Lisbeth McQuarrie
I could have escaped the basements. It was simpler to race through them. Quite possibly safer, too. I could hear the wolf, just as I could hear people screaming in terror. But both were becoming dimmer. Either the wolf was going further afield, or it no longer needed to be as fearsome, for it had eaten what it needed.
The Ley lines still converged above me, but I must admit they were weak. They had this pendulous feeling to them, too, like they were about to drop. If you’d ever asked me, I wouldn’t have told you that Ley lines were like flowers, the petals of some beautiful rose. They’d always seemed stronger than that. But now I could see the similarity. For right above me, shockingly, one suddenly simply withered and died. I gasped and locked a hand over my mouth, but tell me this, what good could it possibly do? It did not bring the Ley line back. Nothing could.
I longed to have King Li by my side to explain this, but I knew he was too hurt. And I knew, fundamentally, I had the ability to understand on my own.
For so many years, I hadn’t questioned what it was to be a dead practitioner. I’d done my duty begrudgingly without understanding the sacred force within me. And the sacred duty that came with it. For it is one thing to act as we ought. It is another to understand the natural world to figure out what can ultimately be done.
The curse still throbbed within me, its angry cry only getting louder the further I went from Grace and Bram. It recognized that without them there to control me, I might have a chance. I promise you I had more.
The curse wasn’t exactly intelligent. But it did have something. Something I could clutch hold of as I secured a hand on the center of my brow and growled. “You won’t win in the end. You’re starting to realize that, aren’t you? It doesn’t matter what you think you can do or who will come to your aid – I will destroy the king, release his control of this kingdom, and exorcise you for good. Because you’re partially alive, aren’t you? That’s how I shall get rid of you.”
You might think it would be smarter for me to have this conversation silently in my head. I ought to keep my plans to myself. That way the curse would never know what had struck it until finally I had rendered the last blow. But it was like any ordinary enemy. Leave it to its own devices, and it would continue to plan against you. If you instead distracted it with hard talk, it would not have the chance to do much but shiver with fear.
I heard it hissing far more darkly now. Let it hiss as much as it wanted.
I rose up another level in the basements. Such a complicated place. If a witch had ever been in control of them, she would’ve torn them down and started anew. For energy, when it’s taught to live as wildly as this, will change those who live above it.
I could not blame the current king’s utter depravity on the energies of his palace. I could, however, actually plan to fight him properly.
A part of me wished to run to Winchester’s side, especially considering I was most certain the indenturing mark was begging me to do so, but I needed some kind of edge.
And perhaps I was about to find it.
I was well aware of the fact that this palace possessed multiple treasures. I’d heard Winchester mutter about one once. Full of soul stones, he’d said. He’d promised me, if I ever got powerful enough, I would have to raid it for him.
I was still infected by a curse, but I was certainly more powerful than I had ever been before.
More powerful, in fact, than a sudden secret spell I saw winding through the dirt beneath me. It was my singular power over dirt that enabled me to detect it.
I was quite used to finding security spells. It came with the territory of helping ghosts. Not all ghosts I’d helped had been simple folk. A lot had been practitioners. And some had been criminals. While I of course had never assisted them with their crimes, I had assisted them to make up for their mistakes once they had left. And I told you all of this now because, upon detecting that security spell beneath me, I identified just how powerful it was.
Now quite capable of doing so, considering my newfound skills, I actually grasped it through the dirt. There was nothing to stop my fingers from sailing through each fine particle and every stone. And nothing at all to stop me from grasping up the spell and holding it in my hand tightly.
I caged it with my own magic, and I started to pull it. I’d heard such a thing was possible for strong practitioners, but I had never imagined I could do something similar. Now, as I gave a very mighty tug, I heard something cracking ahead.
I raced over to find a roughly hewn wall. It didn’t quite match. This part of the tunnel was carved stone.
The wall was there to hide something. But the wall would not hide it for long.
I lifted up my foot and went to kick through it, then shook my head. Of course. Why not simply walk through it?
I strode right through the dirt, and it was a discombobulating experience indeed, but it was one I needed to grow accustomed to. When it came time to fight the king, I would require every advantage I could get.
