“D’you know,” she said eventually, when the silence became oppressive, “I incanted all the way to the Garricks’ country estate, then all the way back here, as smoothly as ever. No hint of disruption.” She halted in front of the fire and swung round. “No sense of anything amiss. What does that mean, d’you think?”

Brice shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, don’t you think it could mean that we panicked for nothing? It doesn’t seem that anyone else has noticed there’s a problem. Perhaps there isn’t one, after all. Perhaps this is simply a—a—hiccup. That’s a possibility, Brice, don’t you think?”

“Venette…” He sighed, deeply. “I suppose. Many things are possible. But I doubt it. I know what I felt. You know what I felt. And you heard what Bellamie Ranowen had to say. This is no hiccup. Something is gone far awry?”

Somehow his even, measured tone made things worse. He spoke like a man who had accepted the inevitable.

“I don’t want it to be true,” she said, and gulped more brandy. “But if it is, I don’t want it to be something we can’t stop. I don’t want us to be helpless. Brice, I’ve been thinking. Have you considered that what’s happening might not be… natural? That it’s not some hitherto never-manifested imbalance of Dorana’s magical plane? Do you suppose—have you considered—”

“That we’re under attack?” Brice drank the rest of his brandy and put aside the glass. “Yes, of course.”

“You have?” She stared at him. “Why didn’t you say?”

Another shrug. “Because I dismissed the notion almost as soon as it occurred. We are the world’s only mages, Venette. Who could attack us?”

“We’re the only mages we know of,” she retorted. “Perhaps the world contains mages we’ve never met.”

He lifted his eyebrows, gently mocking. “In how many centuries? No. This is your trepidation talking, Lady Martain. There are no other mages. Dorana is safe… at least from a neighbour’s aggression.”

“Then how do you explain it, Brice? There must be an explanation! Why don’t we have one? Why hasn’t that vaunted Bellamie Ranowen discovered the reason for this—this pernicious unravelling?”

Sighing again, Brice steepled his fingers. “Bellamie Ranowen is doing her best.”

“And if her best proves inadequate? What then? We throw up our hands and say Oh well, the world is ending but never mind, we did our best?”