Jonaton was not in his usual garb; garb that would have gotten him mistaken for a woman except for his lantern jaw. Kordas suspected him of jumping out of bed as an idea hit him and coming straight down here to his workroom, because the plain, baggy linen breeches and oversized silk shirt he was wearing looked like things he usually slept in. He snapped his fingers twice, manically remembering protocol, and said, “We’re good, here, now. All warded up. You know,” and twirled his bony, frequently bandaged fingers.

His mouse-brown hair was a tangled mess, and with the dark circles under his eyes, he looked as if he had been working all night. Kordas glanced over at Hakkon, who seemed bemused. “I know you went to bed last night,” Hakkon said.

“Yes, but I suddenly had an idea!” Jonaton waved his fistful of papers again. “I need more power, but it will definitely work! Let me tell you!”

Since by now Kordas was well aware that nothing would stop Jonaton when he was in full flow, he just looked around for a place to sit, spotted an empty bucket, and turned it over to sit on it. Hakkon leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed. Jonaton launched into his explanation without a pause.

“My problem has been how to identify a good spot to Gate far enough away from the Empire that we’ll have a long head start on anyone who chases us. Right?”

“Wait, I thought the problem was that Gates only go so far—” Hakkon interrupted.

“No, no, or the Emperor wouldn’t have his private Gates that can go wherever he wants them to,” Jonaton replied, shaking his head vigorously. “It just takes a lot more power to operate them than the static Gates we use. That’s easy, we have plenty of mages here to punch one through for a good long distance. I mean, not from up here, but where the big ones could be made. Because. I swear, you never listen to me.”

“I listen to you—” Hakkon began.

Jonaton interrupted him. “So, we know about a thousand years ago, something cataclysmic to magic swept over, well, everything, right?” he said.

“We do?” Hakkon whispered to Kordas.

“And that’s why it takes a lot of effort to gather the magic energy to do things, unless you are doing demonic pacts or blood magic, or something else Abyssal. Or maybe Elemental, but you have to have a lot of energy to bind Elementals.” Jonaton had the bit in his teeth now, and there was going to be no slowing him down. “But that’s not important right now. What is important is that the same—I’ll call them Mage-Storms, because they act like heavy weather—created Change-Circles.”

“What are—”

“I’ll tell you later,” Kordas promised, his eyes on Jonaton and his excitement growing.