"LIARA." Nagarath only just managed her name, the girl's magelight casting bright flickers over the sight dearest in the world to him. Liara's dark hair, her pale white moon of a face . . . She'd come back. His little magpie had returned.

He watched, the scene somehow distant, dreamlike, as Liara raised a hand toward him.

Nagarath had once seen a tree get struck by lightning. As Liara's spell hit him, he thought that perhaps the sensation was similar. Arching his back, lips parted in a silent scream, Nagarath felt his protégé's magick—powerful, terrifying—sear through to his soul. If his well of power could feel pain, it would have cried out in agony from the impact. Gasping, Nagarath could tell in an instant that his defenses had been taken down, protections that—

She's seen my aura.

The thought grounded him, stopping the room from taking another dizzy turn as he leaned heavily upon his staff. He'd been so careful. But that doesn't matter now. She's seen why you hid it away. But why such a spell? And how? He could explain. He had to.

"Liara, please. Wait. Talk to me."

When did she become so powerful? Liara, where have you been?

Without a word, she brushed past him, her eyes burning but cold. Nagarath staggered to follow, unable to summon the words, the howling hole made by his overuse of power—torn wider still by Liara's attack—robbing him of speech. But he had to stop her; had to make her see the truth she'd decided to so violently expose.

He reached out, plucking at the girl's sleeve, cringing as she shook him off. Even in the twilight of the hallway, her flickering witchlight still hovering nearby, he could see that she was shaking, and not from any expenditure of power. Blackness threatened and receded.

"How could you?" She whirled upon him, shouting. "How could you lie to me?"

"I have not lied to you. Not once."

Nagarath passed a shaky hand over his eyes. He'd burnt through so much magick in his searching; in his return to Parentino. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. His tongue felt thick. Her aura—he couldn't think over the sound of its brilliance. She was back. But not. "You don't understand. Everything I did, everything I said—and didn't say—was all for you, to protect you."

Go to her. She's hurting. Focusing on her, he could think again. His eyes darted to the item clutched in her hands, the white of her knuckles stark against the burgundy binding of the small book. Was she stealing from him? Liara, back to her old tricks. But what for? Heart full, he couldn't squeeze any more words past it.

Liara was frightened. She needed him.

He stumbled forward, letting go of his staff of power. He'd protect her. Brain disorderly, body failing, power dying . . . he needed her to understand. He needed her.

~*~

She had done it—stripped him of his power. Or near enough. And it was awful. And intoxicating—this heady swoon of overextension. The pull on her Art, far greater than any ever she'd felt, was still but a shadow of what Nagarath was experiencing, if his pallor and unsteadiness was any indication. The limit; a reminder to be cautious. Anisthe hadn't warned her to have any such care.

The sensation served to heighten her physical reaction to the revelation, the evidence that her—Anisthe's—spell had uncovered. Her hands trembled from rage, not weakness. She could only watch, mesmerized—horrified—as Nagarath stumbled forward, his aura gleaming, then fading in turns. 'Your aura. Same as his.' Anisthe's voice, strong in her mind, pulled her out of her daze.

'Kill him. I'll give you the power. I'll teach you the words.' She lifted her hand, fingers itching, eager, her eyes glinting. Yes. No.

No. Incantate, but no further. Then he cannot follow. That would be worse. Far, far worse. She'd leave Nagarath to live with the knowledge that he'd failed. Her eyes darted to the damaged catalogue. He couldn't follow her anyway. She'd mask her aura. With Anisthe's help, she could disappear.

She backed away, suddenly feeling sick both from the drain on her power and the haunted look in Nagarath's face as his eyes met hers. Panic set in. What if, in blasting apart Nagarath's defenses, I used too much of my magick for Anisthe to bring me back to Vrsar?

The thought angered her anew, the idea that she'd question the war mage's dependability simply because Nagarath was a lying, weak-willed coward. Straightening, Liara noted with some surprise that she was now looking down on the mage; Nagarath seemingly brought low by her display of power. The old wooden staff was the only thing keeping the wizard on his feet.

