The flat was empty now. Meralda turned in a circle, but found nothing, not even at the notches in the floor where once Otrinvion’s twin staves were said to stand.

Meralda spoke another word, and the glow from the detector intensified.

She swept the flat again, spoke another word, turned and looked. And though the glow from the detector shone bright now, no hint or sign of disturbance marred its face.

The detector’s handle grew warm in her hands. Meralda urged her Sight further, finer, knowing the spells couldn’t be maintained much longer.

“Three more words,” she said aloud. No need to become discouraged yet, either, she thought. If the spells are there, I’ll find them.

She said another word, and the detector buzzed faintly in response as copper bands began to shake and blur. The mist became a fog, so thick now that Meralda could barely see the door. But still, no trace of hidden spellworks appeared.

Meralda spoke the next word, and the handle grew hot, but Meralda held on. The fog went thick and bright, and the outline of the door vanished, then the walls, until only the faint squares of the windows remained.

“I’m only trying to help,” said Meralda, through gritted teeth. The buzzing became a sizzle, and acrid wisps of smoke began to curl toward Meralda’s face. “Do you understand that? I only want to help.”

The blue fog blazed suddenly, and the detector spat a stinging glob of molten copper on Meralda’s right boot toe. Meralda shouted her final word.

The flat exploded. There was no noise, no felling blow, but the rush of light was so sudden and intense Meralda dropped the detector and fell to her knees, her hands flying to cover her eyes, her Sight all but obliterated by the ferocity of the blast.

But in that instant, before the detector fell, she saw the flat ablaze with the glow of a massive spellwork. Like a monstrous tree, it rose through the floor of the flat, engulfed Meralda whole within its fiery trunk, and sent branches thrusting horizontally outward to meet the Tower walls on every side. The branches were not still, though. Even in the brief Sight presented to Meralda, she saw they rose and turned in unison, spiraling upward and around the central trunk in a dizzying whirl.

Meralda’s head reeled. She’d reached out with her Sight, tried to look closer, tried to follow the shuttling and turning of a single line of power around and through the trunk. But the effort had been too much, and she knew, had the flash not blinded her Sight, she might have lost it forever in the tangled midst of the Tower.

Meralda forced her hands from her eyes and rose from her knees. Her normal vision was blurred, criss-crossed and overlaid with fading images of the spellwork she knew still engulfed her.

Now I know the Tower’s secret, she thought. The Tower isn’t haunted.

The Tower is alive.

The spellwork flared. Even with the tiniest vestige of her Sight remaining, Meralda saw the shimmering air and took a step backwards.

It heard me, she thought. It knows I know.

The flat went dark, and the floor seemed to tilt and fall a finger’s breadth away. Meralda stumbled, nearly went to her knees again, and groped for her magelamp. She took a single step forward in the dark, determined to remove her body from the midst of the hidden spell that filled the flat, and then she brought forth her magelamp and stroked the brass tube.

Light shone, and Meralda gasped. Her Farley and Hent raincoat lay two steps from her feet, still spread wet upon the floor. The foot of the stair stood dim at the edge of the light, and on the first dozen treads Meralda saw plain her own damp boot prints, leading up into the dark.

Meralda turned in a circle. She was alone, but she was no longer in the flat, and the stair and her coat were no tricks of her still blurred sight.

She recalled the brief sensation of falling, and shivered, realizing that she had fallen from the flat to the floor in the blink of an eye.

Her bag was gone, and the detector, though wisps of smoke from the hot copper bands still hung in the air about her.

A heavy blow fell upon the Tower doors, and echoed through the empty Tower. Heart pounding, Meralda turned her lamp upon the empty hall.

“Thaumaturge!” shouted Kervis, faintly from beyond the door. “Thaumaturge!”

A new fusillade of blows fell upon the door, and just as Meralda began to wonder why the Bellringers didn’t just open the unlocked door she heard the furious droning buzz of her ward spell from above.

And then, in the dark, hands touched her back, at her shoulders. They touched her back, and gave her a gentle shove toward the hall and the door.

Meralda stumbled, caught herself. The sensation was gone.

“Vonashon,” boomed a voice that echoed throughout the Tower. Walk swiftly, it meant, in Old Kingdom.

Meralda whirled, but the shaft of light from her magelamp illuminated only emptiness.

“Empalos,” said the voice, so loud Meralda winced. Again, invisible hands touched her, this time from the front, still on each shoulder, pushing her back toward the door. Gentle, but forcing her back a step.

“Walk away!” The voice shouted, loud as thunder, more fearful than commanding. “Walk away!”

Meralda played her magelamp before her, but nothing caught the light. She swatted the air with her left hand, and though she felt the touch of a man’s hand upon her she swatted empty air.

She tried to raise Sight, and saw nothing but after images of the column of fire from the flat. “I came to help you,” she said, fighting a rising urge to bolt for the door. “Do you understand?”

The droning of her killing ward drew nearer, and a ruddy orange glow filled the second story opening in the ceiling, and the voice in the Tower screamed. Not a word, this time. Just an unceasing, ear-splitting howl that rose in both pitch and intensity until Meralda turned and ran for the door, her eyes watering, her hands held over her ears.

Halfway down the hall, Meralda’s teeth began to quiver, and her head felt as if it were about to burst. She could hear nothing but the scream. Not her own footfalls, not the thunder, not the pounding on the doors. Just a howl of agony far louder than any one man, or any hundred men, could ever make.

Meralda jammed her hands tighter against her ears, careened into a wall, forced the wildly bobbing magelamp beam to face the hall before her. The Tower doors appeared, twenty paces away, and Meralda blinked back tears and ran toward them.

The doors flew open. Dim grey sunlight and the splash and smell of rain rushed into the hall. The Bellringers dashed inside.

Kervis and Tervis charged to meet her. Kervis dropped his crossbow and drew his sword. Tervis sheathed his own blade and rushed to Meralda’s side.

“Go,” said Meralda. She groped in her pocket for a wand and turned back toward the stair, searching the dark for any sign of the killing ward.

Tervis spoke, but Meralda couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in her ears. “The ward may be bad,” she said, interrupting him. “We’ve got to get out.”

He shut his mouth and nodded. Meralda held the wand at ready, prepared to speak the three words that would cause the ward spell to latch itself harmlessly to the glass.

The hall, though, was dark.

Meralda motioned the Bellringers back, toward the door. The ringing in her ears abated to the point that she began to hear footsteps. Footsteps, but no tell-tale droning of a ward on the hunt.

Beside her, Tervis looked warily about, then bent and picked up the shadowy bulk at his feet. That looks like my bag, thought Meralda, and she stepped closer and stared.

It is my bag, chalk marks and mended handles and all. My bag, which I left in the flat, here and in Tervis’ left hand.