Once I reached the other side, why, I clapped eyes on perhaps the most beautiful treasury I had ever seen. The decorations and fine murals weren’t what mattered. It was what it stocked. Well-carved wooden shells were packed with crimson soul stones. Better than that, right in the corner was a garden that presumably created them. There were also glass vials and some strange device that, upon inspection, seemed to be the thing that crushed the crystals into dust. And the vials were full of such dust.
It was extraordinary but extraordinarily ugly at the same time. For the vibe in here was so very oppressive, should you find yourself trapped, I imagined you’d have an hour or two before you blacked out for good.
I had less than an hour or two and no intention to waste a single second. I longed to get these crystals straight to Wintersmith. I quickly assumed it was impossible then paused. Bram, an underpowered but intelligent man, could create gates. Winchester could, too, but he had skills beyond me. Why couldn’t I? With my current level of power, surely I could do the impossible?
I turned. I wondered how long I would have?
As if to answer that question, I heard something quite fearsome caught on the wind. It was a cry, but it did not come from the lips of a man. Oh no. It came from something far, far colder, without a single drop of blood and with nothing but a skeleton to keep it company.
The piercing cry shook through the basements, filtering in even though there was no door for the noise to push through.
“A skeleton guard?” I stammered. I had been unfortunate enough to come in contact with several during my lifetime. I had always run.
Now I shook with fear at the promise of what they would do when they got to me.
If they got to me. And they certainly would not get to this bounty.
I grasped a crimson soul stone.
“This ought to work,” I stammered. Then I crushed it.
Its power arced up around me, joining with the power I’d already unleashed. The vortex of Ley lines above me became even more beautiful and dense. It looked as if a tree were about to grow above my head. Not one made of wood and leaves, but one made of the true force of nature.
And yet the power soon ebbed. It disappeared into the Ley lines and certainly made them more numerous, but it did not give me the strength to create a portal.
“Dammit,” I spat, a single tear leaking from my eye. There had to be a way.
I crushed another soul crystal and another. I let their power escape, but I could not create a transport portal, and I was running out of time.
Those skeleton cries grew more numerous. And far more worryingly, they came closer. I could not guess precisely where they were, but they could only be a level or two away. I did not know if they were attracted to me but, based on the number of their cries, I imagined they could statistically find me anyway. It was as if there were hundreds of them.
I shivered at the promise of what that could mean to this already broken city. Then once more, I reached out and grasped a crimson soul stone. I closed my eyes. “Please work,” I fruitlessly begged.
I did not know how many times I had done that over the course of this fearsome adventure. I could promise you this – and I imagined you didn’t need the lesson. One cannot simply ask for what they want. Especially not when civilization is falling down around their ears. There comes a point when you can pray all you can, but unless you can rise up and grasp what it is you need, you will still fall.
So I rose. I had been down on my knees, but I shot to my feet and I squeezed both hands around the crystal. I went to crush it but stopped. Something held my fingers in place. I looked up at the Ley lines. They had gotten me this far. And I remembered some of the notes I had read from Winchester’s journal. He had questioned if, in part, the Ley lines were intelligent. Or, if not intelligent in the way that he was, intelligent in their own way.
Witches are quite comfortable with such a concept, even though wizards aren’t. Nature has its own form of smarts. It is not just people who can analyze and who are self-aware.
In fact, the ability to see sentience in others was one of the greatest gifts a witch could have.
And perhaps it was the last ingredient in my growing power.
Rather than crush the soul crystal, I turned my head up and asked of the Ley lines, “What do I do? How do I open a transport gate? I simply have no clue. Help me.”
Perhaps this was just a variation of a prayer. But I pushed my full force into that plea. And I stared attentively at the Ley lines.
At first they did not react – then one or two broke free from the vortex above me. They descended down and started to push through the soul crystal. I shuddered. Were they feasting on it? Did they ultimately want what I had already been doing? For every time I had broken a soul crystal, the excess power had drifted into the Ley lines.
But just before I could become suspicious of them, they pushed all the way through the crystal and out to my fingers. They connected to me like strings to a puppet. But that was a violent image that suggested one ultimately had no control over themselves. And this was unquestionably the gentlest process I had ever experienced. It reminded me instantly of Winchester’s most tender touches.
Light started to filter out of the crimson soul stone, but only a little at first. It was neither violent nor as bright as what usually happened when I used a spirit stone. Bit by bit, magic leaked out and started to play around my hands. Every spark moved back and forth like attentive fireflies. And the more that leaked out, the more gathered around me.
