As she watched, he lifted one arm, his hand clenched into a fist, the gesture a beckoning, like a man hauling in on a heavy rope. The fury that faced him most directly, a long, lizardlike creature made of muddy water, arched as if in sudden agony and let out a howl like a thousand boiling teakettles. Then it simply flew into individual droplets of water, driven as if before a hurricane’s winds—directly toward Gaius Attis. His head dropped back and he let out a low cry of pain. Then, without a pause, he whirled toward the fire fury shaped like an animate, walking willow tree, flinging out his hand, and the water of the defeated lizard fury rushed toward the tree. As steam gushed forth, Gaius Attis jerked his arm toward him again in that same, beckoning gesture, and the steam and fire both rushed back toward him, swirling around him, and again he screamed.

It hit Amara with a sudden shock—Gaius Attis was claiming new furies.

She dared not approach him, not in that seething cauldron of raw power. Even if Cirrus hadn’t been loath to go near, she wouldn’t have tried it. Claiming furies was a dangerous business. Claiming furies of such size was... was practically lunacy. The energies unleashed by a struggling fury could bake a man to bones, rip him to shreds, and Amara did not have Gaius Attis’s formidable array of talents with which to insulate herself from harm.

Instead, she landed on a nearby rooftop, gathered Cirrus to her, and sent him forth in a farspeaking crafting. They only functioned in a direct line of sight, and she didn’t know how badly the discharge of energies below would garble her message, but she could think of nothing else.

“Your Highness,” she said, her voice urgent, “we’ve lost control of the local skies. Former Citizens are attacking the Citizens still attempting to aid the evacuation. It is imperative that you leave immediately.”

Attis lifted his eyes and scanned the nearby rooftops until he spotted Amara. He grimaced and answered in a voice cut thin with strain. “A few moments more. I cannot permit these beings to run loose, Cursor. They’ll leave this entire region uninhabitable for a thousand years.”

“Don’t be a bloody fool, Your Highness,” Amara snarled back. “Without you, there might not be anyone left to inhabit it.”

Attis snarled, his dark eyes smoldering for a moment with quite literal fire. “One doesn’t just drop everything and walk away from a business like this, Countess. You may note the eleven rather large and irate furies trying to kill me at the moment.”

“How long will it take you to disengage?”