But the girl didn’t stay. No sooner had Gertie left than she was gone, too, off chasing a wild idea planted in her mind, like the one that had prompted the argument a floor below. I could see it in my mind if I concentrated, although I didn’t know how. Likely by borrowing one of Mircea’s gifts. But there they were, standing in the imposing front hall with its gleaming marble and sparkling chandeliers: a small, dark-haired woman in a fur collared coat—the healer, I guessed; Agnes, her face livid under its coating of soot; and, finally, a chubby, purple haired woman, lashing out at five fearsome war mages, all of whom were suddenly convinced that the healer was a dangerous fugitive.

“Illusion,” Pritkin’s voice said, before I could ask. “I cast a spell to confuse their minds, but it won’t hold.”

No, I didn’t suppose so. The Circle’s operatives were specifically trained to shake off such things. They would slip the spell soon enough, and when they did—

“They can’t save you, but they can stop me from doing so,” he agreed. “We must act quickly.”

“How?”

I tried to open my eyes again, wanting to see him. It still didn’t work, but there were other ways to see, weren’t there? I pulled back the mental eyes I’d been using to peer into the hall and looked up. And saw him gazing back down at me, his hands on either side of my face, long fingered like a musician’s, but callused like a warrior’s.

Fitting, as he was both.

But at the moment, it was the warrior I saw, his eyes blazing. They were emerald fire, so bright that they might have been twin lasers in his face. Until they darkened, like a flood of black ink had been dropped into water, taking over the light, obscuring even the whites of his eyes, until there was nothing left.

Except for a field of stars.

I stared at them, entranced by their beauty, and tried to raise a hand to cup his face, but it wouldn’t move. It was heavy, too. Why was everything so heavy?

“I can heal you,” he said. “But I am going to need your help. It’s going to take all of us—everything we have. Do you understand?”

No, I thought. I didn’t understand anything but the fire suddenly threatening to consume me again. I’d always thought that serious burns were less excruciating than other kinds of wounds, that they killed the nerve endings, allowing you to die in peace, at least. But these were different. Fresh agony bloomed in spots all over my body, as if to replace the pain we’d just silenced, making me moan.

No, I didn’t understand anything.