I had never experienced magic so very quietly and unassumingly. It reached the ends of my hair, and they fluttered up around my startled expression. A smile spread its way across my lips, then finally, I felt the Ley lines move my hands up.
I didn’t need to speak any secret magical words. The lines were showing me how to interact with force in its most fundamental form.
And it felt exactly like pulling strings.
Not strings of the mind. Not even strings of nature. Strings of matter itself.
I was like a conductor. And as I swept my left hand fully to the side, I felt myself parting matter. And there, finally, I created a gate. It drew force from the Ley lines above me, and the rest came from the soul crystal before it shuddered and blinked out.
Astounding. I could spend all day staring at this startling sight, or I could get these stones to Wintersmith. For it quickly became apparent he did not have much time.
The gate was open. I had programmed it to lead straight to Wintersmith’s crypt – and fortunately it was a place I remembered well. I had, after all, spent entirely too much time there, and none of it had been pleasant. With that memory carved deeply into my heart, it was easy enough to bring it to mind sufficiently. But as I took a tentative step through the gate, only half moving through it for now, I heard the wolf. Loud and ever-present, it was either within the cemetery, or it was close. Beyond that, there was the rising cry of the dead. It seemed that every ghost in Eastside Cemetery was about to be destroyed for good.
Not on my watch. I spun, gathered up the crimson soul stones, and started to gently throw them through the gate.
I even removed the leaves of the soul stone garden, hoping, though this was probably futile, that it could regrow on the other side. It might not have time, but then again, who knew how long this war would run for?
When I was done, I went to move through the gate, but a ghostly hand appeared from the other side and wrapped around my wrist. I recognized it instantly. Wintersmith’s beard half pushed through the gate, his lower lip visible but nothing else. “I take it that’s you, Lisbeth. Late again. If only you delivered these sooner, we wouldn’t be in as much strife.”
“How are the ghosts? I hear the wolf—”
“He bays at our gate, but he is not yet through. And with these crimson soul stones, he won’t be coming anytime soon.”
“Why do you have hold of my wrist? Let me come there—”
“You have something far more important to do. Get to Winchester,” he cried, and for a wizard as cold as Wintersmith, I heard him use real desperation. Or rather, it used him. The logical brute was no longer in control of his heart – horror was.
“But the crypt,” I spat.
It was just as I heard the wolf. He no longer sounded as close, but that was quite irrelevant. For his voice now arced up in far more vicious glee. I winced, wondering if he right now had his massive gaping maws around Sarah-Anne’s throat.
“Those crimson soul stones will keep him back. For God’s sake, woman, go to Winchester. Or you will lose him for good. Can you really stomach that when you’ve already given it away?”
I understood everything but the last part. I even took the time to blink naïvely, my bottom lip opening with a wobble. “What have I given away?”
“Your heart.” And with that, he shoved me right in the chest, close enough to my heart, just underneath and to the side, and pushed me back. Then he clicked his fingers.
The gate started to break. Before it could completely, he hissed, “Find the rest of the mist cloaks. Do it secretly, and do it right. And get to him before he breaks. It’s the only way to save the kingdom. It’s now in Winchester’s hands. And as your hands are the only ones that can lift his up, I suppose it’s in yours, too. Make me proud.”
Make him proud? All I wanted to do was sock him on the jaw, but I certainly didn’t have that option. With a fizzle and a click, red magic shooting up high, the gate closed. It left me down where I had been shoved, hair a mess over my face as I heard more of the skeleton guards approaching.
Previously I’d assumed there was an army of 100 or so. Now it felt as if there could be close to half a thousand. And before I could question whether the king was capable of such depravity and power, I didn’t need to, did I? For I suddenly felt something outside the armory.
If I hadn’t gone through Wintersmith’s trials and tribulations, I don’t suppose I would have the fine ability to detect dead practitioners now. An ability that extended through that thick stone wall, in fact. I thought it must be Bram. But then I detected another.… and another and another still until there were 10 in total.
It simply couldn’t be possible. Unless everything I had ever been taught about dead practitioners was wrong, then my senses were mistaken. And yet I was far more confident about those.
I had the chance to lock my hand on my breathless chest, then I threw myself up to my feet, my already tattered skirts playing around my ankles. I spun.
