the magic. Gaps appeared in the circle as the spellpowder was whipped into the vortex. Fern picked up the wrong jar, swore, swapped it, tried to fill in the chinks. The magic was flowing back now, leaking out into the room. The bookshelves heaved in a solid, moving wave. The ceiling arched upward until the distended plaster began to split and fragments floated down like leaves. The floor shifted uneasily beneath their feet. The cat had turned into a ball of madness: both Ragginbone and Moonspittle struggled to restrain him, flayed by whirling claws. Will threw his arms around Gaynor just as she reached to brush the plaster from her hair, inadvertently knocking him in the eye. Both of them gasped out breathless apologies. Something with too many eyes materialized in several parts of the room at once, staring out from chair back and book-spine, from grimy lithograph and splintered bell jar. Fern had abandoned the spellpowder and was fighting to regain control, ignoring a growing sense of helplessness.
“Orcalé nef-heleix . . . Vardé nessantor . . . Ai Morcadis thinéfissé . . . vardé!”
The eyes winked out. The perimeter was still broken, but the magic seemed to be contained, held within a boundary of pure will. The spellfire flared, blue flames licking around the pelmet, and in its livid glare Fern’s face, too, looked blue, pinched with effort. “End it!” cried Ragginbone, but she rushed on, babbling the new summons in a frenzy of haste, before her strength failed altogether. “Dana!” she called, into the night, into the void. “Prisoner or wanderer, come to me!”
And for a few moments she was there—not the well-tended body in the hospital bed but as she must have looked at the party, with a swirl of hair not her own and the chiffon tatters of her costume. Under the makeup her eyes were frightened; her hands seemed to push at an invisible wall. At first she did not appear to see her summoner, but then her gaze focused on Fern, and she grew still, and the tip of her nose flattened as if pressed against a glass. Her lips moved soundlessly, but they could all read the words. Help me . . .
She vanished without dismissal into a surge of darkness. The epicenter of the circle grew storm-black. An image developed in the murk: a girl’s face, transparent as a hologram, shining faintly. Fern murmured, bemused: “Gaynor?” Ragginbone’s shout of warning came too late. Gaynor had slipped from Will’s grasp, stepped through a break in the perimeter. There was a second when her features melded with those in the circle, then she, too, vanished.
What happened next was something Fern would never remember very clearly: Will’s panic, Ragginbone’s harsh admonition, Moonspittle’s squeak of protest. She was unable to think anymore and ceased to try; instinct took over. “You’ll have to maintain the circle,” she found herself saying, probably to Moonspittle. “Seal the boundary. Don’t let anything through. If you can hold the spell, I’ll be back.” She didn’t wait for objection or restraint. Her will was firm, her mind empty. She had no plan of action, no doubt, and in that instant, no fear.
She stepped into the circle, spoke one word. “Envardo!” I follow.
She followed.
At first, Gaynor thought she hadn’t moved. She couldn’t recall entering the circle, only being there. There was a brief uprush of light, a sensation of falling—and then the spinning tunnel of radiance slowed, subsided, and she was left standing as before, except that now the perimeter was unbroken. She looked up, and saw the full moon streaming through an open window, its light blending with the werelight so that she had to narrow her eyes against the brightness. The only window in the basement had been small and high up, screened with cloth or brown paper. She began to be frightened—not very frightened, not yet, but frightened enough. She stared around her, trying to see beyond the circle, but all she could make out was a soaring darkness of vast black drapes depending from some vault far above. Then she saw the woman. A tall woman in a pale dress that glittered when she moved. Her hair hung down her back in a thick clotted mass; her bare arms were as white as the dress. The fire glow limned her figure with blue. Long afterward, Gaynor said: “Her face was beautiful, but it was like something in a surrealist painting. If you looked at it from a different angle,