Help, God-Father.
And then he heard it—the sound of a flute, sweet and high and piercing. It brought with it coolness and space and… rain?
It was raining in the chamber. Ropes of water fell, splattering and splashing the unseen floor. Miasma gave way before it, falling into a sludge, clearing the chamber. Blake blinked; he could see the walls and windows again, a glimpse of the scarred and blackened oak table.
A charred hulk on the floor that could only be Marius.
His gorge rose. Blake pressed his lips together tightly and turned back towards the waiting room. A waterfall covered the doorway, gushing ferociously, spraying back up from the floor in a mist. The undines churned through it as the flute played, fast, urgent, calling him.
Blake plunged through the water barrier. Instantly drenched to the skin, he emerged on the other side with all his clothes sticking to him. The incredibly costly wraith cloak was in rags hanging from his shoulders.
Swan stood in the middle of the waiting chamber, flute to her lips, her face sheened with sweat, her eyes wide with fear. The two Guardians hovered in the hallway to the solar, the bird man running his chains through his hands and muttering, Mr. Milton shaping and patting something invisible.
“Keep going, Swan,” Blake told her hoarsely. He could feel the spell taking shape as the Guardians wove it to protect the Mirror.
Protecting them, though? That was his and Swan’s job.
Get to it, Ember.
The salamander darted out, a ball of anger and determination, mirroring his own emotions. She shot in lines in front of the rippling waterfall, leaving scorch marks on stone and fiery ropes in the air.
Swan’s arms trembled; she couldn’t hold on much longer.
Blake uncapped the vial of gold flakes and threw the contents onto the barrier Ember had erected. The whole thing flared up into a wall of gold and red, floor to ceiling.
Swan’s hands dropped, the flute crashing to the floor. She doubled over, arms at her side, panting as if she’d run a mile.
Her undines stroked across the floor and clung to her legs in twin folds. Their fear was palpable.
Yet they’d held the line, as had Swan.
She deserves a commendation. Blake thought, as he raised his hands and fed more power to his barrier. There were three layers to it, and he tossed another vial, this one of silver flakes in lily-and-moonlight-steeped water.
Whitish flames rose between him and the gold ones. The last shield.
Swan straightened, still gasping. “What else can I do, sir?”
“Pray,” said Blake, intent on the fire.
What had happened to the other elementalists downstairs? Dead, most likely. But someone had to have noticed the miasma. The alarms had to be going off all over the Quadrangle.
“Help’s on the way,” he said out loud, for Swan’s benefit.
It had to be.
Because not even gold flames could hold back the miasma.
Beyond the fiery wall, something thudded and rolled, chinking like glass, heavy like a cannonball.
And then it exploded.
Miasma broke through the barriers an instant before Blake grabbed Swan’s arm and thrust her into the wall at the far side. He grabbed the edge of her hood and pulled it over her face.
“Keep covered!” he ordered, spinning around, flames in his hands.
Two men entered along with the miasma, wearing black oval masks with blank eyes of colored glass. Dressed in tight black, their masks looked too heavy for their necks.
One of them stooped and rolled a black glass ball towards the Guardians, still working their spell to protect the Mirror.
Not on my… Blake launched himself at it, knowing he would be too late.
The sphere burst open.
Trey sped along the boundary of the Shadow Lands, the mortal realm bunching and stretching on one side of him. Images flashed by, too fast to register more than impressions: a chamber maid with dirty bare feet making up a fire; a man carefully shaving in front of a small mirror; a stable boy curled in the straw with two sleeping hounds.
Tendrils of black vapor wafted towards him in a whiff of acid. The Keep rose up ahead of him, seen as though under water, stained with black ink.
Miasma. They had attacked, then.
Trey’s mouth set in a hard line. The air around him turned thick as he slowed. He teased phantasmia through his fingers, subduing it, winding it into a ball, working quickly. It was far better to prepare the stuff beforehand, rather than pull it raw from the Shadow Lands.
In an emergency, he’d rather have phantasmia. He’d gladly answer for it later, when everyone was safe.
Trey waited, though every instinct screamed at him to run in.
The others needed time, and miasma was nasty stuff even to a phantasmist.
Trey’s senses prickled. Denizens of the Shadow Lands had taken notice of the incident. They watched from a distance, waiting for an opening. None of them was a big threat on its own.
For now, Trey could ignore them.
Silver runes twinkled to life around the Keep, their gleam distorted and tarnished through the ever-moving boundary. Winter.
It was time.
He moved through sludge. One more step and he was both still in the Shadow Lands and inside the Keep.
He saw the attackers in their protective armor, saw the miasma sphere roll across the room. Saw Blake move—heroic idiot! —to throw himself on top of it in a futile, desperate gesture.
Trey cut a long rip with Sorrow and stepped into the room.
Miasma roiled up into his face. He grimaced, catching it between phantasmia-gloved hands. The stuff writhed, fighting him, as he encased it in phantasmia. Splinters of emotion—anger, jealousy, fear—pricked him; Trey solidified his mental defenses against them.
These weapons were of a crude, brute-force type. They’d been made by men, not demons.
Once the phantasmia had taken hold, he whisked both substances back into the Shadow Lands.
One of the masked men uttered an inarticulate yell and tossed another globe in Trey’s direction. It crashed to the floor in a