This was clearly one of the most powerful armories that the palace owned. It would be easy enough for me to divest it of all of its crushed crimson soul stone power. I had my trusty sack with me – the one that could expand to fit almost anything. But I couldn’t do it. The mere thought of grasping up those terrifying potions set my teeth chattering in my skull. For they were abhorrent in the extreme. Yet I knew that the 10 dead practitioners behind the door wouldn’t have the same compunctions.
There was only one thing for it. I lifted my foot, balance perfect, the dramatic move seeing my fringe tickling around my cheeks as it jumped up high. And I slammed the heel of my shoe down into the roughly hewn dirt. I forced magic and thought into the fine particles, and soon enough they parted silently.
You’d think there’d be a rumble – some deep complaint rising up from far within the Earth’s bowels. But it was silent, for I was connected to the dirt, and it was connected to me. We were in this together, and without Wintersmith by my side, it would stand in as my only friend.
The word friend got stuck on the lips of my mind, and it circled around, falling into the vortex that was Winchester. Was he really just a friend? He was certainly more than a master. But could he be more yet?
We’d have to see.
With that single move, I opened up the dirt beneath the shelves. Then the shelves themselves tumbled in.
This was technically just a simple spell. Most practitioners had the ability to interact with solid objects – all you would require was a quick fireball or even a water spell. But I did not bury them surface deep. As I closed my eyes and I kept hold of the very thought of the earth, I kept pushing them down and down and down until they were many meters beneath even the lowest part of the basement. No one would be able to detect them. And even if they could, they would have to waste tremendous amounts of magic to reclaim them.
And it took me only a few scraps of magic to do such a thing. I briefly opened my eyes and looked at my hands. Then I spun around.
It was time to take those dead practitioners on or time to exit out of the back of the room. I had already detected a gap in the dirt suggesting there was another corridor. Lord knows where it would take me, but at least it would give me time to gather my wits, my nerve, and my strength. For the eerie shouts of the skeleton guards continued, their great groans like large steel contraptions giving in to age. Soon they would tumble about me, crush me dead, and move on to the next victim.
Before I could dash toward the opposite wall, realizing I might not have the chops to take on 10 dead practitioners, I stopped. Wintersmith had told me to find the mist cloaks. And he definitely used the plural. If only I had possessed multiple mist cloaks – sufficient to hide my entire form – back when I’d first fought Bram, would it be different now? He would’ve had no clue I was a witch, and he would’ve been quite surprised by my powers, but he would’ve been incapable of judging them.
A useless thought. I soon threw it out of my mind. What was the point of tumbling around in my psyche, gathering up what-ifs and using them to distract myself with? Especially when I heard a great cry from beyond. The dead practitioners had either detected that I was within, or they had found this armory because they needed the crimson soul stones here. I ought not be here to be caught red-handed when they finally pushed through.
I lurched toward the opposite wall, wondering how far I could get before my path intersected with more dead practitioners or skeleton guards, but that would be when I saw something glinting just out of the corner of my eye.
The strangeness of the experience could not be described. For when I said it glinted out of the corner of my eye, I did not… see it in this room. Suddenly my mind aligned with the dirt, and my magic pushed through it. It warned there was a tiny subpart to this armory. The smallest of rooms, and within – the greatest of treasures.
With my heart hammering in my mouth, my teeth clenched, and my eyes plastered wide open, I judged if I had time. But I didn’t have the time to lose, did I? If that was the location of the mist cloaks, unless I obtained them, I’d never get to Winchester.
That thought filled my mind, giving me just the gumption I required to skid over. Because I could interact with matter as I saw fit now, it was easy enough to plunge my head through the stone wall and into the sub-compartment. A strange experience, to be fair, but still a simple one. As soon as my head pushed into that dark space, I felt something just in front of me. I pushed my hands in just as I felt a rumble beneath my knees.
The dead practitioners were moments from breaking through. The first thing they would see was a woman down on all fours with her head buried in the wall. Hardly a sufficient welcoming party for their depravity.
But if I wanted to punish them, I needed what was in the wall. My fingers soon grasped at a carved metal case. Luck alone saw me catch hold of the clasp in the half a second I had. I thrust it open.
Then I clambered fully into the small space, tugging on my skirts to ensure they were not visible. As the case opened, as the hinges creaked, light bled out – a gorgeous magical glow. I wondered if it was bottled significance, as if it was the greatest meaning the universe could bestow. And it all played around my cheeks and eyelashes as I plunged my hand in.
