“I’m sorry. It’s just—” She shook her head again, sharply this time. “No. I’d rather not speak without being certain. Look, do you mind going to help Jerot? He’s mixing catalysts. I’ll come and find you when I’m done.”

“Done with what?”

“I told you, I’d rather not say!”

Not so long ago, she’d have crushed an unranked mage who dared speak to her like that. But times had changed.

And not for the better.

“All right,” she said, at her most reasonable. “How long before you can say?”

Bellamie tossed the flower onto the nearby workbench, as though its stem had stung her. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. It might be several days.”

Several days? Oh, what have you done, Morgan? What has she found? “Very well, Bellamie. I’ll be with Jerot, if there’s anything I can do.”

Pacing the attic, Morgan stepped over his makeshift mattress, heedless of thirst, of hunger, of all bodily cravings. Four days since he’d bathed or shaved or slept in his bed. Touched Barl. Eaten food at a table. It didn’t matter. He needed none of those things. He had all he needed: an obliterating rage. That they would dare to threaten Dorana, these foreign, magickless princelings and potentates. Their audacity left him breathless.

His workbench was covered in pages of scribbled notes. Yet another reworking of Hartigan’s reworked incant. Its ultimate reworking, the dream he’d been dreaming every since the thought had first crept into his mind.

We are not safe.

What he attempted was beyond anything he and Barl had achieved so far. Complex and dangerous, it would test him to his newly found limits. But to protect Dorana, to strike down these belligerent, ungrateful little nations, he would gladly bleed himself almost dry.

But not Barl. He wouldn’t risk her. Besides, she’d already done her part. She had been his catalyst. He was a mage remade because of her.

Catalysts.

Frustrated, he swung about and glared at his many empty glass jars and bottles. He ran through his supplies so quickly now. And until they were replenished he was at a standstill. Unable to risk Venette again, he’d tasked Rumm to part with any amount of coin, meet every demand his source might make, no matter how outrageous.

I will spend myself to poverty, if that is what it takes.

Fired with fresh resolve, he returned to his workbench. Gathered his sheets of notes and prepared to go through the reworked incant again, step by step, in search of the slightest imperfection.

We have so little time left. I cannot, must not, fail.

Barl didn’t need Rumm to tap on the library door or clear his throat for her to know he was standing there. Cat-footed or not, she could always sense his presence.

Sighing, she paused her pen in mid-syllable. Didn’t look up. “Yes?”