It was like chugging sour wine, the volume choking him, the flavor foul enough to sicken. But he kept on, determined to siphon as much of this vile flood from her as possible. Like repairing the levee: first he must drain the water so they could see to work, to set the cement.

Still, the torrent flowed, unending. He barely retained control, his mental muscles straining, fraying, then snapping under the stress. With that same sensation of falling, he lost his grip entirely, dropping into the morass of chaotic nothing.

~ 13 ~

Nic felt it the moment Gabriel snapped.

He’d been doing so well—astonishingly well, given the sheer enormity of the pressurized magic erupting from Selly—but even the most powerful wizard had their limits, and Gabriel hit his with crashing finality. His mental presence vanished like a quenched flame. He sagged into unconsciousness, slipping from her grip, his big body tumbling boneless to the floor despite her effort to hold on to him.

As she fell to the floor beside him, calling his name, reaching for him along their bond, magic gusted around them, formless and without boundary. In it, she sensed moonlight and water, fiercely pulling at each other, and scents of the swamps and marshes, the wild things clawing for survival.

She patted Gabriel’s cheeks, his dusky skin sickly pale. “Gabriel,” she urged. “We need you.”

Dimly she was aware of Asa and Jadren shouting. Then Laryn’s stern face was before her, Laryn gripping her arm hard enough to bruise bone. “Lady Phel!” she yelled above the magical din. “Snap to! We need you.”

“Gabriel needs me,” Nic gasped, utterly shattered by the gaping abyss where Gabriel’s magic had been, as if he’d infiltrated even the marrow of her bones and then been brutally ripped out again.

Laryn slapped her, not hard, but shockingly sharp. Nic gaped, then growled in rage. That was it, she’d show this bitch once and for all that—

“Get a grip,” Laryn shouted, shaking her by the shoulders. “Selly’s magic is raging wild, venting through Lord Phel without control. Jadren is offering to take over, but he needs your permission.”

“Fine,” Nic bit out, returning her attention to Gabriel’s too-pale, sunken face.

“You have to tell him,” Laryn ordered, dragging Nic to her feet. Asa crouched at the foot of the bed, hands gripping Selly’s ankles, his head bowed in concentration—or to stay clear of the buffeting winds of Selly’s magic. Liberated through the conduit Gabriel had created, her magic lashed like a coastal storm, full of icy water and bits of solidified moonlight that stung her exposed skin. Jadren glared at her, wizard-black eyes accusing, as he bent over Selly in a protective posture, his hands hovering over her.

Nic nodded at him, gesturing for him to go ahead, but he shook his head in emphatic negation. What in the Convocation? “He needs your help,” Laryn shouted in Nic’s ear. “Go to him. I’ll stay with Lord Phel.”

Nic nearly told the woman not to lay a hand on Gabriel, but that was foolish. Laryn was resentful and stubborn—and no friend of Nic’s—but she wasn’t actively malicious. She had a duty to assist her wizard, and Asa no doubt expected her to do this sort of thing. Making her way around Gabriel’s prone form, head down against the fierce storm of magic, Nic clawed her way to Jadren’s side. “You have my permission,” she shouted.