deliberated before leaping away and falling face-first into a pile of dew-damp leaves. As I picked myself up and stood farther away from the warmth, the leaves within the circle—leaves that had dried from the heat contained within the circle—fluttered and danced, pushed aside as the ground bucked underneath the bonfire.
The logs bounced. One rolled right toward Beverley.
Then the ground under the bonfire split open and the logs tumbled into the hole. The rolling one reversed its direction and fell in as well.
I would have felt relieved if Beverley wasn’t right on the edge of the opening.
My first instinct was to reach out, dive in, and pull her back from that edge, but I couldn’t break the circle. If Menessos didn’t draw me a door to let me in, I couldn’t help. Instead, I backpedaled and ran frantic hands through my hair. His eyes were closed. Maybe he didn’t know she was about to fall in. Distracting him might be a bad thing.
Beverley’s body slid an inch toward the crevice.
I took the risk. “Menessos!”
My cry was lost as light exploded up from underground in a beam. It split the night like the megawatt finger of some gigantic god. It knocked me down, but I kept my eyes fixed on the girl.
Beverley’s body slid another inch, then another, and I scrambled up—
Some gentle force lifted her, hovering, into that light. Air tossed her dark hair about. Her arms spread outward as if she were floating peacefully in a pool.
It was beautiful, ethereal, and angelic. My mouth fell open.
Something began floating up in the beam; it looked like pieces of ash rising from a campfire, blackened fragments with edges glowing red-orange. These pieces swirled and fluttered around the child, gathering around her hands, bulking up until it covered her arms like extra-long oven mitts.
There was a pulsing to the ash-like substance and the fiery glow grew brighter and brighter.
“Menessos . . . ”
The ash condensed, tightening down on her. Her back arched and her high, piercing scream engulfed my world. Heedless of the circle, I shot forward.
Time slowed down.
Hands held me back. “No!” I screamed.
Zhan put her knee into the back of mine, throwing me down a few feet from the ashen circle. With her weight centered on my spine, she pinned me to the ground. Still, I struggled to move onward, reaching, clawing at the grass, straining for purchase in the earth.
Heat warmed my hands and blew across my cheeks. A few feet away, I’d been on soggy land, but here the heat of the circle was rapidly drying the nearby vegetation. The temperature kept rising until it felt like I was trying to reach into a blazing hearth. Beside me, outside of the circle, dried leaves began to smolder and burn from the heat.
It couldn’t be as hot within the circle—both of them would be blistering by now.
Menessos had to be displacing that heat magically.
Inside the circle, he rose to his feet. His hands remained arched, and his features were lined with the effort of containing the power of the ley, transferring the heat, and sustaining the spell. Earth fell away around the crevice edges. The light was expanding. He had to step back to keep from falling in.
He couldn’t hold it.
I stopped struggling. Head down, concentrating hard, I tried to send energy to him through the magical bond we shared, but his shields were clamped tightly with all that he was trying to accomplish.
I could help him if—
Something dark cast shadows in the beam from below. Black mist rose, followed by a huge opaque black hand. The fingers caressed Beverley’s spine. It was a tentative touch, the way someone strokes an animal when they are uncertain if it is tame. The next touch was braver, longer. Then the fingers slithered around her and clasped her tight. It was like watching King Kong grab Fay Wray.
“No!” I shouted. My voice was not nearly as loud as I hoped, as my lungs were compressed by Zhan’s weight on my back.
The giant hand tried to pull Beverley down into the opening in the earth. Judging by Menessos’s hand gestures, he was fighting against letting that happen.
Remembering how I’d used the elements to aid me against Liyliy, I called the mantle around me. I could link the elements readily when it was glowing soft around me.
Zhan gasped and wisely got off of me.
With Menessos having taken the time to triple-cast the circle I was willing to bet he had called the elements to guard his circle. I could use my power to manipulate the elements inside the barrier of the circle.
What I needed mastery of right now was earth. With it I could close that crevice—but that was the
Rising to my feet I pointed my index fingers heavenward.
I couldn’t bring her out of the circle, but I wanted it to bring her to this edge and away from the hole in the world.
But it wasn’t to be that easy.
Whatever held her did not want to let go.
Menessos continued fighting from within the circle. He cried out, “Water!”
“Water?” I questioned.
Zhan shouted, “The stream!”
I dropped to my knees and shoved my two little fingers into the ground.
Water came.
“It’s going to wash away your circle!”
Even as I called out, Menessos flicked a hand in my direction. His lips moved. Though my ears could not pick up the sound of his voice, I knew he was drawing a door on the circles. But that moment of refocusing his willpower cost him. The giant hand pulled Beverley down. I could barely see her; she was slightly below the level of the ground.
Like rushing whitewater, the liquid poured across the earth, picking up leaves and crashing noisily in on itself. I guided it through the open doorway Menessos had drawn. Fearing Beverley might drown, I mentally pushed the water so it rounded that crevice and spiraled down into it staying mostly to the edge. But not all.
As it splashed about, the fluid splattered across the hand. Where it fell, it sizzled. Blisters swelled up instantly.
A deep subterranean squeal shuddered up through that fissure. The hand threw her upward and jerked out of sight. Seeing Beverley falling, I had an instant to readjust the water and move it from the edges to pool across the opening and catch her.
It did—then she sank.
I fought to whirlpool the water, to make a current that would push her to the top, but I could not feel where she was, and I wasn’t sure if my efforts were keeping her down. I couldn’t tell how deep the water in my control was.
