, left there by the Darkness—it might warp me. Or it might bring the Darkness closer. I didn't know how often a mage could use Dark might before becoming Dark herself. If I drew on the wheels for a working this big, Amethyst would know. My guess is that she would kill me without a second thought. The only other way I could think of to perform the conjure was to command seraphs to help.

Cheran had drawn the conclusion in the battle in the street. I remembered his whispered word,
omega
. Something I didn't think about too much. I was an omega mage, among the most rare and dangerous of neomage traits, one that was poorly documented and scary as death and plagues and all the powers of Darkness combined. I could command seraphs in battle against Darkness. And I could command them in other ways too, if I didn't mind dying. Most omega mages died young when they overstepped the bounds of their gift and commanded seraphs in other things. And when mages died at the hands of seraphs, it was a bloody mess. Literally.

I wandered my loft, stopping at each window to stare out over the nighttime street. There were bonfires at each corner, the forms of men and women backlit by the flames. Snow-elmobiles whizzed past, moving shadows. It occurred to me that I should remain dressed in the dobok so I could race to trouble, but I couldn't stay battle-ready twenty-four/seven. Standing by, waiting, I hung my weapons, boots, and clothing on hangers on the open door of an armoire, within easy reach.

A knock sounded at the door at my back and without looking around, I called, “Come in.” It opened and I saw Ciana, reflected in the armoire mirror, framed in the black space. She was wearing a pink shift and leggings, the seraph wings pin on her chest glistening with energies.

“Miss Polly thinks they're all here,” she said. “You can set the ward.”

I sighed and went to the bedside table, picked up the marble sphere that held the trigger. With a touch and a thought, the ward activated. Mage-sight blazed on and I felt, more than saw, the energies flow from the energy sink at my spring, through the ground and into the foundation. They rose over the first floor and up the walls to the roof. It was a powerful conjure, perhaps the most powerful I had ever tried. Ciana, who stood in the doorway, watching, glowed in mage-sight like a bright star. Not human. Not human at all anymore. My throat grew tight at the sight of her. She said, “Can I stay downstairs with the girls from school? I have a bedroll and extra blankets. And Uncle Rupert has a cot I can borrow.”

“What did your uncle say? What did your father say?” Rote words. Important words. Lucas had divorced me. I was no longer her stepmother. My heart wrenched at the thought, as if it was squeezed in a huge hand. But if she heard what was in my mind, she didn't say so.

“Uncle Rupert said it was up to you. Daddy is out patrolling with the other men.”

“Fine, then. But if you get cold, come back upstairs and get in bed with me.”

“I'll be okay. Cissy can sleep with me. And they're going to roast marshmallows after supper.” She cocked her head, a little-girl mannerism marred by world-weary eyes. “Will you be okay?”

I dredged up a smile for her. “I'll be fine.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I shielded my thoughts from her. She smiled so sweetly, the child of my heart. The tightness in my chest eased as she closed the door, leaving me alone. On its faint echo I thought,
I could use you. I could make you help me trap the Darkness in stone, you and that pin.
I crushed the thought, ground it to nothingness, and opened the fridge.

I had fresh green beans, rare and costly, and potatoes to add to the stew downstairs. I could pick the meat out of my bowl. I took the bag of beans from the crisper and with the other hand lifted the bag of potatoes from the countertop.

A sudden tightness gripped my belly, twisted up through my spine. A cloying heat touched my breasts and warmth flooded out into my limbs. Waves and waves of heat slammed into me, rolling over me. Mage-heat. My spine arched, throwing my head back. The bag of beans and potatoes fell to the tile and rolled as if drunken, ungainly wobbles that made me nauseous. My knees buckled and I hit the floor. I caught myself on my palms, the bright light of the fridge bathing me, throwing sharp shadows.

My side, punctured by the spur of Darkness, wrenched hard, as if all the muscles on that side contracted at once. As if the spur pierced me anew. I clapped a hand to my side and rolled forward, to the floor, across the beans, crushing them. My side was blazing hot, and the flesh deep inside rippled and spasmed. I couldn't breathe. Agony and mage-heat surged over me like an avalanche, exquisite and deadly. Tears and blood, I
wanted
.

And then, as if someone pulled a plug, it reversed. My back clenched and I flipped over on the floor, my whole body contracting. With a shudder that wrenched the muscles in my back, the heat and the agony were gone. I managed to inhale. “Tears of Taharial,” I groaned, focusing on the rafters and crossbeams overhead. “What the heck was that?”

Beneath me was a lump of beans, a potato was under my thigh, but I didn't care. I quivered a final time in reaction to the sensations that had seized me. Overhead, the fans turned lazily, pushing warm air to the floor. Downstairs, a horde of children squealed with excitement.

