He grinned humorlessly, and Constance frowned, then attacked a second time—but her magic seemed to be attracted to the gauntlet, which absorbed it with a flicker.

“I’m not a mage,” the Justice said, answering Lena’s question. “But with my little … device, I might as well be. It steals magic, you see. Not just the mage to whom the second gauntlet is connected—any mage’s power.”

“But you kill mages!” Lena shouted, her face pale and pinched.

He raised the gauntlet. A powerful slam of red power emanated from the palm—no subtlety or skill, simply an expression of pure force. Constance ducked, feeling the deadly heat of the magic as it passed over her head.

She kept her voice calm. “The girl has a point. I thought you hated magic, Lord Justice,” she said. “Isn’t this a little hypocritical?”

He smiled. “Didn’t I tell you before? To conquer what you fear, you must become it.”

Constance flicked the wheel on her mask, revealing the spell-scape. Now she saw how the gauntlet was connected to a scarlet thread, which disappeared into the storm, heading, she guessed, to Dr. Thorn, where he tended to Xander in the south tower. I knew I should have let him die, she thought.

“That makes no sense,” Lena protested, her eyes brimming with tears but her voice strong and steady. “You killed people, even when they weren’t mages at all, and now you’re using magic yourself!”

The Justice bristled, his eyes flashing, but his voice was calm—almost rehearsed—when he responded. “I am using magic to eradicate the evil from this city. When the work is done, I shall have no need of my little device, or the mage that powers it. It is merely a means to an end.”

Constance aimed for the Justice’s head—a calculated attack she knew ought to hit him but not the gauntlet. But at the last moment, her arrow of purple light deviated from its course—again absorbed into the device. She had to stop herself from crying out in frustration as she watched her purple magic grow red on contact with the gauntlet, a cog whirring faster at the wrist as its power was absorbed.

Another red attack flew toward her head, but she deflected with a sweep of her cane that set her ears ringing, the metal of her left arm thrumming. She defended against another two attacks as her mind raced. The Justice was no mage. He was stealing his power. How could she turn that to her advantage?

Everything she had fought for in the past six years was within her grasp: the girl with the butterfly was right there. Only this man stood in her way.

If I can’t use magic, I’ll just have to use my wits.