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When Larkin came to the door they were both deep in books. He glanced around the room and kept to his side of the threshold. “I’m sent to fetch you. The sun’s set, and we’re going into evening training.”
“Tell him we’ll be there when we’re done,” Glenna said. “We’re in the middle of something.”
“I’ll tell him, but I’m thinking he won’t like it.” He pulled the door shut and left them.
“I’ve nearly got it. I’m going to draw out what I think they should look like, then we’ll both visualize. Hoyt?”
“It must be pure,” he said to himself. “Conjured with faith as much as magic.”
She left him to it and began to sketch. Simple, she thought, and with tradition. She glanced over, saw he was sitting, eyes closed. Gathering power, she assumed, and his thoughts.
Such a serious face, and one, she realized, she’d come to trust completely. It seemed she’d known that face forever, just as she knew the sound of his voice, the cadence of it.
Yet the time they’d had was short, just as the time they would have was no more than a handful of grains in the sand of an hourglass.
If they won—no when, when they won—he’d go back to his time, his life, his world. And she to hers. But nothing would ever be the same. And nothing would ever really fill the void he’d leave behind.
“Hoyt.”
His eyes were different when they met hers. Deeper and darker. She pushed the sketch toward him. “Will this do?”
He lifted it, studied. “Yes, but for this.”
He took the pencil from her, added lines on the long base of the Celtic cross she’d drawn.
“What is it?”
“It’s ogham script. Old writing.”
“I know what ogham is. What does it say?”
“It says light.”
She smiled, nodded. “Then it’s perfect. This is the spell. It feels right to me.”
He took that in turn, then looked at her. “Rhymes?”
“It’s how I work. Deal with it. And I want a circle. I’ll feel better with one.”
Because he agreed he rose, to cast it with her. She scribed fresh candles with her bolline, watched him light them.
“We’ll make the fire together.” He held out his hand for hers.
Power winged up her arm, struck the heart of her. And the fire, pure and white, shimmered an inch above the floor. He hefted the cauldron, set it on the flames.
“Silver old and silver bright.” He set the candlestand in the cauldron. “Go to liquid in this light.”
“As we stand in the sorcerer’s tower,” Glenna continued, adding the jasper, the herbs, “we charge this flame to free your power.” She dropped in her grandmother’s ring.
“Magicks from the sky and sea, from air and earth we call to thee. We your servants beg this blessing, shield us in this time of testing. We answer your charge with head, heart and hand to vanquish the darkness from the land. So we call you three times three to shield those who serve you faithfully.
“Let this cross shine light to night.”
As they chanted the last line, three times three, silver smoke rose from the cauldron, and the white flames beneath it grew brighter.
It flooded her, light and smoke and heat, filled her as her voice rose with his. Through it, she saw his eyes, only his eyes locked on hers.
In her heart, in her belly, she felt it heat and grow. Stronger, more potent than anything she’d ever known. It swirled in her as with his free hand, he threw the last of the jasper dust into the cauldron.
