He’d had a clue that they were aethereal from the sparks. He rolled, a leather-soft wing clipped his thigh and something disgustingly velvety touched his hand—his arming sword reached out, striking a panicked blow. But as his point came on line he thrust—the blade tip snagged its material belly and because it was flying and had no anchor, it rebounded. The point, sharp as one of Mag’s needles, had still failed to bite. But it was pushed, tumbling, through fifteen feet of darkness to slam into one of its mates.

Ser Gabriel realized then that they were all coming for him—but his attention was on Amicia. “They’re magicked!” he shouted. “No mortal weapon will bite!”

He rolled under the table where the men had been sitting. One of them slipped past Ser Pavalo and landed awkwardly on the table—cups exploded out, and it flipped the table.

He saw Bad Tom, armed with the dragon’s sword, split another one in half, the two sides lit in a white-veined horror for one beat of a frightened man’s heart, the two wings each beating separately once, ripping the two halves apart and spraying black ichor. Ser Pavalo rolled, passing under a gout of the foul stuff, and rose to strike from beneath a moth with a rising cut—then whirled, and struck again as if gifted with eyes in the back of his head.

Gavin had no magic sword. He leapt onto the back of the one on the table. It was low and slow, and it didn’t seem to have any weapons that could reach its back—Gavin got his arms under its wings as if putting a small man in a head lock, and pushed the body away from him with both hands and all the passion of abhorrence, and the wings seemed to shred.

It was all perfectly silent.

Gabriel saw two of the black velvet horrors unengaged—one attempting to rise over the melee, and the other settling on the prone figure of the dying nun.

“Amicia!” he screamed.

He threw himself towards her. In the aethereal, he flooded her bridge with light—and, improvising heartbeat by heartbeat—tried forcing ops back down the bond—first through the ring, and then the strange working on his ankle.

He refused to accept that the pale corpse on the bridge was hers.

He poured his power into their bond…

One of the moths had him. He was on his stomach, stretched over her body, and the moth was settling on him, the weight like that of a dog—he felt the…

In the moment that the thing’s probisicis penetrated his back, he took his hate and terror and pushed it right up through the contact, into its body.

The moth exploded.

The poison was lethal, but slower than hermetical counters—he set a construct to cleanse the wound with fire even as he reached for her—

—and found her.

“Anything!” he shouted at the universe. “I will give anything.”