Smallwood didn’t need to be told twice; he scooped up the Index and dashed out of the spell.

Together the linguists hurried back and edited themselves into the protective Numinous spell that surrounded Nicodemus.

Outside the shield, traseus collapsed and began to deconstruct violently. Decaying sentences flew about, striking the translucent shielding spell with jarring force. The three men silently watched the resplendent chaos. All were exhausted.

Unfortunately, their protective spell was no larger than a broom closet and they found themselves standing uncomfortably close.

“Nicodemus,” Shannon asked, buttoning up his sleeves, “what did you see when the spell was functioning?”

“Purple flashes around the Index.”

Shannon nodded. “As did I. What did you see, Timothy?”

“Nothing,” said the pale-faced wizard as he crouched on a stool, which was contained within the protective spell’s limited space. Both Nicodemus and Shannon stared at the Index lying in the man’s lap.

The air was cold, and so Nicodemus drew his arms back into his sleeves.

With a little shuffling, Shannon managed to turn back toward the vault. Ostensibly he was watching the deconstruction, but by patting Nicodemus’s shoulder, he furtively cast a common language sentence into the younger man’s chest.

Translating the line, Nicodemus read: “Mst get Index frm Smllwd while valt is closed. Ideas?”

Nicodemus had been staring out at the deconstruction with unfocused eyes. The message gave him a wild idea.

He handed Shannon a reply: “Y have an other shield? Like this won?”

Shannon nodded.

“Get it redy.”

Shannon pretended to cough. “When?” he grunted between hacks.

Nicodemus made a show of thumping Shannon’s back then grabbed the grand wizard’s robes and yanked down hard. Just before the old man fell sideways, Nicodemus cast an answer into his chest: “Now!”

CHAPTER Twenty-one

With a cry, Shannon fell to his left and knocked Nicodemus toward Smallwood’s stool. To avoid landing on the sitting wizard, Nicodemus threw his left hand against the Numinous shield. Nevertheless, his hip crashed into Smallwood’s face and sent the wizard sprawling back onto the textual shield. As Nicodemus had hoped, the Index fell to the floor.

Everyone was shouting. The spherical shield seemed about to tip and send them tumbling over each other like bugs in a rolling glass bubble.

But Shannon leaned back against the shield’s opposite wall, balancing it. Then, faster than Nicodemus thought the old man could move, he bent down and retrieved the Index from the floor.

Nicodemus exhaled with relief. Now came the tricky part: getting Shannon some time alone with the Index so that he could research their enemy.

Since his first day in Starhaven, Nicodemus had worked on preventing his touch from misspelling magical text. He had focused on rune order, memorized complex sentence structures, learned to block out every thought but those of preserving the spell at hand.

Now, heart racing, he did the opposite.

“Magisters!” Nicodemus cried while nodding toward his hand. His fingers were jammed into the shield’s golden sentences. “It’s misspelling!”

A dark line grew up from Nicodemus’s hand as he willed his cacography to misspell the previously smooth sentences into crinkled zig-zags.

Strangely, the complex Numinous sentences misspelled exactly the way he wanted them to. Most of the time, Nicodemus’s touch had made magical text dangerously uncontrollable. The opposite now seemed to be true. But he didn’t have time to dwell on this phenomenon; he had to get Shannon away from Smallwood.

“I can’t let go!” he lied. “I’m stuck!” A second dark line spread down from his hand. Together, the strata of corruption pulled a deep furrow into the spherical shield. “Magister, use the other shield!” Nicodemus hissed to Shannon. “Form another sphere.”

Just then a deconstructing Magnus line punched through the furrow. The silvery fragment struck Nicodemus in the face, cutting him from cheekbone to jaw.

“Nicodemus!” Shannon called as a spray of blood filled the air.

Nicodemus clapped his free hand against the wound. The contracting ring of misspells now encircled the shield and was pinching the text down on top of him. “Magister Smallwood,” he called. “Help!”

The shielding spell was now nearly two spheres joined by a furrow. It looked something like two fused soap bubbles.

Smallwood had been tottering to his feet. Now Nicodemus’s cries turned his eyes up to where the apprentice’s hand was contextualized into the shield. With a squawk, the pale wizard jumped up and began parsing the corrupted Numinous sentences enmeshing Nicodemus’s hand.

When Shannon moved to help, Nicodemus shook his head. “Magister, go! Use the other spell.”

Reluctantly, Shannon withdrew a small scroll from his belt-purse. With practiced motions, he peeled the Numinous text from the parchment and edited it into the shield’s wall closest to him. The increased textual area in Shannon’s sphere reduced the restraining tension on the misspelling furrow; it closed into a tight knot, effectively separating the shield’s two spheres.

Nicodemus released the text and withdrew the cacographic force he had been exerting on the shield. Smallwood frantically set to cutting out the corrupted sentences.

Shannon, now standing in a separate protective spell, nodded to Nicodemus and rolled his shield toward the chamber’s other side. Just before the wizard disappeared into the storm of deconstruction, Nicodemus saw him cradle the Index in his right arm and open its cover.

“Nicodemus, how could you have been so careless?” Smallwood squawked, finishing the seal on their protecting spell.

The shield had shrunk. Nicodemus had to crouch, his head tilting to one side as he pressed a hand to his cheek to stop the bleeding.

“Shannon trusts you cacographers too much,” Smallwood said in the harshest tone Nicodemus had ever heard him use. “You could have killed us. Could have killed us and deconstructed the Index!”

Nicodemus mumbled an apology.

“Well… show me that cut,” Smallwood said, his tone softening. “I’ll do what I can until Shannon can stitch you up with Magnus.”

Nicodemus dropped his hand and looked away. Spikes of pain lanced into his head as Smallwood scrubbed the wound with his sleeve; nevertheless, Nicodemus couldn’t suppress a small, self-satisfied smile.

“THAT STUNT WITH the shield was exceedingly foolish and…” Shannon muttered to Nicodemus.

Four sentinels were accompanying them back to the Drum Tower, and one of the Northern spellwrights was now frowning at the old man.

Shannon waited for the Northerner to look away before finishing his sentence. “Exceedingly foolish, Nicodemus, and exceedingly brave.”

Nicodemus started to smile but agony lanced across his wounded cheek. Despite being placed with care, Shannon’s Magnus stitches were extraordinarily painful. “What did you learn?” he asked.

Sitting on Shannon’s shoulder, Azure raised her head to inspect the nearby sentinels. The party was now marching along a wide Spirish arcade in Starhaven’s northern quarter. Presently none of the sentinels was close enough to overhear.

“Nothing about a gem or emerald and Language Prime. And nothing about the Chthonics, ivy, or turtle shells.” Shannon paused. “I am sorry, Nicodemus; I just realized I forgot to search for remedies for cacography.”

A sinking sensation filled Nicodemus. “That’s not important right now. What of our enemy?”

A smile formed beneath the wizard’s short beard. “I discovered what manner of creature we face.”

Nicodemus turned to the grand wizard. “Magister!” he whispered before remembering himself and returning his gaze to the ground. “What is our enemy?” he asked more quietly.