Between heartbeats, Linden’s ire became excitement. At one time, she had loved watching him. He had been a wizard with Tinkertoys and Legos, wooden blocks, racetracks; endlessly fascinating. But now he was more, much more. And long days ago, she had experienced the power of his talent. Whatever he was making here, he would accomplish something wondrous.

“Stave?” she breathed as if she had erased anger from her heart. “Do you know what this is? Do you know what he’s doing?”

Standing at her side, the former Master answered with his accustomed stoicism, “No Haruchai has beheld its like, apart from that which resides in the Hall of Gifts. Yet I deem that this is anundivian yajña, marrowmeld, the Ramen craft of bone-sculpting. Their memory of it has ever been tarnished by sorrow, for the necessary lore was lost. How your son acquired such skill surpasses my conception.”

Yes, Linden thought. In the Hall of Gifts. She wanted to believe that she could already feel power accumulating in the early stages of the construct; that its sheer glory would be apparent to Stave. But the bones remained stubbornly inert after each flaring of Earthpower. Their places in his design were still too fragmentary to imply their eventual shape and purpose.

When Stave said her name again, however, she reacted at once. Readying her Staff, she strode away from Jeremiah. She hoped to put at least a few paces between him and anything that she might have to do.

At first, she did not understand why Stave had called her. Under the leaden lid of the sky, she found only the untenable whiteness of bones, the circle of cleared ground, the shallow sides of the basin, the frangible jut of sandstone around the crater’s rim. But the Ranyhyn had skittered away in alarm. Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen rounded to the far side of the pile and halted there, fretting.

What is it? Linden might have asked the Haruchai. What do you sense?

Then she knew. She heard chiming—

In an urgent clamor of bells, Infelice of the Elohim arrived like a whirlwind arising from the lifeless dirt.

Imperial and proud, she confronted Linden. Adorned in gems and rich music, and clad in sendaline woven and glittering like the stuff of dreams, the woman advanced like the world’s suzerain wreathed in wrath and judgment. The luster of her hair was bright with compulsions in spite of the waning sunshine, and she wore her supple loveliness as though it were an accusation. The gales implied by her eyes reminded Linden of Esmer’s sea-storm gaze.