Clutching the other leg as if it was the only thing stopping her being sucked down was a weeping, terrified, and transparent girl.
Chapter Thirty
"Auri!" Fallon shouted, or tried to. He started forward, and was almost hauled off his feet by Tesin catching at his collar.
"Help me!" Auri shouted, sobbing with anger and fear. "You’ve been so slow!"
Had she been like that all this time? Ever since this morning? Had she watched them play hunt-the-focus, and write out all of that enormous Sigillic, calling and calling, and ignored by Fallon along with everyone else?
"We’ll certainly try," Duchess Surclere said, and Fallon turned to look at her sharply, because it surely wasn’t just the Duchess' sore throat that brought that ambiguous note to her voice. She noticed, and gave him an unhappy smile. "Your sister, Fallon?"
He nodded, then started when she made a faint gesture, releasing the silence casting on him. "Auri," he said, tentatively.
"I’m going to leave you free to speak, but to be safe don’t assume that you are able to tell us anything about the miscasting." Duchess Surclere’s attention had already moved from him, and she was frowning now at the person chained to the statue, who looked as if she was unconscious, head sagging forward. Captain Faille moved forward so that he stood only two feet from the outer edge of the doubled circle. Fallon followed, and hoped he only imagined the faint tugging that seemed to try to draw him closer.
"Aurienne," Duchess Surclere said, speaking in a firm, flat tone. "Tell me very quickly and clearly the circumstances of your miscasting, and what has happened to you afterwards."
Though she was frantic, and obviously tired, Auri managed this in a way that could only make Fallon proud. All the things they had spent years trying to find a way to tell, delivered in short, gasping sentences. While she spoke, the woman she clung to shifted in her chains, seeming to properly notice her.
"If you put me to sleep I might be able to pull her out," Fallon suggested, once Auri had told everything he thought important, and was surprised when Auri immediately shook her head.
"You’d just get sucked in, Fal. The Dream’s all wrong here, like it is in my bedroom. Everything sticky."
The chained woman had raised an apparently heavy head to gaze in a vague way in their direction. She didn’t seem to be quite able to see them.
"Are you by any chance Nameen?" Duchess Surclere asked.
The woman moved her head from side to side, not in negation, but as if working to hear more clearly. After an extremely long pause a rustling sound lifted over the distant roar: "Once. A fragment, a remnant. No more."
The words were not audible—her mouth didn’t move. She didn’t even seem to be speaking Tyrian, but Fallon understood her.
Duchess Surclere continued: "Will you tell us the purpose of this casting?"
For several long breaths it seemed the woman would not answer, but perhaps she was only gathering strength, because her answer, when it came, was far more audible, and she looked directly at the Duchess.
"A repair. Necessitated…increased tearing, apertures, after war."
Looking exceedingly puzzled, Duchess Surclere touched her hand to the pocket that held her recovered focus: a gesture that meant she was attempting to increase her sensitivity to worked magic. Then she straightened, almost knocking her head into Lord Surclere’s chin.
"You’re repairing the tears in the walls of the Eferum?"
"Failed," the woman—could she truly be an Elder Mage?—replied. "Flawed premise. Fading…then control lost. Collection process corrupted."
"Is this some form of Eferum-Get?" Dezart Samarin asked, indicating the…thing growing up the woman’s leg. "Can we help you remove it?"
"End me," the non-voice whispered. "End this."
A wave of unspeakable weariness rocked them, as if wind could be exhausted, as if the air longed to be done. Sukata staggered, and Kendall hurried across to slip a supporting arm around the Kellian girl.
"There’s no other way?" Dezart Samarin asked urgently.
"HURRY UP!" Auri had screamed it, her voice harsh, tearing. "I can’t—I can’t hold on much longer!"
"We have to get her out of there before anything else," Fallon insisted. "We don’t know what will happen if you interfere with the casting while she’s trapped like that."
But the sagging figure chained to the statue had shifted her gaze to Auri.
"Child, you too…remnant."
"What?" Fallon said, when everyone else seemed to catch their breath. "What does that mean?"
"Fallon…" Duchess Surclere sounded as tired as the Elder Mage. "The stone you gave me. It’s not a focus. It’s all that remains of your sister’s body."
"Are you saying I’m dead?" Auri asked, voice cracking as it scaled up on the final word. "That’s not true! It’s not!"
"You’re wrong," Fallon said, breathless, sick. "She’s alive in the Dream! She got taller. She aged. She’s not dead."
"You said you would help me!" Auri’s hold slipped, and she shrieked and slid several inches before regaining her grip.
"I said I’d try," the Duchess replied, barely audible, and it did not help that she clearly felt awful, because she still wasn’t doing anything.
Dezart Samarin took off his mask. Fallon would not have even noticed if the movement had not been accompanied by a swirl of highly complex worked magic. Handing the mask to the Duchess, he said: "Do you think you can reproduce that?"
Duchess Surclere stared at him, then at the mask she gripped awkwardly through the eyeholes. "Are you…" She stopped, then nodded. "Yes, I see the mechanism. How are you still able to function?"
"I leave a small part of myself behind with each transfer. A fragment of a fragment, but over time that makes for a very large cost, and is the reason there aren’t dozens of me." The Dezart glanced at his highly confused audience. "I’ll need rope, string, even a shirt. Something I can reach her with."
"What are you going to do?" Fallon demanded, as Darian Faille offered the Dezart’s own sword.
"The construct only lasts five or so months," the Dezart added as he shook his head at the sword and accepted a length of coiled vine from Tesin. "Bring her to me, and we’ll see about a more permanent solution."
"I’ll send the mask ahead, so you know to expect us," Duchess Surclere replied, on an oddly dry note.
"Do that," the Dezart said, and for a moment resumed the entertained expression that was his usual attitude. "Though in the interest of making that meeting sooner, and more certain, don’t you think that crushing Prince Helecho’s focus would hold a certain symmetry?"
The Duchess blinked, stared at nothing for a moment, and then laughed. "It may at that. I will try it. Thank you very much indeed for deciding on direct collaboration."
"Thank you for your future restraint," he said, and turned back to Auri. "Don’t let go of your grip there," he ordered. "This is just a symbol of connection."
"I don’t understand," Auri said.
Whipping the end of the vine in a small circle, he tossed it so that it arced across the swirling vortex. As the end of the vine touched Auri, Duchess Surclere cast, but whatever she did broke Auri’s grip, so that as the vine fell away it pulled Auri with it.