Eli took her place in the marble crater that had been smooth floor a minute before. He laid his hands on the dented metal and began whispering in the gentle tone Miranda had labeled his spirit sweet-talking voice. He was barely two words in when he jerked back, clutching his hand as if he’d been burned.
“We have a problem,” he announced. “I can’t talk to the doors.”
“What’s wrong?” Miranda picked her way through the rubble toward him.
Eli gazed grimly up at the twisted metal, shaking his hands vigorously. “They’re terrified. So terrified, in fact, I’m surprised they’re still standing.”
Miranda looked at Nico, but Eli shook his head. “Not her. Demon fear is different, vindictive. This is enslaver work. Renaud’s scared them shut.”
Miranda raised her eyebrows skeptically and brushed her hands against the doors. As soon as her fingers made contact, white-hot pain shot up her arm. It went through skin, muscle, and bone and straight to the core of her spirit, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears. Her hands jerked away of their own accord, taking shelter in the cool, smooth cloth of her skirt. The burning remained, however, and with it an echo of terror so great that it made her legs watery. In the moment she touched the doors, one iron-clad command had overshadowed everything. It rang through the metal, greater than the fear and heavier than the pain, an unbreakable order: Don’t move.
“That bastard.” Miranda looked up at Eli, her face pale with fury. “We have to stop him. I don’t care if he’s after Gregorn’s Pillar or not. Anyone who would do this to a spirit can’t be allowed to live.”
“For once, we agree.” Eli reached up and began to unbutton his valet jacket, and then the white shirt underneath. “I hadn’t meant to use this just yet,” he said, “but I can’t let Josef find us standing around, can I?”
He turned, and Miranda cringed before she could stop herself. His jacket and shirt hung open, revealing his bare chest. A series of angry red burns ran in a swirling pattern from his collarbone to just above his navel. Before she could ask what caused such an injury, the burns began to hiss. Smoke rose up from the marks in a white plume, curling into a cloud that smelled faintly of charred flesh. The temperature in the room began to rise. It was a pleasant, dry heat at first, but it increased exponentially with every breath Eli took. The ball of smoke above the thief’s head blackened as the heat grew. Sparks flashed at its center, faintly at first, then more violently, until the cloud was popping like a greenwood bonfire. Despite the fire show happening less than a foot above him, Eli’s face was calm and his eyes were closed, as if he were asleep. The cloud was as hot as a smelter now, and Miranda took a step back as the hissing and snapping reached a crescendo. With a final crack, a tremendous blast of hot air and smoke shot out of the cloud, and every lamp in the hall snuffed out at once.
For a moment, the world went black, and then bright red light, more intense than any fire, blossomed in the air above Eli. The light swirled and grew, blending smoke and fire to form feet, then legs. A broad-barrelled chest three times as tall as Miranda flashed in the darkness, growing muscular arms, boulder-sized fists, and shoulders like fiery mountains. Finally, with a new burst of heat, the remaining light condensed into an enormous flame-wreathed head whose pointed crown brushed dangerously near the peak of the hall’s vaulted ceiling. Fully formed, the creature stretched languidly, sending a shower of sparks down around him. Red light rippled along the new-made muscles, tracing the intricate connections between limb and trunk as the creature’s surface hardened from smoke and fire into red-hot stone. When it was done stretching, it tilted its enormous head down. Glorious, fiery swirls moved like weather fronts across its face as the great hinge of a mouth opened wide, dripping fire.
“Eli,” it said. “It is good to see you.”
Eli pulled his coat closed, covering his now unmarred chest. “You, too, old friend.”
Miranda could not believe what she was seeing. The enormous spirit glowed like the heart of a smith’s fire, but the solidity and weight reminded her of Master Banage’s great stone spirits. The heat coming off it was more powerful than Kirik’s at