264

Jarod's hands ached as did his knees, but the need to finish was greater than the pain.  The fat piece of chalk slipped from his fingers again and again and he finally gripped it with both hands, knees digging into the stone floor as he leaned forward to complete the diagram.  Jarod finally sank to his right hip, the last sigil in place, and stretched his legs out carefully, avoiding smudging the drawing.  A greater ache began in his stomach when he thought of the night to come; the night where he would perform the high magic needed to complete the spell.  It made his already tired body and mind sink into an agony of weary dread.  Anticipating pain and knowing there was no way to avoid it and, even more than that, willingly inflicting it upon oneself was worse than the act itself.

213

Gods, I was hoping my eyesight wouldn't give out completely before I ever had a chance to see the world, even a small part of the world.  I pressed my cool fingers to my eyelids and willed them to rest.  Rest and clear the blur and the dry and the wavering focus that I feared would someday not leave.  A complete night's rest would be good, though it wasn't going to happen as long as Master Grieg wanted all his spells copied within a week.

I blinked at the bleary ink, hoping I hadn't ruined another spell by getting sloppy.  Sloppy spells weren't merely irritating to wizards; they were deadly.  Though Master Grieg could be mean and stubborn and uncaring and unwilling to listen and hurtful, I didn't want him dead.  Much.

189

Stone and moss lay cool against her check, the tears warm from her eyes.  Despite the tears, Maggie still thought rationally, and she knew that this frustration was only making it worse.  The magic wouldn't come and thinking about how the magic wouldn't come bound up her magic even more.  Maggie turned her forehead into the dustiness of the dry leaves and pounded her fist into the ground with a vaguely satisfying thump, again and again, until the thumping sound was what mattered.  Thump and a slight crunch of leaves.  Dull thump that vibrated the packed earth just a little bit.  Her fist's thump that carried up her arm and smudged her pinky finger with dirt.  Thump, thump, thump, until the tears stopped and Maggie didn't notice because her mind was on the thump, thump, thump and the sound and the feel that it made.  Thump, thump, thump, like her heart and the world and the life and suddenly the magic was back because Maggie finally stopped thinking about magic and only thought about the rhythm of her fist and the earth.

67

Put it down, I thought. Just put it down. Put it down. Put it down. The words were a chant in my head, an ineffectual spell meant to save my life. Put it down. Put it down. Put it down.

The knife came up. The knife came down. The knife pulled out, up, down. Out, up, down. I said put it down, not this. My knees weakened and I went down. The knife went with me and we both went down. Even as I fell, I was careful not to fall on it and push it in deeper. My hip went down. My shoulder went down. My head went down. My spell changed to Help. Help. Help.

27

The narrow passageway was never meant to be lit in any fashion, and the tiny blue magelight highlighted to Bern why. He already knew it was a tight fit because his shoulders brushed both sides of the passage, but seeing the inside of the plaster lathe on his left and the rough hewn stone of the palace wall pressing on his right, barely two feet apart, made him feel a claustrophobia he hadn't felt in the pitch dark. The air was stale but oddly dust-free. Bern thought perhaps it had been spelled against it in the very stones so anyone using the passage wouldn't show the signs once they popped out in the library, which he hoped to do, if Marijel ever finished with her scribblings.

It was Bern's magelight but it was Marijel who was Listening to the people in the parlor so she could Compose the piece she was frantically transcribing from her brain into her music-ruled notebook. Bern watched in fascination as the black specks filled the page. He knew Marijel was Composing as fast as possible, but he still willed her to hurry.