Glancing at him, she saw the genuine concern beneath his brittle, not quite friendly exterior. Made herself smile, though she could more easily weep.

“There’s only one way to find out, Rem. Come on. Let’s get out of here before those warriors look over their shoulders and realise they’re not alone.”

As the sun climbed the sky, then slid down it, they made their slow way around Dorana’s edge, embedding the wardstones with painstaking care. Soon enough Barl could recite the incant from memory… and everywhere she looked she found evidence of her folly. Dead, rotting livestock, killed by mage-mist. Rotting crops in the fields. Fresh graves. Abandoned farmhouses. Entire empty villages. Lives cut short, abandoned, all because she fell in love. Remmie didn’t reproach her. Said nothing at all. But by the time they’d embedded the twelfth wardstone, the pain in his face forced her to speak.

“This isn’t your fault,” she said, as they stood side by side in yet another blighted field. “You tried to tell me.”

He shook his head, despairing. “I should’ve tried harder. I should’ve known what to say.”

“Remmie, don’t.” She pressed her hands to her face, hiding from the destruction. From him. “How much worse do you want me to feel?”

“I’m not trying to punish you.”

She let her hands drop. “Really?”

Bending, he touched a mage-misted stalk of wheat and watched it crumble to stinking ash. “You don’t think you deserve punishment?”

“I did none of this on purpose!”

“I know, Barl,” he said wearily. “But still. You did it. Now come on. We’re only halfway done.”

And because there was nothing she could say that would make the slightest difference, to anything, she took them to the next place marked on the map.

It was dark when they returned, exhausted, to the College. Venette Martain and Dreen Brislyn were waiting for them in the workroom. Like Morgan’s inconvenient friend, Lady Brislyn showed the brutal fingerprints of Dorana’s misfortunes. Pale and thin, her eyes haunted by sights no-one should witness, by fears and threats that daily seemed more and more likely to come true, she stood as they entered.

“Is it done?”

Barl looked at the woman, her head viciously aching. “Would I have come back if it wasn’t?”

“I warn you, Mage Lindin, do not try me!” Lady Brislyn snapped. “Not tonight. I lost two members of my Council to mage-mist on the way here.”

Pushing her aside, Remmie stepped forward. “We’re sorry for your loss, my lady. It’s a tragedy.”

“For all of Dorana. They were good men,” said Lady Brislyn, her voice cracked with grief. “Remmie, are we warded?”

“Almost,” he said. “All that remains now is for the incant to be ignited.”

“You haven’t ignited it?” said Venette Martain, torn between surprise and displeasure. “Dorana isn’t warded? Why not?”