Claire was trying not to be pessimistic about either of those answers.

In fact, it was better not to think about it at all. Nausea having faded, she tried a new tactic. Instead of prying the magicks apart, she would call her magick away from the elium. Like to like. Focusing her attention deep into the Earth below her, she pulled directly from this foreign place itself. Dark and deep. Solid and strong. It filled her until her body became heavy and immovable as a mountain.

The magick came slow and sluggish since this was not the natural home of the aeamon. The magick of the elemental witches came from daaeman—from Eudae, not Earth. So it was harder to pull directly from the elements here.

Once she had a good draw on the earth below, the pulsing heart of Her, she moved to water. Casting tendrils of exploring power in a way no non-tampered-with witch would be able to do, she found moisture in the earth and tapped into the base source of its power. She pulled the essence of it within her until her mountain became soaked with dew—cool, life-giving, and refreshing.

Next she went for air. It was all around and easy to draw from, filling her with a lightness to counteract the mountain sensation of earth.

Last, she sent tendrils out to seek fire, usually the hardest of the elements for her to locate. Here, though, it was easy. The day was chilly and many people had fires lit in their hearths, just as Adam had lit one the previous night. She located one and trapped its unpredictable, destructive, fascinating energy and brought that, too, into her. It flickered to life in the seat of her magick, as warm and wonderful as she found a certain man who wielded it.

All four elements woven together mimicked her own special brand of magick. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she realized just how much she'd missed it. The elium had muddied everything, cut her off from her own power. It was like she'd been an amputee but now had miraculously regrown her missing limb.

Houses! She wanted the elium gone. If it couldn't be gone, she wanted it contained.

Using the borrowed power, she held it inside her, luring her own magick to it. Like to like. Bait to quarry. Nothing happened and Claire's hope sank to her toes.

Then, a flicker.

A pulse.

Like a great beast raising its head and sniffing the air for the scent of food, her magick took notice. And pulled. Hard.

The magicks began to separate. A blinding white-hot flash of pain—as if someone was skinning her alive—ripped through her. Her spine bowed backward under the force of it and her facial muscles contorted.