When I could draw breath easily, I crawled to my knees and scooped up the bag of beans and chased potatoes until I had them all. Laying the bags of food on the kitchen table, I started to lift my sweater and paused, as my abdominal muscles tightened. I realized I was afraid. And fear had always made me angry.

Stubborn, I crossed the room and raised the sweater and under-tee, activated mage-sight, and looked at my side. The wound was worse. I had thought it was getting better, but the wound site on my left side where the spur had punctured me in two realities—one I called the
otherness
, or the here-not-here, and in this one—was worse. It was now an irregular, raised black ring with a bloody red center. In human sight it was more colorful, looking like an old bruise, purple center ringed with purplish black, greens and yellows swirling out. Like an eye, I thought. Like an eye from hell, staring out at the world from my side.

I had been better. A lot better. But I had kept the spur, opening myself up to reinjury and maybe even claiming should the amulet fall into the wrong hands.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. I had kept a talisman of Darkness like some kind of memento. Someone in the street battle had realized I was under its control and had broken the spur, shattered it with a single blow. Audric? I remembered the sight of a big body, silhouetted in the light of a fire, raising up a weapon, two-handed, to the sky, and bringing it down. Smashing the amulet.

It had been nearly twenty-four hours since I was freed of its hold. Shouldn't the wound be healing? Unless…What had Audric done with the shards? I remembered the sight of the queen, dead or nearly so, broken down to dust and scooped up by the Dark tornado. Had Audric taken time to burn the splinters? Had he safeguarded the remains? Why had I just experienced both mage-heat and pain from the wound unless something seraphic—or not—had the spur?

I dropped my shirt and sweater and went back to the kitchen. I'd have to ask my champard just how much danger I was in now. I wondered if he would even know the answer.

I
t was dawn, and the sky in the east was a metallic gray. Darkness hadn't come. I was filled with relief, safety, a false sense of security brought on by the rising sun. It wasn't real, but it felt pretty good.

Outside, the footsteps of sentries crunched through old, crusted snow. A rooster crowed. Inside, the buildings were silent, almost a hundred humans finally asleep, no crying babies, no whining toddlers. No preteen girls giggling in the hallway.

I should've been asleep, but I was cramped and miserable. To one side, Rupert snored softly, little puffs of sound. He slept on his side, his healing back held clear from the mattress. I still smelled blood and worried about that, but he needed sleep more than he needed a pesky inquisitive mage poking around on him. To the other side, Audric lay like a dead man, breathing so shallowly his chest didn't seem to rise and fall, only his body heat proving him alive.

Though the dream of seraphs killing me hadn't intruded on my rest, I hadn't slept well with two big men in bed with me. Notwithstanding the rare mage fantasy, and my few months as a married woman aside, I liked sleeping alone. It had been different when I was injured, weak, too exhausted to roll over, too feeble to get to the bathroom alone. I had needed them then, and welcomed their combined warmth, but I had been really happy when they left me and returned to the loft apartment across the way. Now the bed was crowded, and the mingled scents of human, half-breed, and mage were strong, almost unpleasant. I wanted my bed to myself again. I wanted my life to myself again. If wishes were horses…. Yeah, right.

I sat up and crawled down the middle of the bed to the floor, and padded to the bathroom on bare feet. After I relieved myself, hidden behind a screen I had put in place the night before, I dressed in clean underwear and socks, yesterday's jeans and fuzzy sweater, my amulets around my neck. Audric and Rupert slept on.

Silent, I paced from window to window, watching the morning's activities in the street. Black rings had burned through the snow to the cracked asphalt beneath, and charred remains of logs still smoked. Men and women who had spent the night watching stretched and walked off night terrors and doldrums, exchanging words as they passed. I spotted Cheran Jones striding away in the distance, and an idea formed.

I left a note on the kitchen table for Audric to make a quick trip north if possible, and before I could change my mind, turned off the ward on the lofts and shops, grabbed boots and a jacket I hadn't worn in a while, and slipped out the door. Stepping over girls snuggled into a thin down mattress, around a woman on a cot, I went downstairs and into the frozen morning.

As I left the shop, I hung the Apache Tear over the doorknob and activated an identity glamour I had used before. To the world I looked like a middle-aged woman, plain, nondescript, unmemorable. The conjure was a two-parter, the glamour and a second conjure, less strong, less well defined. It simply made people forget they had seen me. Her. Whatever.

Miz Essie lived across the street and up a ways, in a small two-story house wedged in between two others of similar Post-Ap design. The house was at least fifty years old, constructed of sturdy rock and brick with functional solar panels lining the roof and white-painted trim. It had been built after the start of the ice age, and the front door was up ten steps, on a narrow stoop. A little more than ten feet separated the houses to either side, sloped lanes where snow and ice collected when it melted off the roof and ran down the hill behind, refreezing along the way.

