The dwarf's cheeks flushed. He tried again, but still it remained resolute. Anchoring his booted feet on top of the rock, he grabbed it underhand by the guard and flexed upwards, his triceps bulging. Nothing.

Jack caught Ruth's eye. They couldn't help smirking. For all his masculine bravado, Bal couldn't seem to lift a leaf off a stone.

This charade continued several more minutes and would have gone on much longer, but Sardar intervened and suggested he give it a go.

Rather reluctantly, Bal stood back, muttering something about loosening it up for him.

The elf placed two fingers on the hilt and spoke a few syllables under his breath. His fingertips flared with light, but there was no other reaction. More syllables; a different-colored light; nothing. Exhaling slowly, Sardar stood back and began his signature pacing through the ankle-level cloud of ash.

Ruth gave it her best shot, to no avail.

Jack took up position in front of the blade and focused his mind on pulling power out of the elements around him. The Seventh Shard burst into life around his neck, an ivory beam shooting from the tip to engulf the weapon. After a few seconds it faded, and the sword was left unchanged.

"This is no use," Ruth breathed. "The fairies said only the rightful bearer would be able to release the Shard. I say we head back to the commune and ask them for a bit more detail on what we need to do."

Sardar nodded wearily and joined her in staggering back up the slope, followed by Bal. Jack was dimly aware of Dannie behind him as he turned and began traipsing back towards the trees. He was halfway up the slope when the girl called out.

"Erm, you lot... I think I just did it?"

Jack turned. Dannie still stood at the bottom of the basin. Clutched in both her hands, entirely divorced from the stone, was the sword. Jack looked up the slope at the others. They had all turned too, and their slightly stunned expressions were mirrored in both his own and Dannie's.

There was a noise like a deep breath, and Jack was knocked flat onto the ground. Wind blasted from the basin, throwing ash into the air like a storm cloud. He covered his mouth and kept low, squinting through the grey to glimpse Dannie. He could see her, just. She seemed to have been lifted, the sword in her hands disintegrating into the whirlwind. Emerald light shone outwards from between her palms, illuminating her terrifled expression.

The wind ebbed and died. Jack rose, hesitantly, blinking away the dust and dancing lights. The basin had been entirely cleared of ash and dead logs, and he now stood on slightly spongy damp earth. Shoots peered through the dirt here and there, as if suddenly the first moments of spring had arrived. Dannie was back on the ground, next to the stone. The sword was nowhere in sight. Instead, threaded around her neck was a crystal Shard with a tiny leaf symbol carved into it.

Chapter XVI.

the third shard Jack, Ruth, Sardar, and Bal stood, agape, staring down at Dannie. No one said anything for several seconds. Dannie seemed as stunned as they were-she was looking down at the Third Shard around her neck with a mixture of surprise and alarm.

"Really," Ruth exclaimed, finally, "what are the odds? We pick you up by accident in a city we happen to pa.s.s through, and you turn out to be-"

The ground rumbled. A noise like an explosion ripped through the trees, sending birds spiralling into the sky.

The five of them turned towards the source: back the way they had come, uphill towards the commune. In the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat, they had started sprinting uphill. Darting into the cover of the trees, they headed towards the fairy glade. It was quite unusual, Jack reflected dimly, to be running towards an explosion.

Within minutes they had reached the edge of the glade, panting heavily. The surroundings had changed a lot since they'd been gone. Whatever that explosion had been, it had sheared off the tops of trees with scalpellike precision. The wounded trunks oozed some kind of dark liquid, dripping to the forest floor like black resin.

"Avoid that," Sardar warned as they slid through the devastation.

They came to the banks marking one of the entrances to the glade. Keeping as low as possible, they edged forward enough to see inside. Jack's first impression was of a student occupation, the fairies huddling together on the gra.s.s in the center. His next was of a hostage situation. Black-cloaked Cultists stood around them at regular points, facing inwards like guards in a bank robbery. Beyond them, a colossal metallic form glinted in the sunlight. It was exactly the blueprint they had come across: a metal sphere the diameter of a two-story building, with a sun of Dark energy simmering at its core, supported by four spindly legs. Two more appendages with claws extended from a command box on top, in which another black-cloaked figure reclined. For now, at least, the machine was motionless.

"You've all gone soft!" Nimue cackled. "We needn't have put all the effort into building this thing. There I was, thinking that a pure alchemical attack was bound to fail, but you've all hung up your spell books!"

