The demon skidded to a stop ten feet from its prey. It feinted left, then left again, like it was playing one-on-one with Martin, trying to break his ankles, before it gathered itself and sprang directly for his face. Wearily, as if to express to them the unfairness of the trouble they were putting him through, Martin put up a hand to catch it in flight. The demon tore at his fingers, hissing. Martin began slowly stuffing it into his mouth, like a gecko eating a spider, while it pulled his hair and gouged at his eyes.

Quentin waved at Alice frantically to run—maybe if they all split up?—but she wasn’t looking at him. She licked her lips and tucked her hair behind her ears with both hands. She got to her feet.

Something had changed in her face. She had made a decision. She began to work with her hands, the preliminaries to something very advanced. At the sound both Martin and the cacodemon looked at her. Martin took the opportunity to break the demon’s neck and push the rest of its body into his mouth.

“So,” she said. “So you think you’re the biggest monster in this room?”

“Don’t,” Janet said, but Alice didn’t stop. She was trying something. Everybody seemed to get it except Quentin.

“No, no, no!” Eliot said angrily. “Wait!”

“You’re not even a magician at all, are you, Martin?” Alice said quietly. “You’re just a little boy. That’s all you are. That’s all you ever were.” She bit back a sob. “Well, I’m sorry.”

She closed her eyes and began to recite. Quentin could see it all in Alice’s face, everything they’d been through, everything they’d done to each other, everything they’d gotten past. She was letting it all come out. It was a big spell, Renaissance, very academic magic. Big energies. He couldn’t imagine what good it would do, but a moment later he realized the spell wasn’t the point. The side effects were the point.

He began scratching his way toward her, anything he could do to get closer. He didn’t care if it killed him.

“No!” he shouted. “No!”

The blue fire began in her fingertips and spread, inexorably, through her hands and up her wrists. It lit up her face. Alice opened her eyes again. She regarded it with fascination.

“I’m on fire,” she said, almost in her normal voice. “I didn’t think—I’m burning.” And then in a rising shriek that could have been agony or could have been ecstasy: “I’m burning! Oh, God! Oh, Quentin, I’m burning! It’s burning me!”