“How can we assist you, Ahndras Frost?” Seshka asked, gazing up at Ahn with the first light of hope in her eyes.

“I’ll need a large quantity of stinkwort for binding, salt for a grounding circle, some candles, and a bowl of pure leywater, preferably bottled and unopened. Oh, and feverbane bandages, in case of injuries. Bring them all to the leywater font.”

“I can provide those.” Seshka leaned forward, seeming almost eager. “I bought reagents to keep us hidden here. There is salt in the pantry, and restorative potions, if you would find those useful.”

“Potions would be marvelous. Mora, I’ll need you to maintain physical contact with me the entire time. Watch for any dark summons that are drawn to the aethermagic, but only let go of me in dire need.”

“How will I know when the need is dire?” Mora asked, voice small.

“Oh, you’ll know. In that life or death place, one always knows.” He shuddered, not bothering to hide his fear. Hiding it would not be fair, and it was a terrible thing he was about to do. They all needed to be prepared.

“I wish I were strong enough.” Seshka murmured.

“I am strong enough,” Ahn said, smiling. “I’m the best there is with these things, or so Archmage Miir likes to tell me. I’ll keep you safe.”

“Thank you.” Seshka looked over to the rest of the children, who nodded or lifted their chins in assent. While Seshka and the others went to retrieve the tools, Ahn talked through the ceremony in greater detail.

“Holding fast to me connects me to this realm,” he said. “It keeps me from losing myself in the aethereal void.”

“That makes sense,” Mora replied. “It’s what guardians do normally, just… bigger.”

“Just a little, yes,” Ahn said. “I may cry out in pain, even beg for you to make it stop, but you must promise to ignore me unless I’m clearly in mortal danger. Just grab onto me for dear life. Talk to me, call out my name, recite verses of a song—anything to keep my connection to this world strong.”

“My awful singing alone would knock you right back out of the afterlife, I promise,” Mora said, a little too lightly.

“It would be the most welcome sound in the world.”

Source, he was terrified. But there was nothing for it. And this was his chance to make right what Larkwing had tried to destroy.

“We have your supplies set up by the leywater font,” Seshka said as she walked into the room, a hint of a smile ghosting over her face for an instant before fading away. “Tell us how else we can help.”

“It would help if you’d clear the room. Push the cushions and chairs against the wall and light the candles once they’re in the middle of the circle I’m making,” Ahn said.

He grabbed the burlap sack of salt from Seshka and walked in a clockwise circle, trailing the tiny white crystals in his wake, giving the leywater font as wide a berth as possible. He repeated the motion three times, the traditional number, noting with satisfaction the even, unbroken circle glinting in the weak light. “Here is some bottled leywater,” one of the Sionnach children said, carrying a large, wooden bowl in steady hands.

“Place it here,” Ahn said. “All of you, have potions and feverbane bandages ready for any who might need it. Mora, that goes double for you. So, I’ll have the leywater, and the candles will represent fire and of course help us see. We have the element of earth in the salt, air surrounds us, and I embody aether. All five Prime Elements will be present. And of course, a guardian to keep me alive and kicking.”

“Absolutely,” Mora said and mock-saluted. Warmth bloomed through Ahn at the light-hearted gesture amid preparations for what would be the most dangerous thing he would ever do as an aethermage.

All too soon he’d prepped the summoning area, the children grouped behind Mora, who stood with him in the dim light of a scattering of candles awaiting Source knew what. He had never been happier for company in his life than he was now, gazing over at Mora as she stood in a guard stance, waiting for him to begin.

—

“Kneel beside me, as far away from the salt circle as you can,” Ahn said, patting a cushion next to him.

Mora lowered next to him, sitting back on her heels. Neat piles of feverbane-soaked bandages lay at the ready to her right, and bottles of restorative waited on her left, stoppers loosened for easy use. There was nothing more they needed to do.

It was time.

“Remember all that I have told you,” Ahn said. “Keep me here in the world with you, guardian.”

Mora didn’t trust herself to speak, just nodding. She waited, one hand pressed to her guardian’s amulet, the other resting on Ahn’s shoulder. Before she could second-guess herself, or beg him to stop, she whispered the opening words of a guardian’s invocation for safety.

Ahn exhaled and then sat up straighter, chanting over Mora’s prayer words. “I call to the aether. I call to the beyond. I call to the void in the Source’s name, to right the wrongs that have brought us here today.”

Mora flinched as he lifted his dagger, pricking his finger enough to let several ruby drops fall to the center of the circle even while she held him. The blood steamed as it hit the dirty floor, but not from heat. The air was already freezing, her breath puffing out in ephemeral clouds.

Stay calm. Keep speaking the Guardian’s Prayer, she reminded herself.

Ahn began a different incantation, this one in the harsh language he had used against the Awakened. Jagged words, like broken stone and shattered glass, beat against the air. The candle flames rose high; the leywater in its bowl began to churn and swirl. Wind rushed around them, the salt circle trembled, and Ahn’s aethermagic flared, a dome of ghostly blue light.

“I invoke the Source’s protection,” Mora recited, voice gaining strength, “the light from the guardians of the past, and the strength within me. I call upon this power to protect my charge for the highest good.”

She repeated the prayer while remembering to gaze around the room, watching for threats. The children waited, improvised weapons in their hands and bottles of potion and piles of bandages at their sides.

Nothing happened. No Dregs, no rotten sulfurous stench, no eerie green Kraah lights. Just the air restless around them, the leywater foaming, the floor beneath them shuddering. Then⁠⁠⁠—

“No! No, please!” Ahn cried out. “It… hurts. It hurts. Please, dear Source, make it stop.” His chant halted, replaced by a litany of pain and pleading. He stared ahead, unseeing, his aethermagic so radiant that Mora had to squint to keep watch on the chamber. Ahn’s screams grew strident, his begging desperate, and Mora saw tears streaking through the grime on his cheeks.

It was horrible. A nightmare. Her throat tightened as she tried not to sob in terror. With effort, she picked up her repetition of the Guardian’s prayer, her voice shaking so hard the words were almost indecipherable.

After what felt like an eternity, Ahn’s cries subsided. His aethermagic dampened, the flames sputtered, and the salt and water went still.

Something was wrong.

“Be ready, children,” Mora spoke into the eerie quiet.

Ahn’s leymagic was now a glowering blue-black, the room freezing and drenched in oppressive shadow. Mora returned to the Prayer, hoping she could make it through this—that she could carry them to the other side. At that moment, hope was impossible to find.

But I’ll keep holding on to it. I’ll do this for them. For him. I’ll get us out of here alive.