Jack looked back at Ruth, who was leaning around him to see. He could almost hear her teeth grinding in suppressed rage. He looked back towards the glade and caught sight of something else. The icy slab encasing the frozen elf was there as well, dumped directly below the machine as if it were an egg being protected.

"In all seriousness, though," the Cultist continued, "you will give me the location of the Shard and the details of any protective enchantments on it. You might not value your own lives, but..." She pulled a lever. There was the noise of something gearing up, and the energy core dilated. Then, with a boom that sent the ground rumbling and branches cras.h.i.+ng to the ground, a beam blasted from the machine, obliterating trees in a surge of superheated Dark energy.

Some of the fairies winced, others cried out in anguish, but they all remained seated.

"I will dismantle this forest tree by tree, if necessary, to extract this information from you. Every single lifeform shall be absorbed into the Darkness, and nothing shall ever grow here again. The alchemical infection will spread into the soil and reach across this entire planet. You may be willing to lay down your own lives, but will you pay the price of your whole world?"

Jack blinked. Dannie had leapt to her feet. Sardar made a grab for her legs, but she was already gone, striding into the glade with the Shard swaying slightly around her neck.

"What's she doing?" Ruth hissed.

The Cultists turned, and Dark alchemy in various forms instantaneously sprung into their hands, ready to stain the patch of ground with Dannie's remains.

The four Apollonians didn't hesitate. In a flash, they were by Dannie's side, Bal grasping his axe, Ruth clutching a rapier in one hand and a spear in the other, Sardar and Jack crackling with alchemical energy.

The Cultists had broken their circle and were moving into a line, several hands twitching with the instinct to fight. The scene reminded Jack of a Wild West shootout, but this was much, much more serious.

"Well, we did underestimate you," Nimue drawled from atop the machine. She had stood, her upper body extending out of the command box, and a wreath of black fire intertwined her fingers. "You won't be so lucky this time, I'm afraid."

Dannie's gaze narrowed. "Let them go, and we won't harm you."

Nimue cackled again. "You won't harm us? Are you mad, girl? We have you outnumbered and, as you would probably say, outgunned." Then, addressing Sardar: "Is it a regular practice of yours to elevate street urchins to positions of command?"

He didn't reply. He was looking past the Cult to the group on the ground. Jack knew what he was thinking. If the fairies stood up for themselves, the Cult would be the ones who were outnumbered, by a degree of about two to one.

Nimue seemed to notice what he saw. "Oh, they won't be of any use to you. They used to be a lot tougher than this-one perpetual civil war." At his confused expression, her teeth flashed in a malicious grin. "Oh, did I not tell you? I'm from around these parts." And her face changed. Her skin, moments before coldly perfect, withered; her flas.h.i.+ng eyes regressed to tiny jewels set back into her skull; her sleek hair knotted into willow strands. But this was not a fairy like the ones she held hostage, whose forms were filled with vernal life. Hers was withered like a dying husk.

She looked down at each of them, supremely arrogant, until her gaze fell on the object hanging around Dannie's neck. "You! You have the Shard!" She clapped, and a dark form drifted from behind her. "Morgana, go!"

Black wings unfurled, the raven demon took off from the machine and soared towards Dannie, its eyes phantasmagorical pits, its razor-sharp claws extended to rake the girl's flesh...

There was a whip crack, and emerald light exploded outwards from Dannie. It rose, spiralling, extending outwards, forming into a pair of gigantic wings. The kestrel let out a hunting cry and the wings closed on the raven, engulfing it, crus.h.i.+ng it within a green tornado. Black smoke escaped as the demon crumbled into nothingness.

Nimue gripped her bark throat, her taut breath the sound of splintering dry wood. Her eyes narrowed into tiny pinp.r.i.c.ks, and she leapt from the machine, carried by Dark energy. Dannie crouched and propelled herself off the gra.s.s, coming to hover directly opposite the Cultist. An orb of dark flame appeared between Nimue's twig-like fingers, and the battle began.

"The girl has the Shard," a cedar shouted, jumping up.

"Help her! Help them," a birch added, doing the same.

All around the captive group, fairies towered at their full height over their captors. The Cultists tried to back away but found their path outwards barred by four armed Apollonians. Jack smirked and conjured an alchemical sword.

