“Remind me, was this supposed to be hard and precise, or simple enough for someone to do it accidentally?” Jextor asked, turning the cream-white slab around, holding it with two fingers.

“Both,” Falar said. “And therein lies the danger. You, Grit, was it?”

“Yes!” Grit said, snapping straighter as Falar’s eyes focused on her.

“Good. Take the Conspice. I will instruct you through the steps,” Falar said, standing with his hands behind his back.

Jextor handed Grit the slab and started walking and drawing runes into the air. He kept going, creating a circle of interconnected squiggles around Grit in the middle of the tent, hanging at chest-level. The power ran through the lattice, thick and heady. It made my skin itch all over.

“Ready,” he said. “The circle needs only to be connected and it will cut off any outside influence.”

Falar walked around the circle and wrinkled his nose at some of the runes. “Yes, it will suffice.”

Jextor chuckled.

“Why are you doing it this way?” I asked. “Didn’t you handle the wards at the Academy? And when he warded the window in Tenorsbridge, it broke.”

“This isn’t a question of elegance or precision,” Falar said. “If something comes for us, we need power. We each have our uses. Even you. You will stay alert, keep your senses attuned. I hesitate to tell you to speak up freely, but do so, nevertheless.”

I nodded. His sneer wasn’t as sharp as I was used to. Maybe he was taking this seriously. Even Jextor was focusing, fingers holding on to the two edges of the glowing circle, ready to snap them together.

“You sure about this?” I asked Grit.

Grit grinned at me, holding the Conspice in her hands. I hadn’t seen it in a while, not since Tenorsbridge. The material looked like bone. The slab curved slightly like it was part of something bigger. I now knew the markings engraved into it were runes, but I had no idea what they meant. They were severe, sharp scribbles that looked angry compared to the simple, smoothly curving runes I knew.

“Stay outside of the circle,” Falar said to me. He walked up to Grit. Her boot scraped back half a step and she leaned away. Falar cupped her hands holding the Conspice. Grit drew in a sharp breath when a sickly purple glow lit up around their hands.

“I will get you going,” Falar said, staring into Grit’s hands, completely oblivious to the effect he was having on the poor dummy. She tore her gaze away from Falar’s face and focused on her hands too.

“The Conspice should only act as a lens for your gaze to pierce through the ether and observe the boundary of raw nothing,” Falar said, closing his eyes. “Shift through what you can see, let your intuition or the Conspice guide your attention. If there is something waiting, you will attract its gaze even if yours doesn’t find it.”

“Yes, Lecturer,” Grit said.

“Good girl,” he said, letting go of her hands.

The purple glow surrounding Grit’s hands flared, spiking wildly. Falar frowned at it and leaned closer to peer into her hands. He scratched his temple and shrugged, then turned away. “Curious reaction,” he said.

Grit’s white face was bright pink.

“Focus, Grit,” I murmured.

---

Grit had stood with her eyes closed for ten minutes. She kept murmuring, describing the nothingness in halting words and broken phrases. Jextor held the runes and kept them glowing, eyes trained on her. He occasionally asked for some details from Grit about what she was seeing.

Falar walked around and around the circle, hands clasped behind his back.

“Stop pacing,” I said.

“What?”

“Sit in your comfy chair or something. You’re making me nervous.”

Falar stopped and frowned at me. He turned slowly and approached the armchair, lowering himself into it carefully. “This might take a while. Sit.”

I grabbed Jextor’s pillow and sat on it next to Falar, so I could watch in case something happened to Grit.

“Do you feel anything?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I can feel the magic of the circle and the Null you poured into the Conspice, but it’s just magic. Nothing special.”

“Nothing special,” he said, scoffing. “This ritual rivals some written in legends, both in risk and power tapped, but you call it nothing special. And you’re right. So far, we have nothing out of the ordinary to show for it.”

“He just drew a circle and you put some glow on the thingie,” I said, waving a hand at Grit. We spoke in hushed voices, the murmuring of Grit and Jextor constantly in the background.

