But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was averting disaster. Except she wasn’t averting it. She’d slowed it down a little but the incant was still unravelling.

No!

She plunged herself deeper still into the maelstrom. And this was dangerous, this was reckless. Clock mages played with elemental forces, with time. And Baret might be a jigget but he was a powerful mage, too. In twisting this incant he’d not just captured one of the natural world’s greatest impulses, he’d imposed his will on it. Clock magery was about working in harmony with the elements, but stupid Baret Ventin had attempted domination.

Now this is arrogance, Ibbitha. This is a mage with more power than sense.

And now nature, resentful of Baret taking such liberties, was fighting back… and if she wasn’t careful it would beat her to a pulp even though she was doing her best to put things right.

The funeral clock’s rising heat scorched through her lightly padded green linen tunic. Its crystal carapace was thrumming a rising song of distress. Tears pricked her closed eyes in desperate sympathy. Her bones began to hum in counterpoint to its violent tune.

If she was going to stop this, she had to stop it now.

Dolni. Dolni. Trinta’da. Va’rai.

But the words of power weren’t enough.

With a wailing cry she lifted her right hand against the fiery mayhem. Uncrooked a clawed finger, eyes screwed tight shut, and drew a dangerous sigil in the dark. Rantiracek. The sigil of endings. It was a crazy gamble. Undoing another mage’s work was crushingly difficult at the best of times.

The sigil’s power ripped through her, sundering her flesh from bone. Or so it felt. Curled onto her side, shuddering, she could only breathe and hope. Though she lay utterly unmoving, it seemed the artisanry rocked around her, rippled beneath her, torn free from solid earth. The clock in her gasping embrace burned as hot as the sun.

Please, please, oh please…

Breath by breath the roiling chaos subsided. She could hear her heartbeat again, feel the air rasping in and out of her lungs. She could feel Baret’s incant, frozen in time. Harmless now, and the artisanry saved. Slowly, she rolled onto her back and prised open her eyes.

Justice preserve me. It worked.

“And what is the meaning of this, Mage Lindin?”

Artisan Master Arndel, glaring down at her, his bony face flushed hectic with anger and shock. Crowded at his back, Baret Ventin and Ibbitha and the others.

“Look what she’s done to the Somerfell commission,” said Baret, pointing. “Artisan Master, she’s ruined it.”

Her head hurt so much her vision was blurred red around the edges. Blinking, she looked down at the clock still clutched to her chest.

Oh.