The wraith noted her thrust for its heart. Though ilked, it was Grace-born, a creature of air. With the speed of a swirling gust, it ripped around, lashing out with a clawed foot.

Kathryn ducked between its legs, never dropping her sword. She shoved straight up, slicing open its belly, and rolled aside. It wailed and spun, spilling entrails and blood. It struck the wall, writhing, unable to gain its footing, wracked in pain, legs tangled in its own entrails. The more it fought, the more it gutted itself.

From the corner of her eye, movement stirred.

Kathryn swirled darkness and vanished away. The creature atop the table searched with one eye cocked, then the other. But it didn't hunt on sight alone. Its head swung around, scenting her. It was ready when she folded out of darkness, sword swinging.

It lunged off the tablea"away from her, craven with the death cries of its partner. Kathryn chopped with her sword before it could fully escape. Her blade sliced through its leathery wing and bony shoulder, cleaving all away.

Now it was its turn to screech as it rolled off the table, off the boy, one wing flapping like a sail in a storm.

Kathryn vaulted the table and landed on the wing, pinning the wraith to the floor. Two-handed, she swung her sword low, cutting off its scream.

And its head.

The body convulsed once, then lay still.

Its head kept rolling.

Kathryn dropped her shadows. Her cloak fell about her shoulders like a death's shroud, heavy with blood. She stepped back, stumbled away, over to the door.

A knight appeared at the entrance. His eyes above the masklin widened at the slaughter found inside. She pushed past him, sword still out. She clenched her fist on its hilt to control her trembling.

"Seal the door," she ordered as she passed. "Bar it tight."

Then she was out on the stairs. More calls and shouts echoed down from the main line. She ran the opposite way. Before hearing the scream from the room, she had been headed down to meet Argent. Now she had another reason to run below.

To escape the horrors of that room.

Around and around, she fled.

Finally she stopped, leaned a palm against the wall, and emptied her stomach on the stair. Her belly heaved again, sour and empty. She gasped for air. Her eyes ached with tears that refused to flow.

Not nowa She spat on the stone and wiped her mouth.

Not yeta Straightening, she sheathed her sword and stumbled a step, caught herself, and continued down leadenly, a hundred stone heavier than when she had gone up to her hermitage.

She quickly reached the fieldroom's level and headed down the hall to the open door. It was unguarded. There were no knights to spare for such duties. She entered to find the rally already under way.

She was surprised at how few were here. Argent held a dagger in his fingers and made deft instructions on the pinned map, cutting into the ancient vellum in his urgency and fury. He was instructing his second-in-command. Kathryn didn't know his name. The former second had died during the third bell; there had been no time for introductions after that.

Hesharian stood against the back wall. Unmoving, eyes glazed.

Gerrod was at Argent's other elbow, suggesting a few improvements with a bronzed finger. "They are particularly sensitive to loam. If we paint the stairs hereaand hereawith an alchemy of bile and loam, they should weaken before they hit the line."

The warden nodded.

All their eyes lifted when she entered. Something in her face made them all straighten with concern.

"Did the line break again?" Argent asked.

"It holds," Kathryn assured him, putting steel in her voice and hardening her face.

Argent looked relieved. Gerrod's face was impossible to read, armored as it was, but he continued to stare at her.

She nodded to him, indicating she was all right.

It was a lie they all needed to believe for the moment.

There was only one other participant in the rally: the lithe and pristine figure of Liannora, Hand of Oldenbrook. Like Hesharian, she also stood to the side, her hands tucked into a snowy muff. For a moment, Kathryn could not make sense of it. Then she remembered the stone-casting among the Hands, the selection of a representative to the council.

Or rather two representatives.

Kathryn searched the room. "Where's Delia?" she asked Liannora.

A flash of guilt wavered across her pale features before vanishing. The woman shook her head, indicating she didn't know. Liannora must have been caught here when all fell apart. She must have felt safer here, leaving Delia to deal with all the Hands. No wonder the guilty demeanor.

Kathryn turned her back on the woman.

Argent spoke. "If the line is finally holding, then perhaps we have a chance."

"We can't win this war," Kathryn said, not letting her steeliness drop, making it plain that it was not despair that prompted her words.

Argent, ever the campaigner, still bristled.

"She is right," Gerrod said, supporting her. "We can hold out, but night will fall soon. The sun already sets."

"So?" Argent turned his eye upon Gerrod. "Locked in our tower, what difference does it make if the sun is up or not?"

"You forget Eylan?" Kathryn asked. "What have we faced so far? Wraiths and stormfire."

Argent frowned.

Kathryn continued. "Eylan came cloaked in an icy Dark Grace, impenetrable. Though the wraiths are fearsome, they can be struck down with steel and alchemy. What if he brings the same icy Dark Grace upon us again?"

Argent's face grew troubled. She read the dawning understanding in the furrows of his brow. He was stubborn, but not beyond reasona"if you could get him to listen.

"Perhaps Ulf weakens," he said. "The storm must sap him greatly to keep it locked around our town for so long."

"No," Gerrod said and stepped to the window.

They followed.

The wide windows were shuttered tight. Gerrod pointed to an opening in the shutter, only a hand's breadth tall but wide enough for all three to gather.

Kathryn searched outside. The day was indeed almost gone. The storm swallowed the world, but the gray clouds were darkening. They were losing the sun. Beyond the window, a sweeping view of fields and outer towers was shrouded in swirls of snow. Still, she saw shapes winging about and boiling and crawling amid the towers.

