A sudden fierceness burned away the cold grip of Deirdre’s fear. The woman before her was immortal, yes, but not invulnerable. As Beltan had said, she could be killed. “You didn’t defeat Marius.” Deirdre pointed the gun at Phoebe. “I’m here.”

Again those gold eyes flashed. Deirdre felt as if her hand had been frozen in a block of ice. The gun clattered to the floor.

Phoebe clucked her tongue. “You didn’t really think you could stop us, did you, child? Marius really did fill your head with notions.”

The words were scathing, but Deirdre only grinned. Her arm was numb, and she felt weak and shaky, but she wasn’t completely immobilized, not like Beltan.

“You can’t do it again,” she said. “Your little trick. You’re not as strong as Marius, are you? I bet none of you are.”

Angry mutters rose from below. Deirdre could feel the eyes of the others gazing up out of their shadowy hoods.

“Be done with her, Phoebe!” the man who had spoken earlier called out.

“Silence, Arthur,” Phoebe snapped over her shoulder. “I told you I would take care of this annoyance as I did the other, the one those filthy sorcerers wanted.”

The desperation in these words emboldened Deirdre. “You can’t stop me.”

A hissing sound escaped from the veil. “In that, my precious little Seeker, you are quite wrong.”

Phoebe bent, picked up the gun, and fired.

A clap of thunder sounded in Deirdre’s ears, and she felt as if she had been pushed by an invisible hand. She stumbled back, against the wall, and glanced down. There was a small hole near the right shoulder of her leather jacket. There was no pain; the numbness had crept up her arm, into her chest. Then, with her left hand, she opened her jacket.

Blood spilled down her shirt.

“Oh,” Deirdre said, and slumped to her knees.

“This case is closed, Seeker,” Phoebe said, and pointed the gun at Deirdre’s head.

Again came a rumbling sound. Only it was different this time: lower, deeper, a moan rising from below. In moments it built to a stentorian roar. The floor shook beneath Deirdre. One of the statues toppled over, smashing an urn. Phoebe stumbled back against the railing of the mezzanine. The gun flew from her hand, falling to the chamber below.

The floor continued to shake. Above, a crack snaked across the surface of the dome. The light flickered. It took Deirdre’s astonished brain an instant to realize what was happening.

It’s an earthquake. An earthquake in London.

But that was impossible. There was no active fault line beneath London. Unless . . .

The fault line is here, Deirdre.Her mind was strangely clear. It’s centered around them—the Seven. Perihelion is close now. Very close . . .

“Phoebe!” another man’s voice shouted from below. “Get down here now. We must open the way!”

Below, one of the men had pushed back his hood. His gold eyes shone in an ageless face.

“I have to finish with this one first, Gabriel!” Phoebe called out.

“There’s no time for that,” the man called back. “It comes sooner than we believed. If we want to escape this world before it’s too late, we must complete the spell now.”

Phoebe gave Deirdre one last hateful glance. “You’ll bleed to death soon enough. Perhaps it’s fitting that you watch as we achieve perfect immortality.” She descended a staircase to the chamber below, joining the others around the arch. The man, Gabriel, raised his hood.

The building no longer shook; the earthquake had ended. Deirdre still felt no pain. She crawled forward, using her left hand for support. Only dimly did she notice the blood smearing the marble beneath her. She passed Beltan’s prone form. It seemed his green eyes followed her motion, but that couldn’t be.

She reached the top of the stairs. Although crystalline, her gaze seemed strangely fractured, so that what she saw below were fragments only. Here, one of the hooded figures pulled back the cloth that covered one of the long shapes around the perimeter of the room. It was a sarcophagus of black stone, its lid gone. Within lay a man with lustrous gold skin and jet-black hair, clad only in a linen kilt. His eyes were shut, his arms folded over his naked chest. On his brow was a circlet of gold and a bloodred jewel shaped like a spider.

In another shard of sight, Deirdre watched as one of the black-robed figures bent over another sarcophagus, knife in hand. The blade flashed, and blood flowed from the Sleeping One’s arm, spilling into a golden bowl.

More knives flashed and six figures walked toward the stone arch, each bearing a bowl of blood, and one of them—the sole woman among them—carrying two.

Deirdre tried to move down the stairs—she had to stop them—but she couldn’t stand; her legs wouldn’t work right. The chanting rose again on the air, echoing up into the dome. The robed figures closed in around the arch. Seven golden bowls tilted, blood spilled.

The blood vanished.

Blue fire enveloped the stones.

46.

“ Lir!” a commanding voice intoned.

Silver radiance flickered into existence, pushing back the darkness that filled the throne room. Master Larad stood at the center of the light. Sinfathisar shimmered in his hands.

Grace’s eyes adjusted to the new illumination. The floor had stopped shaking beneath her, and she managed to gain her feet, though she was still trembling herself.

“Was that an earthquake?” she called out over the groan of settling stone.

“More than that, I think,” Farr said, standing up and untangling his serafi. “Perihelion must nearly be here.”

Grace looked up. The crystal that had channeled beams of sunlight from the outer chamber into the throne room had gone dark. Had the sun ceased shining? If so, then surely Farr was right.

“Look,” Vani said. The T’golstood nearby, holding Nim. Grace followed her gaze. On the dais, the gate still crackled like a door rimmed with sapphire lightning. Grace saw dark-robed figures moving beyond, and many glints of gold.

“Who are they?” she said, half in wonder, half in dread. “Are they Scirathi?” She couldn’t see masks in the shadowed recesses of their hoods.

Travis was the closest to the dais. “I don’t know who they are,” he said, his voice hard, “but I’d bet the Great Stones those are the Seven of Orú.”

Past the robed figures, Grace made out several long, rectangular shapes. They were stone sarcophagi. The gate seemed to be positioned slightly higher than the room on the other side, as if there—just like here—it stood on some sort of dais. Grace could just see inside one of the sarcophagi, glimpsing the gold-skinned man who lay there, eyes shut as if asleep.

A sheen of sweat sprang out on Grace’s flesh. If those were the Fateless Ones, then the room on the other side of the gate was on . . .

“Earth,” she said. “It’s Earth on the other side.”

But where on Earth? And who were the black-robed ones if they were not Scirathi?

“We’ve got to go through the gate,” Travis said. “Larad, bring the Great Stones. I think Farr’s right. Perihelion is almost here. We’ve got to bring the Stones in contact with the Seven.”

Yes, that was it, Grace thought, her cool doctor’s logic superseding the fevered chaos in her brain. She considered the knowledge they had gained from the symbols on the walls of the throne room. The universe had a fatal disease, of which the rifts were a symptom, and the only way to cure the patient was to reverse the imbalance that had caused the affliction in the first place. The Imsari had to be joined with the blood of the Seven.

Only what does that have to do with the Last Rune, Grace?Sfithrisir said only the Last Rune could heal the rifts.

Larad stared at the gate, wonder on his scarred face, then he was moving. Travis was already bounding up the steps of the dais.