"The spell around the palace gives us the time we need. It was laid down for us three thousand years ago, when a few wizards helped with our cause. They had the power to cast a bifurcated web."

Zedd was, for the moment, becoming intrigued. "Yes. Yes, I can see what you mean. Bifurcation would invert the force, kind of like twisting a length of gut, and create an area where the center could be bent to do extraordinary things. The ancient wizards could accomplish deeds I can only dream of doing."

Ann was keeping a constant watch, to make sure they were alone. "Bifurcating a web bends it back on itself, creating an outer and inner region. There are two nodes, like with the twisted gut you mentioned, where this bending would have to take place: one at the outer shield, and one at the inner."

Zedd peered at her with one eye. "But the node on the inner half, where the true event takes place, would be vulnerable to breach. Though created by necessity, it would be a dangerous flaw. Do you know where the inner node is located?"

"We stand in it."

Zedd straightened. He glanced around. "Yes, I can see the thought that went into it — placing it in the bedrock under everything else where it would be best protected."

"That's why, on the off chance it could bring havoc, we unequivocally forbid wizard's fire anywhere on Halsband Island."

Zedd absently waved a hand. "No, no. Wizard's fire wouldn't harm such a node." He turned to her with a suspicious glare. "What are we doing here?"

"I brought you here to give you the opportunity to do what you wish to do — to destroy the spell."

He stared, he blinked, and he stared some more. At last, he spoke. "No. It wouldn't be right."

"Wizard Zorander, this is a highly inconvenient time for you to be overcome with morals."

He folded his skinny arms. "This spell was placed by wizards greater than I will ever be, greater than I can even imagine. This is a wonder, a thing of profound mastery. I won't destroy such a piece of work."

"I broke the truce!"

Zedd lifted his chin, "Breaking the truce condemns any Sister who comes to the New World to death. We are not in the New World. Breaking the truce says nothing about me going to the Old World and doing harm. By the terms of the truce, I have no right to do such a thing."

She leaned closer with a dark look. "You promised me that if I took you away by that collar, endangering your friends, you would come to my homeland and lay waste to the Palace of the Prophets. I am giving you your chance."

"It was a temporarily, passionate outburst. Reason has returned to my head." He fixed her with a scolding scowl. "You've been using devious tricks and sly deception to try to convince me you're a vile, contemptible, immoral malefactor, but you have failed to fool me. You are not the evil sort."

"I've shackled you! I abducted you!"

"I won't destroy your home and your life. Doing so, destroying the spell, would alter the pattern of the lives of the Sisters of the Light and, in essence, be ending their lives prematurely. The Sisters and their charges live by standards of time that to me seem strange, but to them are normal.

"Life is perception. If a mouse with a life span of only a few years were to have the magic to make my life as short as its life, that, to my perception, would be killing me, though to the mouse it would seem he were granting no less than a normal life span. That's what Nathan meant when he said you were killing him.

"I would be shortening their lives to the same as the rest of us, but by their expectations and the oath they have taken, that would be the same as killing them before they have a chance to live, I won't do it."

"If I have to, Wizard Zorander, I'll use the collar to give you pain until you agree."

He smirked. "You have no conception of the tests of pain I have passed to become a wizard of the First Order. Go ahead, do your best."

Ann pressed her lips together in exasperation. "But you have to! I've put a collar around your neck! I've done terrible things to you to make you angry enough to do this! The prophecy says the anger of a wizard is necessary to destroy our home!"

"You've been playing me for a dancing frog." His hazel eyes hovered closer. "I don't dance unless I know the tune."

Ann sagged in frustration. "The truth is that Emperor Jagang is going to take the Palace of the Prophets for his own use. He's a dream walker, and controls the minds of the Sisters of the Dark. He intends to use the prophecies to find the forks he needs to win the war, and then he's going to live under the spell for hundreds of years, ruling the world and everyone in it as his own."

Zedd considered her with a scowl. "Now, that gets my blood to boiling. That's a worthy reason to level the palace. Bags, woman, why didn't you just tell me the truth in the beginning?"

"Nathan and I have been working on this fork in the prophecies for hundreds of years. The prophecy says a wizard will level the palace in fury. Failure is too dark a vision for the world to take any risk, so I did the thing I thought would work. I've been trying to make you furious enough to want to destroy the Palace of the Prophets." Ann rubbed her tired eyes. "It was a desperate act, because of a desperate need."

Zedd grinned. "Desperate act. I like that. I like a woman who can appreciate the occasional need for acts of desperation. Shows spirit."

Ann clutched his sleeve. "Will you do it, then? We don't have any time to spare; the drums have stopped. Jagang could be here at any moment."

"I'll do it. We'd better get back near the entrance, though."

When they were back near the huge round door to the vaults, Zedd reached into a pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a stone. He tossed it on the floor.

"What's that?"

Zedd glanced back over his shoulder. "Well, I conjecture you told Nathan to cast a light web."

"Yes. Other than Nathan, a few sisters, and myself, no one knows how to spin a light web. I think Nathan has enough power to breach the outer node once a cascade is begun on this inner one, but I know neither of us has the power to start the one needed in here. That's why I needed to bring you here. I fear only a wizard of the First Order will have the power necessary."

"Well, I'll do my best," Zedd grumbled, "but I've got to tell you, Ann, as vulnerable as a node would be, it's still a spell cast by wizards the vastness of whose power I can only imagine."

He spun his finger around, and the stone on the floor before him popped and snapped as it rapidly grew to a broad, flat rock. He stepped up onto it.

"You get out of here. Go wait outside. Make sure Holly is safe while I do this. If anything goes wrong, and I can't control the cascade of light, you won't have time to get out of here."

"Act of desperation, Zedd?"

He answered with a grunt as he turned back to the room and lifted his arms. Already, sparkling colors were rising from the rock, engulfing him with spiraling shifts of humming light.

Ann had heard of wizard's rocks, but she had never seen one, and didn't know how they worked. She could feel the power that began emanating from the old wizard when he had stepped up on the thing.

She hurried from the vault as he wished. She wasn't sure if he really wanted her out of the room for her own safety, or if he didn't want her to see how he was going to do such a thing. Wizards did tend to guard their secrets. Besides that, Zedd was proving to be even more devious than Nathan — an achievement she would have thought impossible.

Holly wrapped her thin little arms around Ann's neck when she squatted down by the dark niche.

"Has anyone come past?"

"No, Ann," Holly whispered.

"Good. Let me squeeze in here with you, while we wait until Wizard Zorander is finished with his task."