I can’t tell who wove it. Can you?
Vex shook his incorporeal head. He didn’t know either.
“With fire, I consecrate thee,” the fire bearer said, and I realized he stood before me. He brought the censer close enough to warm my wet skin. The smell of lotus enveloped my senses. “May these flames burn strong within your heart.”
I breathed in the smoke, trying in vain to see the man’s face beneath his hood. He waved his censer at me again, then returned to his place in the circle.
Jones took Elaine and me by the arm and helped us stand. Awe lingered in Elaine’s expression, and I hurried to replicate her expression. I wanted my unknown foe to think me still befuddled. Silence reigned once everyone settled in, and for just a moment, none moved within the hall.
“Inheritors of a dying world, we call thee to the living beauty!” Mathers shouted.
“Wanderers in the wild darkness,” the circle responded, “we call thee to the gentle light.” Their voices blended and became legion.
Before the echo of their words faded, Mathers spoke again. “Long hast thou dwelt in darkness. Quit the night and seek the day!”
“Quit the night and seek the day!” The circle answered.
“We receive thee into the Order of the Golden Dawn!” Mathers cried and the circle cheered.
“All hail!” Over and over they took up the call.
An odd feeling rose in my chest.
Acceptance, belonging.
I could see why other aspirants longed to join this Order. As my euphoria faded, something shifted within my being. Not an unpleasant feeling, but one of change. For a moment, I attributed it to the cheering mass around me. Then Vex yelled into my mind.
Aleister, they laid the spell upon you!
I focused inward. Sure enough, the Crimson Thread had threaded into my soul. When did that happen?
During the consecration of fire.
Which makes the Fire Bearer the other mage, I thought at Vex. Where did he go?
He shook his spectral head. I lost him.
Help me find him.
Mathers spoke again, but I paid him no mind. I cast about the temple, looking for the fire bearer. He had faded back among the crush, and I cursed.
Never mind him for now. You must remove him from your soul, Vex scolded.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the web of magic. Something this intricate took time to create. He laid the basis of the spell first, then strung his power between each target, all without the members feeling a thing. All old work, except what he cast upon Elaine and me.
An insidious spell, The Crimson Thread of Fate. In essence, it tied together souls, linking their bodies and minds, allowing them to share power. Used effectively, it made both far more powerful. The bound souls should experience everything as one, yet I felt nothing of the others.
I closed my eyes and dove within, searching for the thread within. As I reached for it, I heard something. A murmur, low and soft, like a whisper. It drew me in, made me want to listen. I sank, falling deep to follow it.
Vex drew my consciousness back. I shook my head when I regained myself, and glanced around, afraid another in the circle might have noticed my lapse, but they remained too engrossed in Mathers’s speech to pay me any attention.
What the bloody hell? I thought to Vex.
Part of the sorcery. It remains unkindled, but he sends hypnotic suggestions through the half-finished spell.
Not good. Even now, the siren call of the fire bearer’s witchery lured me. If it affected me like this, then the other members of the Order stood no chance. Too many of this circle could be seated Parliament lords. If he brings them under his sway, the Book will come to London.
We cannot allow that to happen.
Agreed.
Magic, quick and deadly, sped through the web and slammed into my consciousness. With the Crimson Thread upon me, my earlier wards failed and his attacks stabbed through me, the wound within my psyche cold and numb. I kept my feet in the physical world, but my consciousness reeled. Before I recovered, the attack came again. And again. The unknown wizard hammered at my mind.
I tried to follow his attacks along the other threads, hoping to find him. Each new assault came from somewhere else in the circle, as if I battled the whole of the Golden Dawn. But having to find a new route with each hex staggered his abuse. I gathered my will in the pauses, fighting to hold on to it each time he struck.
At last, I gathered enough.
Protego! I screamed into my mind, and the ward blossomed around my psyche. The next hex rang it like a bell, but it held.
His power pulsed through the web again, and at the moment of impact I whispered, Legere. Instead of my ward dissipating the attack, my casting absorbed his hex, swirling it within my own power. I felt the whole of his essence in that mass of his will.
My turn.
This sorcerer equaled me in skill, but not battle experience. And certainly not power. He delivered substantial strikes, but with too much haste. He wished to beat me into submission quickly, before his power waned.
Fortunately, I could summon more.
Protected by my ward, I searched for the fourth gate within. The gate of fire. When it opened, I felt like a forge stoked by a bellows. I gathered will in an instant, combining mine with his. The complex pathway through the threads binding us made it nearly impossible to find him, so I used the power I stole from him to craft a finding spell within my own attack. “Tuum mei flammae remitto,” I whispered and dropped my ward to send spectral fire cascading toward my adversary.
This time, he couldn’t hide.
In the physical world, I heard nothing but the ravings of Mathers to his flock, but in my mind, my foe screamed as my magic slammed