Right now, because there had been no snow accumulation for two weeks, the collected ice was only a few feet deep, but it was slick and solid, and I could see fine cracks radiating through the foundations of all three houses from the constant varying pressure of ice.

I climbed up the front steps as if I belonged there and entered the house. I had never been in Miz Essie's home, and immediately I saw dozens of pictures hanging on the walls. Eli as a baby, as a toddler with two other children, as a young man, with a beautiful Cherokee girl, both laughing, the girl with black hair blowing in a spring wind, arms bare to the bright sunlight. Other children, some that looked like him, were in even more photographs. The stairway was also lined with prints, and as I climbed, I upgraded my estimate of the numbers of photos to hundreds. Every vertical square inch was covered. Where there weren't photos, there were embroidered plaques, cross-stitched homilies, and embroidered winter scenes, a dizzying panoply of images.

Voices and the smell of frying bacon brought back my mission and I hurried quietly up the stairs and paused at the top. I hadn't known for certain that I would be able to spot his room, but number two glowed weakly with mage power. I ran my hands over the jamb and spotted two telltales, little conjures that would keep humans out. I had never deactivated any conjure but my own, figured I didn't have time to try, and so I took a chance and opened the door. Nothing happened. The telltales appeared unchanged, and I slipped inside. I was a mage. He hadn't prepared a secondary conjure to keep mages out. I closed the door behind me.

“Ducky. Now what?” I asked myself. I stood in the unexceptional room, studying the multicolored handmade quilt and wrinkled sheets all rumpled on the old iron bedstead, the lumpy mattress beneath. There was a hooked rug that looked as if it had been made at the same time as the house, a small upholstered chair, ditto, a scarred table, a chest of drawers, and a closet. And a huge stack of luggage beneath the narrow window. I grinned at the sight, remembering Cheran's big plans to live in a consulate, waited on hand and foot by adoring humans. I wondered if he had been forced to clean the toilet yet.

Indulging in the mental picture, I opened Cheran's closet and went through the hanging and folded clothes. Fancy court stuff was on one side, several tuxedoes in fashionable shades—teal, black, and an oxblood brown—ruffled shirts, highly polished lace-up leather shoes. On the other side was business clothing and day-today stuff—wool suits, dress slacks, tunics in muted shades, shoes with textured bottoms to make walking in snow easier. There were also two pair of jeans and hiking boots. Most of the casual clothes still had price tags on them, all from local shops. The mage had been busy spending money I didn't think he had.

I ran my hands under the mattress, looked under the bed, and went through the chest of drawers. I found clothes and personal items, nothing that would tell me more about the visiting mage emissary. I eyed the neatly stacked bags, matched luggage, heavy-duty stuff with tough leather exteriors and locks. All were black except one, which was scuffed, worn, and lockless.

Long, wide, and only a few inches deep, it bore a suspicious resemblance to my own weapons case, except it was larger, older, and constructed of better quality leather. I pulled the case to the bed and after a quick inspection with mage-sight, I opened it. It was filled with socks, underwear, and several really nice silk scarves, but like mine, the case had a false bottom. I set the clothes to the side and found the hidden catch. With an unobtrusive click, the case opened.

Blades gleamed inside, really beautiful mage-steel blades, the superstrong, amazingly elastic steel made by steel mages. The cutting edges were microns thick, the tips so sharp they would damage flesh before the eye could see them touch the surface.

There were two matched sets of blades, each set meant for very different purposes. While each weapon was made from a single length of mage-steel from pommel to tip, one set was made for battle, the other for a different kind of fighting.

The battle weapons had silverplated handles over steel tangs. These blades were set with faceted stones around the crossguards, and the pommels—the decorative piece below each grip—were single faceted nuggets. There was a sapphire on a kris, emeralds on four throwing knives, matched citrines on two tantos, and a smaller knife that was too large to be a dagger but too small to be a kogatana, even for a mage—weapons that would be long-bladed knives for a human were shortswords for a mage. There was a spear in two parts, with decorative green tourmaline accents.

A single pink quartz nugget was set in the pommel of the longsword. Each stone glittered with ancient energies, wild mage energy, the energies gathered and used by the first neomages, the teenage children of human parents. That made the weapons old, maybe as much as eighty years old, and they were downright gorgeous. They were the kind of weapons that were passed from generation to generation, showpiece battle weapons, shaped and forged for a warrior of small stature. A battle mage. I studied the cutting edges. They were clearly well used and cared for. One was nicked and blackened where demon-iron had impacted it. My hands ached to pick them up and try the balance but I didn't touch them.

