Together, he and Linden might be able to beat Roger. She knew that Roger feared death. And she did not believe that he would allow harm to his grafted power; his halfhand. If Covenant could endure his suffering a little longer, he and Linden might succeed at driving Roger from the chamber.

Inadvertently Stave broke her concentration. Thwarted in his attack on the croyel, Stave countered by tossing Covenant’s ring toward the ceiling.

Surprise and avarice drew the croyel’s gaze to follow the rise and fall of white gold. Avid for wild magic, the creature dropped its defenses; tried to claw the ring out of the air.

With all of his Haruchai muscle and speed, Stave punched the croyel between its gleaming eyes.

The creature’s head jolted back, ripping its fangs out of Jeremiah’s neck. Quickly, however, the deformed head whipped forward again. Its eyes focused fury on Stave.

As Stave caught the ring, closed it in his fist, Jeremiah’s arm swept upward. Stave was flung into the air; hurled toward the waiting skest.

Stave—! Even his extraordinary reflexes could not save him now. He would land on living acid. His heart, or Linden’s, might have time to beat as much as twice before the corrosion of the skest scoured the skin from his bones. He would die hideously, in swift torment.

Helpless to do otherwise, Linden wheeled away from Roger. With the Staff blazing in both hands, she swept all of her power like a scythe among the skest, trying frantically to cut them down, burn them to ash; clear a space for Stave.

She almost succeeded. Creatures by the score burst into flame and fell apart, spilling viscid conflagration across the floor. Vitriol ate at the Harrow’s corpse. Twisting to right himself, Stave came down on his feet in a pool of fiery fluid.

He tried to leap away. But acid splashed his feet and calves; bit into his legs. Nearly crippled, he managed to sprawl beyond the edge of the vitriol. Then he tried to stand, and could not. Corrosion had eaten too deeply into his muscles. It was still burning.

Linden took a moment that she could not afford to slap her own fire at Stave’s legs. Expecting death, she stopped the damage with Earthpower. Then she abandoned Stave to his injuries; spun away to face Roger’s assault, and the croyel’s, and doom.

As she turned, however, she saw that Roger had not used her distraction to muster a killing blast. The croyel had not followed its attack on Stave. They had not joined together against Covenant.

Instead they had hastened toward each other. Already they had raised their arms, extending their magicks to form a portal. They were about to disappear—

Their powers would translate them to a time or a place where she could not hope to discover them again.