Did I do that? Resisting the impulse to look at her hands—hands that have cast such spells—Liara held her head high and addressed her progenaurae. She let the words pour out of her, bleeding out the poisons the last few days had left with her.

"I told you. I told you on that very first day what I wanted. I have needed magick since I was a little girl. While other children played in the streets, my veins burned with fire, keeping me from friendship, family, denying me respect. I wanted to know who my father was, to understand why they hated me, feared me. And then you came along. You with your promises and secrets, keeping everything from me. All while pretending that you cared."

"I do care, Liara," Nagarath cut in, his unnerving gaze steady upon her. "I care that you ran away. Do you not think I have been all over these woods the past two days, searching for you and fearing the worst? Not knowing what had happened to you?"

"My town gets murdered, and I have only your word for what happened. I want to avenge Dvigrad—my friends, my people—and you lock me in a tower. You, with your hiding, sulking, spying." Liara threw her condemnations like daggers, satisfied to see the mage flinch.

"Murdered? I—"

"I want magick. I want power. I want apprenticeship. I want to control and master my Art. I want something bigger than you can possibly give me. After everything I've done for you, after all I've learned on my own, I have earned it at long last." Liara swelled with triumph, reveled in the new questions that flashed in Nagarath's eyes.

"Oh, yes, you thought you could keep him from me. Someone who appreciates my talent and asks very little in return. I am your librarian no longer, Nagarath. I am an apprentice to the Art of magecraft. You can't keep me here anymore. My Art is not yours to claim."

She turned to leave, the cracks in her temporary armor of bravado starting to undermine her courage. Already she could feel her power rebounding, surging in her breast, but that was nothing if she couldn't return to Vrsar. The war mage hadn't given her that knowledge, instead promising her that his power would pluck her from the valley once her task was complete. Surely Anisthe would have reversed his spell before now. What if, after all she said, he had abandoned her in Parentino, a stolen book in her arms and unforgivable words on her lips?

Then I'd find a way out. She had power, true power. That was what Nagarath feared. Feared and envied.

Nagarath's fingers brushed her arm, the mage still sputtering ineffectively, more excuses and lies. "Liara, stay. Don't leave. You must tell me what has happened. Where you went, who you spoke to."

How dare he touch her.

Liara whipped around, reacting before she thought. Her spell lashed out, a pulse of power and light that neither expected. It separated mage from staff, sending both to the ground quick as cut wheat. But it was costly, her impassioned mistake. This time, the bleed of magick left her dizzy.

"Don't you understand? I owe you nothing—just as for seventeen years you gave me nothing. If anything, you owe me for what you've done. All my life I've wanted to meet my father, but I don't want to know you."

She fled, still clutching Anisthe's book, sure now that she'd been forsaken by her rescuer, having nowhere else to go but away from Parentino, and not enough of her own magick to do anything save run.

~*~

Liara's attack—different this time, not a warning, not an exploration—sent shockwaves through Nagarath's aura, sending him sprawling across the floor of the library. Eyes and ears awash in the disorienting sparkles that heralded collapse, he groped about blindly for his staff. His fingers brushed the well-worn wood, closing instinctively and willing the joining of its power with his. A brief flash, then a whimper. Spent as it was, the artifact failed to do anything more than clear his head. The girl was gone.

Liara! Thinking nothing save his desperate need to stop her, he flung out his arms, flashing his aura into the defensive spells of Parentino. Rippling outward, they arced, warped, then snapped as his power rallied, then foundered. Dried up. Empty. Time. I need time. He cursed his empty hands, his weakened well of power. Time I do not have if I wish to go after her.

Her father. She blames me for it! Knocked back as he had been, he'd only half heard Liara's tirade. Her anger—her power—still echoing in his ears, Nagarath struggled to his feet in the darkness of the library, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Maa'o—He let the spell of illumination die unspoken. No need to spend power on such things; not drained as he was. He didn't need light to think. Nor did he need magick, though he could yet feel a shard of his aura glowing deep inside. Not incantate, then, by the girl's ruthless actions, thank the gods. Gone for not quite two days, and Liara seemed a different person. He had to follow her. He'd find a way. But how?

