"Isana," protested Warner, coming down the stairs, still clasping his towel with one hand. "We can't just let them leave! We can't let animals like that go unstopped!"

Weariness and the pounding in her head met with the backwash of Isana's terror, of the panic at the sudden and vicious violence, and she began to shake. She bowed her head for a moment and willed Rill to keep the tears from her eyes.

"Let them go," she repeated. "We have our own wounded to attend to. The storm will kill them."

"But-"

"No," Isana said, firmly. She looked around at the other Steadholders. Roth was standing to his feet, slowly, and looked dazed. Otto was supporting the older man, and sweat shone on his mostly bald pate. "We have wounded to see to," Isana told the two men.

"What happened?" Otto stammered. "Why did they do that?"

Roth put a hand on Otto's shoulder. "They were firecrafting us. Isn't that it, Isana? Making us all more afraid, more worried than we needed to be."

Isana nodded, silently grateful to Roth, and aware that as a watercrafter, he would sense it. He smiled at her, briefly.

"But how," Otto said, his tone baffled. "How did they do it without one of us sensing it?"

"My guess is that Bittan built it up slowly," Isana said. "A little at a time. The way you can heat bathwater a little at a time, so that anyone inside doesn't notice."

Otto blinked. "I knew you could project emotions, but I didn't know you could do it that way."

"Most of the Citizenry who know firecrafting will do it to one degree or another, during their speeches," Isana said. "Nearly any Senator can do it without really thinking about it. Gram does it without knowing all the time."

"And while his son did it to us," Roth mused, "Kord fed us that nonsense

about a possible flood-and we were worried enough to think that it sounded reasonable."

"Oh," Otto said. He coughed and flushed pink. "I see. You came down late, Isana, so you were able to notice it. But why didn't you just say something?"

"Because the other one was smothering her, dolt," growled Aldo, from where he lay. His voice carried the stress of the pain from his injured foot. "And you saw what Kord tried to do to her."

"I told you all," Warner said with a certain vicious satisfaction in his voice from his position on the stairs. "They're a bad lot all around."

"Warner," Isana said wearily. "Go get dressed."

The spare Steadholder looked down at himself and seemed to become aware of his nakedness for the first time. He flushed, then muttered something to excuse himself and hurried from the room.

Otto shook his head again. "I just can't believe someone would do that."

"Otto," muttered Aldo. "Use your head for something besides a dressing mirror. Bernard is hurt, and so is Warner's son. Get them into a tub and craft them better.'

Roth nodded decisively, visibly gathering himself together. "Of course. Steadholder Aldo," he inclined his head a bit, to the younger man, "was right all along. Isana, I offer you my full support in your crafting, as does Otto, here."

"I do?" Otto said. "Oh, I mean. Yes, of course. Isana, how could we have been so stupid. Of course we'll help."

"Child," Bitte called from beside Bernard's still form, her voice high, sharp. "Isana, there's no more time."

Isana turned to look at Bitte. The old woman's face had gone pale.

"Your brother. He's gone."

Tavi stumbled beneath the force of a sudden gust of wind. The girl caught his arm in one hand, keeping him upright, and with the other, she hurled a few scanty remnants of the salt crystals he'd given her a few hours before. There was a shriek from the faintly luminous form of the windmane behind the gust, and it withdrew.

"That's it," she called over the wind. "I'm out of salt!"

"Me, too!" Tavi answered her.

"Are we close¹?"

He squinted through the darkness and the rain, shivering and almost too cold to think. "I don't know," he said. "I can't see anything. We should be almost there,"

She shielded her eyes from the stinging half-sleet with her hand. "Almost won't be good enough. They're coming back."

Tavi nodded and said, "Keep your eyes out for firelight." He gripped her hand tightly in his, before stumbling forward, through the darkness. Her fingers tightened on his own. The slave was stronger than she looked, and even though his hand had long since gone mostly numb from the cold and the sleet, her grip was painful, frightened. The wind and the deadly manes within it yowled, driving and cold and furious.

"They're coming," she hissed. "If we're going to get out of this, it has to be right now."

"It's close. It's got to be." Tavi squinted against the blinding rain, peering ahead of them as best he could. Then he saw it, a faint golden radiance flickering at the edge of his vision. In the storm, he had gotten turned around somehow, and he swerved abruptly to one side, hauling on the girl's wrist. "There! The fire! It's right there! We have to run for it."

Tavi drove his exhausted body forward, toward the distant light, and the ground began to slope upward, rising steadily toward it. The curtains of sleet and rain blinded him and veiled the light, so that it flickered like a guttering candle, but Tavi kept his eyes doggedly locked on his destination Lightning snarled among the clouds m treacherous, blinding flashes, while the wind-manes howled out their wrath overhead

Tavi could hear the slave's labored, gasping breath even through the wind-she was evidently at the end of her endurance Her footsteps staggered, as they grew closer to the glowing firelight In the darkness, the wind-manes screeched, and Tavi looked back to see one of them swooping down through the sleet, its face twisted into a grimace of hatred and hunger

The girl's eyes widened as she saw Tavi's expression, and she began to spin about-but she was too late, her reaction too slow She couldn't possibly turn to defend herself in time

Tavi reached back and seized her wrist in both hands With the weight of his whole body, he hauled her forward, past him, and sent her stumbling toward the light ahead "Go'" he shouted "Get inside'"

The windmane hit Tavi, and there was suddenly no air in his lungs, no warmth in his limbs He felt his feet leave the ground, and he went tumbling, jouncing, and bounding down the slope and away from the shelter at its summit, blown like a leaf before the power of the storm He rolled, arms and legs loose, struggling to keep from stopping too abruptly, to guide his fall down the hill and to its base A grey stone appeared before his eyes in a flash of emerald lightning, and he felt himself scream as he flinched away from it

He caught a flash of light reflected on water, on the ground, and aimed himself toward it through the half dark, desperate and terrified He came to a halt in the mud pooling at the bottom of the hill beneath a finger-width of freezing water, his arms sinking into it halfway to his elbows He struggled and heaved them free of the muck, turning in time to see the windmane descend on him once more

Tavi rolled to one side, the sludge slowing his movements, and felt the wrndmane's deadly chill settle around his mouth and nose, cutting off his air He thrashed and flinched, but accomplished nothing He could no more keep the fury from blocking his air than he could spread his arms and fly above the storm

Tavi knew that he had only one chance, and that a slim one He struggled to his feet, then leapt into the air and hurled himself sprawling in the muck Cold, oozing mud and chilled water slithered over him, churned to the consistency of thick pudding by the storm He wriggled down deeper, forcing his face into the mud, then rolled to his back, covering himself in it