Placing herself so that the shadow of Jeremiah’s head protected her eyes from the krill’s piercing silver, she leaned on the Staff and considered her options.

Long ago—and without the enhancement of her Staff—she had reached deep into Covenant, in spite of his organic resistance to percipience. On one occasion, she had triggered a release of power from his ring. On another, she had entered him to free him from the machinations of the Elohim. And more than once, she had gone to the extreme of attempting to possess him. Terrified by his willingness to hazard himself, she had striven to stop him—

She could try something similar for Jeremiah. In the Lost Deep, she had seen that the croyel had made its mind and life inextricable from her son’s. She could not simply separate them. But there were other possibilities. Without question, the croyel would fight her. With the Land’s best instrument of Earthpower and Law in her hands, however, she might be able to penetrate the creature’s defenses. One thin neural strand at a time, she might be able to sever or extirpate the malign tangle of the croyel’s grasp. And if she could do that—if she could do it without harming or tainting or even touching Jeremiah’s own sentience—

The Ranyhyn had warned her against possessing her son.

Galt would cut the creature’s throat for her without hesitation. The krill would slice through the croyel’s theurgies as readily as ordinary flesh.

If.

She might fail. The task would be as challenging as her efforts to protect Revelstone from the Illearth Stone in the hands of the Demondim. At the same time, it would require far more delicacy. She would need an almost supernal degree of precision and care. One mistake, any mistake, might harm the core of Jeremiah’s consciousness for as long as he remained alive.

And the croyel might prove too strong for her. She doubted that: here nothing hindered her access to health-sense and Earthpower. Yet the sheer sickness of the monster’s nature might be more than she could suffer. It would hurt her as intimately as the Sunbane, but it would do so with intent. While she reached into Jeremiah, the croyel might reach into her—

If it were capable of possessing two distinct minds at once, the monster might endeavor to rule her as well as Jeremiah.

Galt would not permit that. Liand and Covenant would not.

And if her first efforts did not relieve Jeremiah, she still had Covenant’s ring.

In the Lost Deep, Esmer had said that only white gold could oppose She Who Must Not Be Named. Surely wild magic might sweep aside the croyel’s magicks? With raw force, Linden might be able to accomplish what subtlety and precision could not.