It was hard to explain, and I reluctantly set it on Al’s waiting hand. His palm was crisscrossed with heavy, distinct lines where most people had only a few. I’d never seen his palm before, and he frowned when he saw me scrutinize it.

Al curled his fingers around the pyramid and placed it in the middle of the figure eight where the dust lines crossed. His chanting started up again, and I stifled a shiver. Naked fingers reaching, Al set the gray candle in the cave of the figure eight nearest me, and the gold one before him. I caught the placing words ipse and alius among his monotone mumbling.

“You’re doing it wrong,” I said, and Al’s chanting ceased.

“I’m doing it properly—student,” he said as he took up another handful of dust.

“But my aura is gold,” I protested. “Why do I have the gray candle?”

“Because I say so. You’re gray, Rachel. Grayer than fog, and just as dense. Besides, I’m always the gold candle.”

It wasn’t a reason, and I wasn’t going to let him screw this up on purpose.

“Light your candle,” Al said. “There are tapers in the can.”

I glanced at the jar of thin strips of wood beside his hearth fire, then jerked when he snatched my wrist, forcing my palm up and dropping a handful of dust into it. It felt alive, greasy and staticky. If only to get rid of it, I sifted it around the base of the unlit gray candle saying the setting word, ipse, then grumbling that I should be the gold, not him.

“Ipse,” Al echoed, mocking me as I set my candle with the same word he used. His fingers pinched the cold wick, and when they parted, the candle was lit. Smirking, I did the same, whispering ipse again. The candle might be gray—which was not a good choice—but I’d set it twice with the proper word. If the spell failed to work, it wouldn’t be my fault.

“Who taught you how to light candles from your thoughts?” Al said, his goat-slitted eyes on Pierce.

The man was still out cold, and I shrugged. “Ceri,” I said, but my gut was tightening. This had to work. I wanted it done, and done now.

Grunting in acceptance, Al balanced a narrow shaving of redwood atop the pyramid. It was a small relief that this, at least, was unchanged. Al took off his glasses. Arms on the slate table, he leaned over the spell, now ready for the focusing objects. Expression eager, he handed me his ceremonial knife.

“Can I use the other one?” I asked, looking in distaste at the curved blade and the image of a tormented, naked woman writhing about the handle, hands and feet bound and mouth open in a scream.

“No.”