The other group of blades was different in style, smaller, neater, more easily hidden in clothing or boots or even a hatband. I remembered the ostentatious hat Cheran had worn when he arrived in town, and the pile of weapons Audric had taken from him. Those blades had come from this set, and the mage was likely wearing them still. There were vacant slots. A shiver of warning slithered down my spine. I hoped it wasn't a premonition.

These weapons had handles—the grip part, molded around the tang—shaped to the same grip, as if formed from molten steel and fitted for a specific hand, Cheran's hand. Half were made of crosshatched steel for a firmer grip, the other half were smooth metal, to allow the blade to slide from his hand easily. Throwing blades.

This entire set appeared to be new, maybe only a few years old, and I had a mental picture of Cheran dressed in the heavy leather apron of the steel forger, armor maker, and swordsmaster, sweating over an anvil, shaping a length of steel to his own specifications and requirements. Wild mage energies building around him.

I closed the case and set it aside, pulling the next case to the bed and opening it. It wasn't locked, none of the cases seemed to be, and it held clothes. Cheran Jones had brought enough to last a decade, or enough to last a full year as an emissary in a consulate posting. In each piece of luggage were different types of dress, some formal, made of velvet or lace or silk, the outerwear of wool and cashmere, finely woven. His pajamas were silk, his socks of silk-blend, and most of his shirts were silk. His loose tunic-suits were nubby raw silk. Even his boxers were made of charmeuse, and I wondered how he could sit upright in them.

One case was heavier than the others, and it was locked. I thought about trying to pick the lock, but I had never done that before and assumed it was harder than the Pre-Ap TV shows indicated. I had an incantation that would work, but using it would destroy the locking mechanism. No way would Cheran miss the tampering and he would know I had been in his room. Regretfully, I set it aside.

The smallest case, about twenty inches long and deep, and maybe half that wide, opened like my armoires, two swinging front doors and a one-piece back. Opened out, it revealed deeply padded red velvet on the doors and back. In little hoops, snugged down tight, were unmarked vials, twenty of them, all containing liquid. I carried the satchel to the window, which offered only wan light because it looked into the wall of the next house. I tilted the case back and forth. Some of the vials held clear liquid, like water. One contained an oily, silver substance like mercury. One was a blue so dark it looked black. One was the red of cinnabar.

There were measuring spoons and a small Bunsen burner, a flint, and a tiny scale. There were powders too, in little glass jars with strange-shaped lids. A pair of rubber gloves were rolled into one corner. Along the edges of the case, in pockets held closed with snaps, were syringes, needles, a ring with an adjustable bezel but no stone, and little cabochons shaped to fit. The bezel was formed so that when the center stone was removed, a small needle was revealed.

I stared at my find, a cold dread beginning to grow. As my trepidation increased, I searched my pockets until I found a scarf left there who-knew-how-long-ago. With it, I wiped down the case of vials and all the other luggage I had touched, replacing everything just as I had found it. Just as carefully, I wiped the dresser, closet, and anything else I might have touched. My unplanned jaunt had resulted in consequences I didn't know how to gauge, but I knew enough to be worried about them.

Standing at the door, I inspected the room. Other than the two sets of weapons and a small case of liquids, there was nothing to indicate why Cheran was here or what he was here to do. Or rather, who he was here to kill. Because a mage who traveled with poisons was on assignment. Cheran was an assassin mage. The gift was rare—and deadly.

Unnerved, I made sure my guise was in place, then slipped out of the room and down the steps, confident that no one would remember me. I was in front of Thorn's Gems, stopped by a long line of children and parents leaving, chattering about the night in the mage's den, before I heard Cheran's thoughts. He was approaching from the east, talking to two humans, whom he despised, thinking them stupid and traitorous. They were Elder Culpepper and his son, Derek. While I couldn't hear their words, I was able to follow Cheran's mind. Father and son were planning something against the town and against me, hoping to enlist Cheran's help. Before I learned what it was, Murphy's Law stepped in and the men were interrupted.

Inside my shop, I lifted the Apache Tear and almost put it back over my head. Instead, I carried the talisman to the workroom and dug into a box of snowflake obsidian. I found a nugget of roughly the same dimensions and a tiny shard of black jasper.

Quickly, I did a down-and-dirty incantation, filling the jasper with a simple conjure for heating bathwater. I then wrapped and strung them together, the jasper hidden in a wire knot, so the Tear looked like the amulet prepared by the Enclave council. Unless he did a deep inspection, the new, fake one, with the jasper so close they touched, would look like the original to a metal mage's sight, the conjure in the jasper providing the radiance of power. I hung the phony on my necklace; the real Tear went into the drawer at my worktable.