She managed a trembling smile. “No, you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Morgan. I should be braver than this. I should be fearless.”

“You are fearless,” he said fiercely, and held out his hand. “Is there another unranked mage who would have stood before the Council and demanded justice? Barl, I know this is daunting… but we’ll do it together. And in times to come the mages of Dorana will know that this was the moment we saved them.”

Yes, but saved them from what? Before they went too much further with this, she’d insist that he tell her. But for now…

Breathing out hard, she took his hand. Felt its warmth. Its strength. Felt her blood leap at his touch. Watched his eyes widen as he felt it too.

This is for Dorana. And it’s only a beetle.

“Very well,” she said, tightening her fingers before releasing him. “Let’s begin.”

Feeling nervous… and she never felt nervous… Venette sat in the corner of her town house workroom and waited for Brice to finish performing a difficult fourfold transmutation: silk to glass, glass to flint, flint to sand, sand to silk. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen next. If Brice felt nothing out of the ordinary then she was made to look silly and gullible, hardly a welcome outcome. But if he did feel what she’d felt, after four days of searching…

Then we are in a great deal of trouble.

It had taken a certain amount of trial and error to hit upon the level of mageworking that let her feel what Bellamie Ranowen had felt. Well. Claimed she’d felt.

I’m still not convinced either of us felt anything. We could both be suffering from overactive imaginations.

Beyond her workroom window, dusk was slowly creeping through the streets of Elvado. Soon the glimlamps would ignite, casting shifting shadows over cobbles and walls, transmuting window after window of stained glass into darker, subtler, more mysterious colours. A kind of magic in itself, and only one of many reasons why she loved this city.

A shiver through her mage-sense turned her attention back to Brice. He was halfway through the transmutation now. Sweat beaded his brow and glistened at his temples as he took a moment to gather himself ready for the next step in the magework. Then with his left hand he inscribed a sigil on the air. The effort of it tremored him. Fresh sweat stippled his skin. The sigil ignited, burned dark green, then fitfully faded. Brice began the next sigil—and then stopped on a sharp breath.

Oh.

Feeling ill, Venette stood. Brice, his eyes closed, slowly lowered his upraised hand, fingers clenching to a fist. Tiny spasms of pain flickered over his face and his breathing, usually so controlled, became ragged.

Oh, justice save us.

With a grunt, Brice wrenched himself free. Blinking rapidly, in the workroom’s soft glimfire his eyes were wide with shock.