He sighed. “All right, look. For now, I need some sandalwood incense, and a book of warrior cleric’s prayers. Can you go and get them? If we can just get these two ready in time, then the Guild won’t be able to stop us anymore. And we’ll have a better chance of preventing whatever the Diberi have planned for tonight. But we don’t have long.” He looked at his watch. “Maybe seven hours. That’s not a lot of training. And with one asleep, and the other . . .”

Leander was still sighing a lot and looking down at his hands.

“Okay,” said Effie. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She left the chapel and hurried into the main part of the university and then set off in the direction of the library.

A book of warrior cleric’s prayers. The only place Effie could think of going for that was Special Collections. She just hoped she’d be able to find where such books were shelved. Being trained as a cleric sounded exciting: more exciting than going to the library for a book. But Effie reminded herself that they were all one big team, and it didn’t matter how small her role was going to be in that team; she was proud to be part of it. For a moment, Effie’s entire being was swept into this sensation of being a tiny molecule in a vast magnificent whole and . . .

That feeling again. The one from the market. This time it seemed to start at Effie’s feet. It moved up her body in a wave of warmth and beauty and acceptance, like getting into the most perfect bath after the most terrible day, or drinking a mug of hot chocolate in the snow—but multiplied by a thousand, no, make that a million. It was the best feeling Effie had ever experienced. She thought to herself how clever she was to have found a way to get back to the feeling. Ha! She’d show—

The feeling disappeared. The world became crisp and cold again. So the trick was not to acknowledge it while it was happening, and not to be afraid of it either. And not to be pleased with oneself for finding it. A bit like the meditative state, which also fell away when you acknowledged it. But this was different. This was much more intense than the meditative state.

Could this be the thing they called the Flow?

21

RAVEN FLEW AS FAST as she could to Lexy’s house, troubled by her friend’s absence. Why had no one checked on Lexy earlier? It wasn’t like her to disappear like this. She was always so friendly, so helpful, so communicative. And why had no one noticed that she’d been sharing a house with a Diberi for the last few days?