To call what happened a battle would be generous. As Dannie and Nimue flung alchemy between them, the fairies fired spells at the Cultists. They were the most formidable sorcerers Jack had ever seen, adept at drawing on their surroundings to the greatest degree. Vines whiplashed off branches and caught their enemies by the throat; roots wove in and out of legs and clamped feet to the ground; trails of thorns were drawn out almost like hosepipes to bind hands, ankles, and mouths. Against the unleashed forces of nature, the Cultists didn't stand a chance. Within a matter of minutes, all twelve had been restrained.

Jack looked upwards. The sky was alight, the energies of Dannie and Nimue's duel still raging. All the other combatants, whether captured or not, were as far back against the tree line as possible, trying to avoid the fallout. Alchemical blasts ricocheted at an alarming rate, shooting downwards or being hurled into the trees. Jack felt as though he should intervene, but he couldn't risk hitting Dannie instead of Nimue.

A fireball rocketed from the fray to land in the gra.s.s beneath the machine. Flames engulfed the gra.s.s and stretched upwards, licking at the bottom of the metal sphere and reaching perilously close to the icy slab.

"What are you doing?" Bal had darted out, sprinting beneath the aerial battle to the other side of the glade. A blade of energy arced in the dwarf's direction, and Jack summoned the power of the Seventh Shard. A white barrier spun into existence, refracting the blade into the trees, leaving the dwarf free to chisel the slab with his axe.

Jack jumped forward to help him, but Sardar caught him and battered him back. Jack followed the elf's gaze upwards.

Dannie had launched a blast of emerald energy at Nimue, which the Cultist had dodged. It whirred onwards, gathering speed, and struck the core of the machine.

The cacophony was so great that Jack instinctively plunged his fingers as far into his ears as possible. The sh.e.l.l convulsed, the thin legs buckling under the weight. The core had ripped itself free of its binding, and Jack now recognized what it was. Identical to the one Iago had conjured back in Thorin Salr, the Dark Eye pulsated with crimson light like a chained star. And just as before, he watched it splinter and release the star's power.

The fabric of reality rent, imploding, drawing all matter around it into Darkness. Nimue tumbled backwards, but Jack could see in Dannie's narrowed gaze her determination to not let the Cultist get away. She was riding on wings of light to keep her steady, and out of the air she drew an alchemical bow and arrow. Notching the arrow, she took aim and fired, piercing Nimue's chest. The Cultist was hurled to the earth with a howl, nailed to the ground, unable to move.

But Jack, Sardar, and Ruth had stopped watching this. Their attention was drawn to Bal. The dwarf's axe had slipped from his fingers, sucked into the rend. Both he and the slab of ice were being lifted into the air, unable to anchor themselves, being sucked into the Dark portal. The last Jack saw were two faces-one frozen in ice, the other in fear-vanis.h.i.+ng into the pit of obsidian energy.

Chapter XVII.

another look in the mirror With his eyes fixed on the point at which Bal and the frozen girl had disappeared, Jack took several moments to realize green light shone from around Dannie's neck.

"No! Don't!"

But he was too late. A thin beam of emerald light had shot from the end of the Third Shard into the heart of the rend. The Dark energy contorted and then imploded, the portal sealing itself and breaking the link with the Darkness. They were all on one side, and Bal was on the other.

Jack didn't know how he got to Nimue. All he knew was that he was standing over the figure pinned with an alchemical arrow to the ground and was shouting. The Seventh Shard blazed around his neck, and something had appeared in his hand-some kind of club, a blunt instrument, with which he was beating her. Her screams fractured the air as the energy battered her, ripping open the black robes and bruising the bark beneath.

He felt a force pull him backwards, arms wrapped around him. He could hear himself screaming savagely, something like, "Get off! She deserves it!" He struggled against the restraints, trying to beat back at the person holding him.

"Jack! Stop!" Ruth's voice brought him back to reality.

He was breathing heavily. The alchemical club faded from his hand as he slumped backwards, still staring at the Cultist.

Ruth's arms released him.

Sardar was with them now, alongside Dannie and some of the fairies. They too were gazing down at Nimue with looks not far off hatred.

"Get back," Ruth snapped at Sardar. "You're even worse. I know what you almost did to Iago back in Thorin Salr!" She stood between Nimue and everyone else. "Don't you see? We're meant to be the good ones! If we do just the same-torture, murder, revenge-then tell me how are we better than them? 'We've got to fight for what's right, but the most important thing is to know when to stop.' Ishmael taught me that. We can't forget it."

