The mansa was lit by a silvery mantle of backlash that he shed continuously into the far distant ice. As I came up beside him he caught Vai’s gaze across the gap between them. He nodded, and reached with his magic to pull all the backlash off Vai and into himself. The force of all that power smashed him to his knees. His body convulsed.

I dropped to my knees.

Momentarily free of backlash, Vai slipped an ice lens out of the neck of his jacket. In the Antilles the ice lens had allowed him to focus and amplify his weakened magic. His magic was not weak here. Its hammer slammed down so hard that my chin hit the dirt even though I was ready for it. The eru was flung to earth and the coach creaked, groaning. Even the coachman ducked his head.

Everyone was down, flattened, stunned. Everyone except Andevai. He was still standing. Even in torn, dirty, rumpled clothes, he looked magnificent.

The mansa was unconscious, scarcely breathing, a smoky odor swirling around his body. He could not help us. Still staggered by the sledgehammer blow, I pushed up, stumbled sideways, then forward, supporting myself on the tip of my sword.

“Catherine! Strike now!” I heard how weak Vai was by the hoarseness that burred his voice. He collapsed to one knee and barely caught himself on a hand. As Drake pushed himself up Vai lunged, grabbed Drake’s ankle, and jerked the fire mage to a halt.

Drake laughed as he tugged his leg out of Vai’s weakened grip. “I have played you all very well, have I not? For I have absorbed your strongest attack and still stand. You have nothing left.”

Every cold mage lit with the backlash of Drake’s fire magic. Horribly, so did the eru, for her magic, too, was caught in the funnel. She, too, became a conduit for his power. Only the coach and four remained impervious, and I breathed a prayer of thanks to the Blessed Tanit that I had insisted Bee remain inside.

Wild, bright fire flashed up from the wings and front of the House. The heat built like a furnace. So had Bee dreamed: Sheets of fire from which rose screams of fear and pain.

“Look for the glimmer of a blade, as I taught you,” Drake shouted to his fire mages.

Fire magic spilled down the length of my sword, seeking a path into the spirit world that the cold steel could not give it, seeking me. I tossed it away before the sparks burned me. The moment it left my hand, it became visible to the soldiers.