There were five mist cloaks. Made of the most sumptuous of fabric, as my short nails drifted down them, it felt as if I was interacting with solid glory.
I heard a thump from the room beyond. Then a cry. … I’d heard that voice before. Of course. The head wizard of the palace. A man it seemed Winchester had not just known, but had been quite fond of. Now, somehow, he was a dead practitioner.
Impossible. Utterly impossible. I had clapped eyes on this man before. I had briefly been in the room with Arnold when he had attended to the late king. I would have noticed his dead practitioner magic. He simply hadn’t possessed it. So how… had he acquired it now?
There was only one possible answer, wasn’t there? The king. The same king who had gifted Grace and Bram their force was now moving on to others. Exactly when would it stop? Exactly how was the king capable of this? Could he transform every single magical practitioner in the land into a dead practitioner? And if he could, why would he do so?
That at least I could answer. For it would help him gather the horrid power he so desperately sought.
With my tongue pressed between my teeth and a horribly strong expression marking my features, I threw the mist cloaks around my shoulders. It was cramped in this room, but I managed it. I could not rise. But that was quite irrelevant.
I closed the case. Then, one hand over another, I crawled out of the wall. I rose to my feet quite dramatically, but there was no one to see me. For indeed, there were 10 dead practitioner wizards before me, their mouths agape, their faces quite washed out with fear and surprise.
Arnold stood at the front. He wore a cloak, and perhaps it was a mist cloak, but it did nothing to hide who he was. His stately beard pushed out from just above the silver clasp. And his eyes were framed with utter fright. “How… the king… he told us the stones would be here. How is this possible? Is the armory located somewhere else?”
“How can it be located somewhere else?” a pluckier one of his colleagues pointed out as, fingers stiff and trembling, they gestured over to the extraction machine.
Oh yes. I’d forgotten to get rid of it. Irrelevant. It was designed to crush soul stones. It couldn’t crush what was not there. But I could tell you this – the fact the soul stones were gone certainly crushed Arnold’s heart.
But perhaps he still had hope. He rushed over to where I was standing. Heart very controlled, breath even more so, I silently and smoothly stepped to the side.
He hammered on the wall, soon released his fist, pressed his palm flat against the stones, and commanded in a gruff tone for them to, “Open.”
The wall indeed opened. And there it revealed the case. With a shaking body, he plunged down to a knee. I watched as his lips spread in joy. Not the ordinary joy an ordinary person might feel. The joy of a brute. The joy of someone who believed they had the greatest weapon of all in hand. It was a surprise he didn’t celebrate. He did set it down, and with a gruff expression as if he expected eternity to leap out of the case, he opened it. But it was empty now, wasn’t it?
I will admit that I afforded myself the chance to smile. It was just as I slipped behind the rest of the wizards and into the corridor beyond.
I could leave them. But leave them, and they would simply make trouble. I’d heard from Winchester that Arnold was the head of the Magical Academy. It was only a guess, but I imagined the bevy of wizards with him were important, too. If I took them out, it would be like beheading the generals of an army.
That said, no one was going to die.
I slipped in behind the last wizard.
Everybody was jostling toward the doors, so no one was there to see the man. Which was quite good, really, because I suddenly grasped him by the mouth. Then I dragged him toward the wall. With nothing more than a silent touch, it opened.
I threw him into a room beyond – one I created with dirt.
“What the—” he began.
But before he could call on the devil, I stamped my foot down once more, and a pit opened up beneath him.
He would drop until he stopped. I commanded the earth not to kill him but to keep him trapped for now. And to make space, for his friends would come soon.
I waved at the top of the hole just before it closed off. I slipped through the wall and repeated the process. There would come a time when silently picking them off was impossible. But for now, I picked off four more, leaving five within the room.
I had never been that much of a shrewd soul, though if you asked one Winchester Stone, he would laugh in your face and tell you that was a lie. What I meant to say was that I was not savvy, not like an assassin or a spy. I quite enjoyed this, though. My strong control over my startle response made it very easy for me to slip in behind wizards and pluck them off, one by one. But when it came to the main room, I knew I had to take them on in a far stronger fashion. And why, there was an easy enough way to do that.
