Magic Steps

She oozed back from the guard whose blade sought her flesh. The guards on the barricade were advancing carefully. Older and wiser than the one she had killed, they were leaving no room for her to get by them and through the barricade door. She backed down the hall, her sword ready, glancing back twice to make sure she walked into no one else. Fresh guards poured into the area around the barricade from an adjoining hall.

"There.” one of them said, pointing. Alzena looked down and shook her head. Her sword was dripping, leaving a blood trail. She dropped it and continued to back out, moving faster as she put distance between her and those cursed spells.

She had to stop in the main hall, when a trickle of warmth down her leg told her she was bleeding. One of the guards had cut her side. Cursing under her breath, she filched a lace ru

She had plenty of think about as she inched by milling guards, placed on the alert by their comrades at the i

For a long, long minute after the messenger told the duke that one guard was dead and another wounded in the i

At last the duke looked up at Sandry and gave her a thin smile, patting one of her hands. "Must you do this with Pasco?" he inquired. "The boy is nice enough, but he doesn't seem very reliable."

Sandry glanced at Lark. "We did talk about another way, but—," She swallowed. "Truly, Uncle, I prefer this."

The duke frowned. "What is this other way that you find so distasteful?"

Lark sighed. "We discussed shaping the unmagic as a web, rather than a net, and blanketing the i

"Then I could take the web and unravel it, maybe even spin it into one cord," Sandry explained. "The problem is, Uncle, I couldn't save the parts of them that are still real. If I had to do it that way, I'd kill them—if it even worked."

"We know the net-spell will do the job," Lark assured the duke. "And if Pasco calls these people to the net, we can make sure no i

"Have you spoken to Pasco?" asked the duke wearily.

"No," replied Sandry. "I wanted to work it all out be fore I talked to him."

"He'll refuse," Erdogun said tartly. "If he has a whit of sense, he'll refuse."

“I could help catch rats?" Pasco demanded, eyes alight. It was the next morning, at Yazmin's school. "By dancing?

"That's the idea," Sandry told him.

Pasco jumped up gleefully. "That will show them!" he cried. "Tippy-feet indeed!"

Sandry looked at her hands and smiled. She had thought Pasco might see it that way. "We're not sure we can do it," she warned. "I still have to make the net."

"But you will, and I’ll dance it, and we'll have rats in it. A nice day's fishing for a Toren and an Acalon, don't you think?"

Sandry gri

Pasco carefully lowered himself into a split, wincing as he completed it. "We can do it," he told her, his face serious. "You can do anything."

"We'll see," she replied. "It may come to nothing if I can't work that stuff into a proper net. Now settle down. Let's try meditation."

He did a little better today. Sandry could see his magic did not stray so far from him. It also didn't flicker as much as it had, which told her that his attention wandered less. Maybe he just needs something useful to do, she thought as the city's clocks chimed the hour. Some thing his family thinks is useful, anyway.

As she took up her ward and Pasco stretched his legs, Yazmнn walked in. "You said when you got here that you've something important to discuss?" she asked Sandry.

"We're going to make a net-dance for rat-trapping," Pasco told her cheerfully. "And I'm going to dance it."

"It's a way to catch these killers," explained Sandry. "If you don't mind, we'd like your help with creating the dance, and getting Pasco ready for it. Everything has to be pla

"Never fear," Yazmнn said cheerfully. "I can get him so he'll be able to hit a dot on the floor, blindfolded, every time. A small dot." Pasco sat with his left leg straight out in front of him as he tried to grip his foot and touch his forehead to his knee. Yazmнn pressed down on his left knee with one hand as she pulled back on his toes, forcing him to stretch an extra inch. He whimpered, then touched his forehead to his knee and held the position to a count of ten.

Sandry watched them solemnly. "If you've any doubt he'll be able to do it, I have to know right now," she told Yazmнn quietly.

The dancer looked at her and smiled. "You're using that dance he showed me the other day as the basic, right?"

Sandry nodded.

"How long till you're ready to go?"

"I want another look at the net he used for the fishing spell," Sandry replied. "I'll do that today, and I'm to help Behazin and Ulrina—the harrier-mages—distill the rest of the unmagic out of what Master Wulf—," a lump rose in her throat. She coughed to clear it, blinked rapidly until her eyes didn't sting any more, and went on—, "out of what was gathered yesterday. Tonight I'll sketch a rough net for us to look at in the morning. We'll work on the dance while everything else is being made ready at Winding Circle—two more days, I think. And you can work with Pasco some more while I spin and make the net. Will that be enough time? Three or four days?"

''I'll spend every waking minute with our friend, here," Yazmнn said with a wink to Sandry. "I'll give him all the personal attention he can stand."

Pasco, sitting to stretch his right leg, muttered, “I'm doomed."

Do they really understand how serious this is? Sandry wondered as she set about creating a permanent warding on a room for Pasco and Yazmнn to work in. Do they understand that if he touches this net he can't even see, the power of his dance combined with the net will eat him up? Should I talk to them about it some more?

She was still wondering as she told Yazmнn how to activate the wards on the room without a mage present. Yazmнn tried it a couple of times, raising and lowering the protections that would keep Pasco's magic from spilling out. Then she rested a hand on Sandry's arm.

"I know you're worried about precision," she said quietly in her odd, cracked voice. "But really, take my word for it—enough practice with an accurate drawing of the net, and he'll hit his marks every time. He's got body memory, better maybe than mine. I don't know if that's because he'll be a fine dancer or if the magic helps him. Either way, you won't be taking a foolish risk, using him."