Something crumpled under his foot. He looked down. A notebook. One of his own.

Nagarath bent, curious as to why Liara would have ransacked those. Now he truly did need illumination. Torn between urgency and better judgment, he again considered his magelight, faltering as it must be in his current state. But no, gods knew, it would take him frighteningly long to recover. Instead, he held the page close before his eyes, peering in the dark at the sole clue Liara had left behind.

Anisthe, magus, 1660. His heart clenched as he saw the inscription on the page. A condemnation.

'You thought you could keep him from me; someone who appreciates my talent and asks very little in return.' Him. And her words had been those of knowledge, of familiarity. She'd somehow met Anisthe—Nagarath's own worst dreams become real.

"But that's impossible." Even as he spoke, the much-abused notebook falling from shaking hands, Nagarath knew it to be quite possible, just unlikely. And if it is possible, then Liara is in danger of far more than frostbite and draining her magick on a wild tear through the woods.

"Liara." He stumbled through the doorway, frantically trying to think. Power. He needed power if he was to find her, save her. Gripping his mage's staff, he whispered the words of a spell. It was a gross violation of one of his own personal Laws of Magick, and he shuddered to think of the cost. To use the staff was one thing, but the cinnabar stone buried in the haft—that was borrowed power, energy vouchsafed him to protect.

But the task would not have fallen to me were I not strong enough to resist its call. Fire flooded back into his veins, the dying flicker of his magick revived by the half-hidden gemstone atop his staff. Nagarath wrenched himself free of the connection and pushed the staff away. It clattered to the ground, the magick sealed safely within its stone once more.

Out in the deepening gloom of the hallway, Nagarath hesitated. Anisthe or not, how was he to find Liara? She could have gone most anywhere with the war mage's assistance. And she'd come here first?

Books. Always books with her. Caught up in Liara's outburst, her spells, he'd almost forgotten.

He was smarter than that. Smarter than large demonstrations, burning massive amounts of power. He could follow her. Could follow her even to Anisthe, to the ends of this world and others. Work smarter, not harder. A lesson Anisthe never learned.

Turning abruptly, he strode back through the library door, his eyes on the catalogue lying open on its pedestal. Of course Liara would have had to use it to find whatever she had stolen for Anisthe.

Shuddering, trying to calm himself, Nagarath concentrated on the catalogue itself, forming his query, asking it to repeat its last request . . .

~*~

Sniffling, Liara blindly followed the path leading out of Parentino and north to Dvigrad. If Anisthe had forsaken her, she'd move on to another mage, just as she had with Nagarath. Aurenaurae: made from magick. She had power enough to go it alone—especially now that she had the book the war mage so desperately desired, enough that he'd lent her some of his own Art to collect it. She'd simply have to wait out her temporary weakness in magick at Krešimir's hut.

Turning, she checked that Nagarath wasn't following, her hands itching with the anticipation that she'd have to use yet more of her Art today. She told herself over and over that she hadn't meant to hurt him—that it was fair, considering his lies to her all those months.

"You were supposed to fight me. Tell me I was wrong. Make me see." Even now, some small part of her still hoped it was all a mistake. Not even a lie, but a mistake.

But no, the path was empty save for Parentino at its end. Noting that it hadn't wavered and disappeared at her back, Liara wondered if her stripping of Nagarath's defenses had also disrupted those at work on the castle. Hardening her heart, she decided, Let him deal with it. He likes tinkering with his precious wards and barricades. He—

A massive explosion from somewhere deep within the castle rocked the landscape, tearing the fortress apart. Liara lifted her hands to her mouth as Parentino heaved and roared, the stones offering no more resistance than a child's toy, tumbling and burning, the tall tower collapsing into itself and the walls crumbling to the ruins Nagarath had long pretended they were.

"Nagara—" The name stuck in Liara's throat as Anisthe's spell reclaimed her at long last, whisking her off into the flicker of pressing, whirling darkness that heralded her return to Vrsar.