The group looked perturbed; Sardar looked troubled. But Ruth's only answer came in the form of rasping from behind her. It took Jack a moment to realize that Nimue was laughing, coa.r.s.e air racking her broken body.

"You've got a little moralist here, haven't you? But I'm afraid, girl, the others are right, even if they don't like to think so. Dark and Light, Cult and Apollonians: we're just two sides of the same coin. You don't have the ethical high ground just because you refuse to kill your captives. That just makes you weak. And weakness yields to strength, always."

Jack had to employ all his self-control to not resume beating the Cultist. Only when a similar fate had befallen Alex had he felt rage like this. And even though Ruth was standing up for Nimue's rights, he could see she was filled with revulsion for the creature below.

Sardar spoke slowly and as calmly as he could manage. "Where is Bal? Nexus?"

"Good guess, but no. The dwarf and his frozen comrade will be drifting through the Darkness as we speak, cut off from the Light entirely. They will not last long before submitting to the collective force-"

Sardar turned away in disgust. "If she's to live, then we need to decide what to do with her and her companions. I'm calling a meeting of all the fairies."

Jack was the only one who didn't take part in the discussion. He knew Ruth was there to ensure the death penalty wasn't dealt out, and he presumed Dannie was feeling responsible for closing the portal in the first place. Jack didn't blame her, though. Now that his initial anger had ebbed, he didn't blame anyone. He just sat at the edge of the glade, gazing at the remnants of the machine and the point where Bal had disappeared. He hadn't been particularly close to the dwarf, but the idea of him drifting alone through the Darkness was chilling.

He had been seated for a few minutes when he caught a glimmer of white light to his left. He turned to look and saw a flick of a bushy tail behind a trunk. Ensuring no one was watching him, he got up and made his way into the forest. As he'd expected, hidden behind a large birch was Inari, etched out of the background in ivory light despite the canopy of leaves.

"What took you so long?"

"You've been around people for days. There's been no chance for me to get to you-"

"Why do you need to hide yourself? I trust these people. Can't you just-?"

"It's Lucy and the others. The Cult got them."

"What! Where?"

"In the Sveta Mountains. They laid a trap for your friends. They've taken them back to Nexus."

"Why didn't you do anything?"

"You know I can't intervene in your affairs."

"Can't or won't? You gave me the Shard. You woke me inside that volcano. I'm pretty sure you helped me fight that lobster demon the second time, though that's something we haven't discussed yet. Was Isaac right? Are you trustworthy?"

The fox was speechless.

Jack waited only a few moments. Then, shaking his head, he turned and marched back into the glade.

The council was dispersing as he got there, and a group made its way to Nimue, still bolted to the ground by Dannie's arrow. Jack walked straight to her, and Ruth quickened her step, evidently worried he would start battering her with alchemy again.

"What do you know about Lucy Goodman?" Jack bellowed. Part of him thought Nimue looked confused and might actually not know, but he wasn't going to be fooled. He turned to Sardar. "Get her to reactivate the black mirror."

"Jack, what's wrong?"

"Just do it!"

Sardar's forehead creased. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out the slender mirror salvaged from the battlefield at Thorin Salr. The back was carved with the rose emblem of the Cult, but the front was gla.s.s, which was clouded with smoke like a window on a foggy day. The elf held it down to the fairy.

"She's not going to do this willingly, is she?" Dannie said, apparently pretty sure of the answer already.

"I don't think we need to worry about that," Sardar said quietly and dropped the mirror onto Nimue's stomach.

The instant it made contact, the etchings flashed indigo and the smoke seemed to unfurl from behind the gla.s.s.

"I thought so," Sardar said. "Automatically activated when any Cultist archbishop touches it. But what's this for?"

Jack didn't reply. He grabbed the mirror from Nimue and took it up in both hands. He could see only his reflection distorted by darkness, but with his fingers pressed to the frame, he felt the strangest sensation of convergence. It was as if his senses had been extended, as if his nerve endings ran through the mirror and out across the universe so that he needed only to focus to see anywhere. He squinted at Lucy, Ada, Hakim, and Vince. He could picture their faces, as if they were right in front of him, and then they were right in front of him, a telescopic image in the center of the screen.