He looked up, caught her staring, and schooled his expression into something other than tense. “Curious, kitten?” he asked, his tone far too jocular. “A Gate has to be powered by something, and we don’t want to alert anyone in the Capital by pulling on the energies that power that Gate down by the village. So we’ve been making these storage crystals for as long as the Plan has been in existence. Twelve is probably too many—”

“But better too much than not enough,” interrupted Ceri, and gestured to Ivar to come stand opposite of Delia.

“Am I going to feel anything?” she asked, just a little apprehensively.

“Not a thing. You haven’t a spark of magic in you,” said Dole. “That’s why we want you here, we told you. You’re the rock that’s going to keep everything weighted down.”

She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to be compared to a rock, but—

At that moment, the entire room lit up as all the inherent diagrams and lines and most of all the twelve crystals and the two stone horns flared into life. It was so bright, in fact, that she had to shield her eyes for a moment.

When she could look again, she saw . . . absolutely nothing. From this side of the Gate, there was nothing whatsoever going on between the two arcs of stone.

But Ivar’s face reflected a rippling light, and she could see just a little bit of it in the reflections from his eyes and the metal bits of his armor and weapons.

“Go!” shouted Ponu.

Ivar and Bay walked confidently toward her.

And vanished from sight as they passed between the stone horns.

“Don’t move!” shouted all seven of the mages as she stirred a little, wanting to get up and see whatever it was they were seeing.

She froze.

Silence filled the cellar. Finally she broke it.

“Um—”

“You stay there until Ivar comes back, even if that takes until sunset,” said Ponu sternly, as Jonaton sagged down onto a stool. It appeared that he had done the brunt of the work. “I certainly hope it won’t take that long. The longer this thing stays open, the more likely it is someone in the Capital will sense something.”

“And if he’s not back by sunset, he’ll have to camp there,” added Dole.

“Does he know that?” she asked, alarmed now.

“Of course he knows that! Why do you think he was carrying that pack?” Koto snapped, speaking for the first time. “We’re not idiots! We gave him a thorough lecture!”

“Well, not complete idiots,” Sai snickered, earning himself a glare from the usually silent mage.

“Do you have something you can do?” Ponu asked. “A book you can read or something?”

“I—uh—”

“You didn’t give her a thorough briefing,” Sai pointed out. “You didn’t give her a briefing at all.”