She sees the clock in her mind’s eye, small and shimmering and perfect. A mystery clock, this one, intended to baffle its beholder. Only the greatest artisans can create such splendour. A mystery clock melts and remoulds itself seemingly on a whim, now a sphere, now a square, one moment green, the next blue. Blink, and it shines scarlet. And when it speaks, it speaks with a panoply of voices. At one o’clock it whispers. At ten o’clock it shouts. It strikes these minutes like drumbeats, and those it tickles like a mother her giggling child.

She thinks of herself as a mystery clock. The clock she sees in her mind’s eye is herself, Barl Lindin made of magic. Fluid and formless, obedient only to her whim, she confounds expectations, dares what other mages only dream… and if a price must be paid for that then she will pay it, with pride.

Magic swells within her, demanding release. She feels her blood simmer with power, feels the tingle in her fingertips, the tremble in her tongue. Her tongue is heavy with words of power, words that must be spoken else she burst into flame. There is a clock in her mind’s eye, and she has to create it. She opens her mouth to speak the words, quell the fire, create the clock she can see in her mind’s eye—

—but instead of uttering words, all she can do is scream…

Barl sat bolt upright on her miserly straw mattress, her throat raw, the pain in her so terrible she could hardly breathe. Desperate, she looked at her raised hands but the dreadful burning was only in her mind. Except it felt so real, and now she was weeping as well as screaming.

The door of her tiny prison chamber banged open.

“What is the meaning of this brouhaha?”

And that was Master Servant Rumm, fully dressed, neat as a pin. Did he never go to bed, or was it already a new day?

“Mage Lindin!” Master Rumm dropped to one knee beside her lumpy pallet. “Enough of this caterwauling! What’s amiss?”

How could she answer? She could barely think straight. Morgan Danfey’s woken binding had a stranglehold on her throat, had set her bones on fire, threatened to make of her flesh nothing but stinking, bloodied ash.

“Enough, I tell you!” Rumm commanded. “You’ll not disrupt the entire household, I won’t—”

His fingers closed around her wrists… and the flames leapt so high and hot she thought she would die.

“Mage Lindin, stop!” Rumm shouted after her, shoved ignominious onto his back. “Come back here!”