She wheeled back to find John Ross striding toward her. “Get out of the way, Nest.”

She stared at him, appalled at what she saw in his eyes and heard in his voice. “No, John, wait.”

The footsteps stopped momentarily, the voices still audible. Nest could hear Simon Lawrence distinctly, calling to someone below. A woman. Carole Price? Nest went back toward Ross, holding out her hands pleadingly. “John, it isn’t him!”

His laugh was brittle. “I saw him, Nest! He did this to me, moments ago, up there!” He gestured back in the direction from which he had come. “He told me everything, admitted it! Then he attacked me! He’s the demon, Nest! He’s the one who stalked you in the park, the one who destroyed Ariel and Audrey and Boot! He’s the one who set fire to Fresh Start! He’s the one who killed Ray Hapgood!”

He slammed the butt end of his black staff against the stone floor, and white fire ran up its length like a rocket, searing the dark. “This dream isn’t like the others, Nest! It’s a prophecy!” His voice was ragged and uneven, choked with anger. “It’s a revelation meant to put things right! It’s a window into a truth I was trying wrongly, foolishly to ignore! I have to act on it! I have to make it happen!”

She held up her hands to slow his advance. “No, John, listen to me!”

The footsteps were approaching again, the voices growing stronger. She could hear Simon joking with someone, could hear muffled responses, sudden laughter, the clink of glasses. Ross was staring past her, the staff’s magic gathering about his knotted hands, growing brighter as he waited for Simon to come into view so that he could unleash it.

“Step aside, Nest,” he said softly.

In desperation she backed away from him, but slowly and with measured steps, so he did not advance immediately, but stood watching to see what she intended. She backed until the sweep of the stairway came into view, then wheeled on the knot of people approaching. Simon Lawrence was foremost, smiling, at ease, exchanging remarks with Carole Price and three weathered, worn-looking men who looked to have seen hard times and few respites. They had not seen her yet, and she did not wait for them to do so. She acted on instinct and out of need. She called on her own magic, on the magic she had been born with but had forsworn since the death of Gran. She called on it without knowing whether it would come, but with certainty that it must. She drew Simon Lawrence’s gaze to her own, just a glimpse and no more, just enough to bind them for an instant, then used the magic to buckle his legs and drop him nerveless and limp upon the stairs.

She stepped quickly from view as his companions gathered around him, kneeling to see what had happened. It surprised her how quickly she was able to regain her use of a skill she had not tested for so long. But calling on it had an unexpected side effect. It had awakened something else inside of her, something much larger and more dangerous. She felt it stir and then rise, growing large and ferocious, and for a terrifying moment she felt as if it might get away from her completely.