moved to stand between him and the three agents that Weast hadn’t sent to put out the fire. I could handle three.
I want it in the bottle, I thought as I stared at the baku trapped in my circle, hanging in the sanctuary like a tiny eclipsed sun. Help me. Lend me your skill. But I wasn’t sure the Goddess was listening as I took the bottle from where the blast had knocked it rolling, carefully stepping over the somnolent spiral to set it at the center. Trent and I might not have been able to shrink the circle down small enough to put the baku in a bottle, but it couldn’t escape the spiral if it was in my bubble. Right?
“God bless it, Morgan!” Weast shouted, a hand to his bloody nose as he turned from the fire in the waste drum. “What are you doing?”
“Improvising,” I said, telling Trent with a look to stay back as I carefully worked my way free of the spiral. Hodin wanted me to stand up for him. The entire collective needed to be shown that they could trust the Goddess. I had to trust her now.
“That’s not going to work,” Weast said as if I was being stupid, and giving him a smirk, I extended a magic-dripping hand, the memory of midnight drums echoing in my soul.
The words to invoke the spiral were in my mind, burned into my very soul. Hodin’s curse was warm through me, and I saw Trent touch his chest, realizing that he felt it, too. “Tislan, tislan, ta na shay, cooreen na da,” I crooned, and with a trill of wild magic, the spiral blossomed back to life as raw energy from the Goddess filled it. “Tislan, tislan, ta na shay, cooreen na da!” I demanded, trusting her. See me. Lend me your skill.
“What the hell?” Weast took a step forward, and Trent stood, wobbly but resolute as he warned him not to interfere. I was the demon. I was the song the lines danced to. I was the sword that the breaker of the worlds wielded to make reality from nothing. The drums beat for me, and I gloried in them, pounding wild into the night. With the Goddess’s attention, I could do anything.
“You fool!” Weast exclaimed, his eyes on the glowing orb. “All you did was free it!”
The two people trying to put out the fire in the waste barrel hesitated, and the fire whooshed up, lighting the sanctuary in an odd smoky glow. “Ta na shay. Tislan, tislan. Ta na shay cooreen na da,” I crooned, and the spiral glowed brighter, rivaling the new flames creeping up the church’s wall. And then I blew the orb with the baku into the glowing spiral.
“Get that fire out,” Weast demanded, then turned to watch, his hands on his waist as the bubble shivered, rainbows of aura traversing the globe as the baku looked for escape. I held my breath as the power of the spiral pushed against me, the drums wild in the dark, the power icing through my veins. But it held no sway over me. I was the drums. I was the music. I was the words.
Become, I thought as the baku traveled the spiral and with a soft pop vanished.
Elation raced through me. “It’s done!” I exclaimed, turning to Trent. “It moved on! Trent, we did it!”
He was leaning against the wall with his eyes alight, filled with his pride and love. He took a step toward me, hands outstretched.
And then I was pushed from behind as a silent wave burst from the spiral, sending the bottle spinning across the floor and knocking me down. I hit the old oak with a thud, panicking.
“No!” I gasped as I spun to look, feeling betrayed as the baku coalesced out of the bottle like a dark shadow, free again. “I asked for your help. I asked!” I shouted as I bubbled the baku again and it beat at the enclosing circle. Damn her. I thought she’d help. I thought this would work!
“I told you,” Weast said as his people began circling us again. “You can’t bottle it. You don’t think we tried that? You can spend all day catching it and dropping it in there, but it won’t stay. You can’t control a baku unless it’s attached to a soul.”
“Then I will hold it,” Bis said as he suddenly dropped from the rafters.
“What? No!” I shouted. But Bis scooped up the bottle, wings beating as