Amid such ebony, her power resembled a shout of gold, a vivid ache of flame and violation. But she was careful: oh, she was careful. Her thread was little more than a wisp, a spun wish. She did not impose it on the flowing wards. Instead she insinuated it into the current and let the disguised structure of the barrier carry Earthpower into its heart. And when fine gold reached the vital nexus of the theurgy, she was more careful still. Hardly breathing—hardly daring to think—she wrapped her thread around the essential strand.

As she tightened Earthpower on that strand, she smelled the Harrow’s warnings, tasted the grip of Stave’s hand. Ominous hues thrummed in the stone where she stood. About her head like ravens flew glints of incarnadine and sulphur from the bridge, the stalactites, the cavern walls. But she ignored them. Here, at least, she was done with doubt.

Now or never. Dare or die. Jeremiah needed her.

Shod wood on granite, a quick stamp of the Staff tightened her thread. Her delicate effort of Earthpower became as clenched as crimson: it smelled as rigid as iron.

With it, she snapped the necessary tendril.

For one wild jolt of time, an instant of impact, illusions of blackness whipped around her like released hawsers; harried her like furies. Ruinous serpents fled, squirming, in all directions.

Then the portal stood open, and nacre radiance shone forth from the Lost Deep like a welcome, and Linden would have fallen if Stave had not caught her. She needed his strength to drag her confused senses back from the brink of chaos.

Briefly the light fumed like her strained breathing. She smelled its pastel hues shift and waver as though they were the scents of a distant feast. Then her perceptions relapsed to their ordinary dimensions. When the Harrow spoke, he had become human and explicable.

“That, lady—” He appeared to choke on surprise and wonder. When he continued, he sounded hoarse. “In plain justice, I acknowledge it. That was well done.”

But then he swallowed her effect on him: the effect of her ability to exceed him. More strongly, he stated, “Now I will have my Staff.”

Light rich with iridescence and shifting colors spangled among the stalactites, filling the high space above the Hazard with suggestions of glory.

Linden may have nodded. Or not: she was unsure. As soon as the Staff left her hand, she felt Kevin’s Dirt reassert itself. Almost immediately, it closed down on her like a lid; seeped into her like poison. Her sense of loss was so acute that she whimpered as if she had been beaten.

She had come to the end. There was nothing more that she could do.