“Where can the cloaks be? What’s happened? Wait,” Arnold spat. He plunged down to one knee and fixed his hand flat against the earth. “I sense magic. Someone has buried something. They’ve hidden the stones,” he cried. “Gather,” he commanded with one terribly practiced flick of his fingers.
His wizards indeed gathered, but when he saw only four coming to his aid, finally suspicion flared in his gaze.
I stood in the doorway though he could not see me, arms crossed, a little wind playing at my skirts and hair. Not a single strand or scrap of taffeta was visible beyond the mist cloaks’ range.
I briefly wanted him to see my expression, my hardened brow, my jutting chin, my judgmental gaze. Men like him deserved to be judged in public. For men like him had taken prestige, used it for their own gain, and ignored the sacred responsibilities they’d been given.
“Something’s wrong,” he began. “This magic is fresh. Someone may be—”
I cut in just as I jolted into the room, lifted my hands from beyond the mist cloaks purposely, and started to practice magic, “Somebody has stolen the mist cloaks, and they are right outside, you foolish wizards. Now it’s time for you to get your comeuppance. You chose the wrong side, ignored your responsibility, and denied the natural cycle of things. Go down into the belly of the earth to learn your mistakes.”
“Witch,” they all roared. How vile their combined voices were. They dripped with cruel force. I understood that wizards were foolish souls who thought they were far, far above witches, but the way these men screamed made it feel like they were hunting.
But they would not catch their prey. For their prey was far stronger.
Arnold shoved out a hand, and I saw a signet ring glinting on his finger. Perhaps it was possessed of a bank of spells – something he could call on in his time of greatest need – for magic arced out of it and into his palm. But before he could practice whatever devastating magic he wanted, and before his brethren could come to his aid, I punched my hands forward.
It was a practiced but strong move. My feet were grounded, and my shoulders were spread. But what mattered most was I connected to the very heart of the earth beneath me, using Arlene’s magic within me as a conduit. There had been a time after I had been given it, when I had rejected it. For its responsibility had been too heavy and crushing. Yet now its force was everything. As it rose through me and critically sank back down into the earth, it gave me the power to close off the door.
My ability to see through the dirt enabled me to keep my gaze on Arnold. He spat, spittle flying out in every direction as he snarled, “She can’t beat us. Combine your force. Tear her to shreds.”
What a ghastly man. Either Winchester had been a fool, or Arnold had been a very good actor. And how many of those had this kingdom created? Far too many to count. For when everything is based on greed and subterfuge, that is what you instill in the younger generation. You create yourself – the worst version of yourself – over and over again. Until somebody finally breaks free.
I slammed my foot down. It was just as Arnold and his wizards forced their hands forward with as much strength as they could muster. Their voices arced up high in a combined growl that could wake the devil and stop him from ever sleeping again. But as their power joined together and sank into the dirt, unfortunately for them, it was not strong enough.
They were fake dead practitioners. They hadn’t once glimpsed the Ley lines above my head. Ironically, if they had, perhaps they would’ve been able to see beyond the mist cloaks. They might’ve been able to guess someone was beneath. But they could not see what was really there. They were the flimflam versions of dead practitioners. Fake, there to steal what they could, but incapable of creating anything real. And, importantly for me, incapable of blocking dead magic when it was practiced right under their noses. Or should I say feet?
With another roar and another solid stamp of my left foot, I controlled what was beneath. The room began to sink. It must’ve been quite a discombobulating experience from within. I imagined it shook wildly. I heard them screaming, too, and they collectively tried harder to tear me down. But how can you tear down what you cannot touch? If only they had rechanneled their ferocious power into breaking their own immorality, perhaps they would’ve had a chance. For now, I centered my power into my attention and my left foot, and I forced them down through the earth until I was quite sure they wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon.
I promised myself when this was over, I would exhume them from their stone cell to put them in a real jail. But for now?
Indeed. For now I had one man to save.
My heart would no longer let me turn away from the prospect of Winchester Stone. It threw me around, forced me forward, and saw me race faster than I ever had before. For as every throbbing beat pulsed through my body, it seemed to force my soul out of my chest and further afield, like my everlasting was grasping out for the one man it had wanted to connect to more than any other.
But it could grasp, it could search, and it could even find, but it would no longer be able to connect. For I, Lisbeth McQuarrie, had wasted too much time.