“Are you ready?” he asks me as he lowers himself before me and suspends his silver stylus above my abdomen, my glimmering green skin now a blank slate.

I nod, and he sweeps his stylus’s tip along my stomach, fashioning the outline of a large, circular silver rune before rapidly sketching the rune’s interior—a wreath of five small runes orbiting a central silver disc. He presses the tip of his stylus to the disc and murmurs a spell.

Two of the five internal runes begin to rotate into silvery blurs. Two others begin to spin slowly while the last internal rune remains motionless.

Rivyr’el points his stylus at the blurred runes, looking to Sage. “That’s a measure of her fire-and earthlines.” He slides his stylus toward the two lazily rotating runes. “And here are her weak water-and airlines.” His stylus shifts to the motionless rune. “And here’s her dormant light power.” He gives me a sly smile. “We’re going to balance you out, Witchling, starting with water. We’ll need Fae elemental power for that. Lucky for us you have an Asrai friend.” He shoots Tierney a saucy look. “And a quite lovely one at that.”

Tierney throws him an arch look that reads, Truly, Rivyr’el?

He grins, undaunted. “If you’re in need of a Xishlon’vir tomorrow night, my offer still stands—”

“Rivyr’el,” my cousin Or’myr cuts in with a surprisingly aggravated tone. “Can you please not choose this particular moment to flirt with absolutely anyone.”

Rivyr’el smirks at Or’myr, then sets about marking a ring of small shielding runes on my abdomen encircling the larger elemental rune. “You should try a little flirting now and then,” he croons, glancing mischievously at Or’myr. “Unless you enjoy being the lonely sorcerer in the hidden tower.” He points his stylus at one of the elemental runes, serious again. “Here, Or’myr, make yourself useful and create a pathway.”

“I rather enjoy my hidden tower,” Or’myr rejoins as he draws an amethyst from his pocket and presses it to the water rune, sounding out an Uriskal spell. A hot flare of his violet fire power surges through my lines, and I draw in a hard breath, gooseflesh rippling over my skin, the water rune’s hue shifting from silver to lavender.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Sending a siphoning spell over the rune,” Or’myr explains, “to allow us to feed power into your waterlines.” He looks at Tierney, Trystan, and Lucretia in turn. “Ready?”

Trystan and Lucretia unsheathe their wands while Tierney steps forward, a sense of anticipation rising in me as Or’myr continues to hold his amethyst over the slowly rotating water rune. They bunch in toward me, Tierney’s body brushing against Or’myr’s as she slides into place facing him.