Still so manya "Lord Ulf is not weakening," Gerrod continued. "The wraiths were only the beginning. He's been waiting for nightfall, for his wraith legion to drive us tighter and tighter together."

"Why?"

"Whatever icy Grace protected Eylan, it must not be limitless. Or else he would have used it to shield the wraiths already. I suspect it is an arrow best shot with some marksmanship."

Kathryn understood. "He intends to have us all confined to one place."

"So to inflict a killing blow," Argent said.

Gerrod nodded. "And when that ice comes and we lose the flames of our lower levels, it will open our other flank, where Mirra awaits. Wraiths above, daemons below, and ice all around."

Argent stepped back, the fire in him kicked to ashes. "When?" he asked, knowing this was the most important question.

Gerrod merely turned to the windowa"and the setting sun.

Kathryn stared out the window as the darkness deepened.

"We'll never last 'til dawn," Argent muttered.

The pyre spit and hissed, scattering sparks toward the roof. The barred door glowed in the flames, revealing every grain in stark relief, as if the fire did not tolerate any shadows.

"To the center of the room," Orquell ordered, waving his hand.

Laurelle shifted to obey, crowded by Kytt and Delia.

"Stay there until I tell you otherwise," Orquell said, stepping toward the door.

The other three pyres in the room's corners caught the excitement of the first and danced higher. Soon the room shone as brightly as a summer day.

Laurelle glanced at her toes, avoiding the flaring glare. She noted that none of them cast any shadows on the floor. With flames burning on all four sides, they were bathed in light from all directions.

She remembered Master Orquell's earlier words.

Every flame casts a shadow.

Orquell reached to the door's bar and lifted it free.

"What are you doing?" Delia asked harshly. Suspicion still rang sharply in her.

"We invited the witch here. It would be impolite to refuse her now."

Orquell tugged on the latch and fought the stubborn hinges to pry the door open. Beyond the threshold, the dark hall waited.

The unnaturalness of the shadows was plain to all. The blaze of the pyre failed to penetrate the darkness, as if the hallway were flooded to the roof with black water.

Orquell stepped back and beckoned. "Castellan Mirra, please come inside. Your black ghawls will have to remain without, of course. The flames here will not let them pass."

"What do you want, rub-aki?" a reedy voice asked from the darkness. "Your flames foul the hallways here."

"Ah yes, my rys-mor, the living flames." He waved to encompass the pyres. "Born from a powder of crushed lavantheum, bearing the blood of four aspectsa"it attracts them, does it not? Where ordinary flame chases them off with warmth and brightness, my flames are like the fresh beating and bloody heart of the most delicious prey. They can't stay away. In fact, I wager they are being a bit stubborn about obeying your wishes. Of course, eventually they will, but it will take much effort and concentration on your part."

"Why are you interfering? Takaminara has never meddled in the affairs of the outer world."

Orquell took another step back, bowing slightly. "Exactly. So fear not my threshold. I swear your safety here."

Laurelle heard Delia hiss under her breath.

The darkness parted and a gray-haired old woman slipped out and into the firelight, dressed in a robe, sashed at the waist. She seemed more a kindly great-mother, maybe a bit stern around the edges, but certainly no witch. She entered the room, leaning on a smooth cane. It was only once she stepped across that Laurelle saw her cane was actually some creature's legbone, carved with Littick sigils.

"Again, what do you want, rub-aki?"

"A bargain for my safe passage. Nothing more. Allow me to reach the central stair, and I'll douse my flames. You know the word of a rub-aki is inviolate. We cannot go back on our oath."

"And I also know that the rub-aki are skilled at using their words to the fullest and in a most sly manner."

"Then I'll speak plain. I walk"a"he mimicked a man walking with two fingers across his open palma""and once I reach the stairs, I'll douse all of my pyres. I will tell no one of your presence. But betray me and I'll use my dying breath like a bellow to fan my four pyres. You won't like that."

Mirra studied Orquell, attempting to see a trap.

"To sweeten the deal," he pressed, "I offer you these three to take."

He waved over to them.

"What?" Delia snapped and lunged a step forward.

Laurelle grabbed her elbow, instinctively. The master had told them not to leave the room's center for any reason. He had also asked for their trust. Delia fought her hold. Only then did Laurelle realize Delia was feigning her struggle, for the show of it. Still, Laurelle also read a vein of real suspicion in Delia's eye.

Could they truly trust this one?

Orquell ignored them. "As you've said, servants of Takaminara have no concerns for the wider world. I have no use for these threea"a wyld tracker and two Hands."

Mirra's eyes shifted closer to study them, stepping to the side to view them better.

Orquell leaned slightly, assuming a pose similar to Mirra's.

"And not just any Hands," he added. "But the Hands of Tylar ser Noche, regent of Chrismferry. I believe you are still searching for him."

Delia swore, almost raising a blush on Laurelle's cheek with her sudden and vitriolic vulgarity.

"And for assurance, I'll cross to the stairs without raising any fire, so that you may feel safer. This I swear. I will trust your darkness to cloak us and seal our bargain."

Mirra was plainly tempted, weighing the odds of just taking them. But there were risks in attacking a master of fire. Finally she spoke slowly, summarizing the bargain. "So if I allow you to proceed to the main stair, you'll raise no fire against me, tell no one of my presence, and once you are free, you'll stanch your pyres."

He nodded.

"And I can take these three," she added firmly.

"I will not stop you. All this I swear on my crimson eye."

Mirra surveyed the room one more time. A bell echoed from some distance away, marking the passage of time. Finally, she nodded. "So be it. You are sworn safe passage."