Falar smiled at me, lips curling away from small white teeth. What an unsettling sight. “You think power needs to announce itself? Should I have summoned lightning or chanted in an ominous voice? Perhaps Jextor could have performed a frenzied dance for us.”

“No thanks,” I said.

“I thought as much. True power doesn’t need to bluster. Look at the protection Jextor created. Ignore that the man is an idiot and see his work for what it is.”

Jextor rolled his eyes, but I leaned closer, did as Falar told me. The circle was a band of runes, maybe a hundred linked together, all floating and flowing in a circle around Grit. Each rune was connected to the previous and the next one to its sides, the ones above and below it, forming a continuous web. Each of the runes burned with power, coiled and waiting.

I broke out in goosebumps, hairs standing on end. I hissed and leaned away from the circle, in case it exploded and took the whole camp, the mountaintop, with it.

“Sustaining the circle would kill most people foolish enough to attempt it,” Falar said quietly. “And crafting the matrix of runes would have taken me a week of planning. Look at the way it’s balanced. Beautiful.” He scoffed, leaning back. “That bastard.”

I held a hand before my mouth, not able to speak because of the current running through my skin.

“The Chancellor could teach you about utilizing talent. I have just been too afraid you’d be a bad influence on each other to suggest it so far,” Falar said. “One day I will, once you have matured enough to not bite him.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” I muttered.

He harrumphed, eyes locked on Grit. “We will have to stop this soon,” he said almost to himself, standing up. “She must be feeling the strain already.”

“No,” Grit said.

Falar stopped mid-step.

“I’m only getting the hang of it. There’s nothing in here, but there’s a current in the nothing. I think I can ride it.”

“You will tell me if the toll starts to weigh on you,” Falar said. He lowered back into his armchair, crossing one foot on top of the other. “Impressive,” he muttered.

I smiled. Damn, Grit. She couldn’t have heard, or the Conspice would probably have burst into flames in her hands.

---

Grit yelped.

It hit me at the same time and I jolted up from the pillow. “Thing!” I shouted.

Falar twitched, fumbling the book he had been reading. Jextor stood in the same place as when the ritual had started, but sweat ran down his bald head and face, vanishing into his beard.

“I mean, something!” I said. “It’s it!”

“Enough,” Falar said. “We’re alerted.”

“It looks at me. It’s coming this way!” Grit shouted, eyes squeezed shut and hands gripping the Conspice tight. Purple light poured out of it, pooling on the ground. The veins on her hands stood out black against her white skin.

“We shall see who fears whom,” Falar said, ducking below the circle and grabbing Grit’s hands into his. He growled, color draining from his skin until he was almost as white as she was. “So, you like to share?” he hissed.

The air became heavy, like someone was stepping on the tent. “What should I do?” I shouted.

“Keep alert!” Jextor said. “Tell me when to trigger the ward!”

“How should I know when that is!” I screamed.

He didn’t listen, or at least didn’t reply. The circle started glowing even brighter as he brought his hands closer to each other.

“It’s not a lich,” Falar said through cracked lips. “But it does bridge the gap.”

“You mean it has an anchor here?” Jextor asked.

What were they talking about? The pressure was becoming unbearable. The ward around my neck was heating up.

“Yes, somewhere around…” Falar said. His voice cracked, rising into almost a whistle. He frowned, standing up straighter. “Huh? Where did it—”

The ward buckled, twisting and choking me. It unspooled, whipping itself apart. For a single breath, I could breathe properly.

“No!” Falar shouted, letting go of Grit’s hands. The shout made the tent shudder, a piercing shriek louder than Jextor could have managed.

I registered it faintly. The pressure crashed over me, the stench of mold and runny mushrooms, thick enough to suffocate. Falar reached a hand out toward me. His eyes were smoking holes, as he pushed on the ground to rush toward me.

Everything turned monochrome, like a black glass had fallen between me and the world. Only Jextor’s circle still glowed faintly blue, but everything else was motionless, infinitely far from me. Falar hung in the air, frozen mid-leap.

You are terrified.

As is appropriate.

For why shouldn’t you fear?

All you have lost, you will lose more and more and more.

And will never stop losing.

Wouldn’t it be better not to?

 

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