That was how Drake was controlling Vai: Not by using him as a catch-fire but by forcing him to protect the people he felt responsible for. Of course the mansa had named him heir! The mansa had finally understood that once saddled with the burden, Vai would never lay it down.

I ran back to the coach, hopping up onto the sideboard.

“Mansa! Drake has trapped many of your people inside the house. If the fire isn’t killed at once, they’ll all die. But he’s using all the remaining magisters as catch-fires. I don’t know how you can possibly kill that much fire.” I looked up at the eru, standing on top of the coach. “Cousin! Can you raise a storm?”

Cold wings opened as the eru bloomed into her true face. Her third eye blazed, blue ice. “Best hasten,” she said in a ringing bell voice. “The fire grows.”

Blades of sleet sliced the air as the coachman whipped the horses forward with a “Ha-roo! Ha-roo!”

As we swung around the corner, heat poured into my face and dark clouds surged overhead. The coach pulled up. The mansa climbed out and strode forward to face the man who was destroying his home. I leaped out after him, wreathed in my shadows, unseen.

Soldiers spun around to aim rifles at the coach, but every rifle clicked dead, for the mansa’s cold magic killed their spark. Snow hissed across the burning building. The flames began to die.

With an ease that astounded me, Drake flung a thread of backlash into the mansa. At once the falling snow ceased, and the mansa staggered as a twisting skin of light surged around his body. He had no choice but to let the backlash pour through him, because if he did not allow it to kill his magic, it would kill him.

“Now, Cousin!” I called, closing the door of the coach to protect Bee.

Drake’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of the eru standing atop the coach.

She spread her wings, their span like winter. Ice glittered along the manes and coats of the horses as she beat her wings to fan the storm. Cold cracked down over all, flames wavering beneath blasts of snow.

But fire beats back even winter. Drake threw such gouts of backlash into the cold mages that a child and then two elders toppled over. Vai frantically pulled more and more into himself, desperate to save the most vulnerable.

Flames leaped higher. The sheer frightening rush of fire stunned me. From deep inside the palace rose shouts and cries of such fear that they scoured my heart. I knew there were courtyards in which people could shelter, but I suddenly comprehended that none of it would be enough. Not even the eru’s magic would be enough.

I had to kill Drake. Wrapped in shadow, I started toward the steps.