The large undead teetered and began to fall toward the chasm's edge.

Chap clung to it by tooth and claw, letting his weight bring it down.

Leesil rolled to his feet as Chap latched on to the undead's throat. Between Sgaile's last kick and the dog's sudden weight, the undead began to topple toward the edge.

Chap didn't lunge away.

Leesil threw aside one winged blade. He reached out wildly to grab Chap by the scruff, but his mind was still numbed by the sight of Magiere buckling under Welstiel's thrust.

A memory erupted in his head.

Downstairs in the Sea Lion's common room, he'd been alone in the dark-drinking-as Ratboy slipped in through a window. At the sound, he'd pulled a stiletto and hurled it. But the blade had stuck into a tabletop rather than into the little vampire's head.

Only Chap could have raised that forgotten moment, trying to tell him what to do-whom to save.

Leesil snatched a stiletto from his wrist sheath, breaking the holding strap. With one quick flip, he caught the blade and threw it.

Magiere gasped as Welstiel jerked his longsword out of her arm. Her fury held, but it wasn't enough to eat the pain-not like her missing hunger could have.

On withdrawal, Welstiel flicked the sword tip at her throat.

She barely blocked it with her dagger-shielded forearm. The longsword's tip slid off and scraped her hauberk's shoulder. It didn't cut her, but its drag on the leather pulled her off balance.

Welstiel swung his blade back, and it rose over his head. With no room to dodge aside on the narrow bridge, Magiere raised her forearm with the dagger and braced for the impact.

Welstiel lurched.

The longsword stalled and wobbled above him. His eyes widened, and his lips spread, exposing clenched teeth.

Magiere almost lost her opening in surprise. She spun the dagger in her grip and slashed fast and hard across his knee.

The blade cut through his breeches. He screeched in pain, and Magiere heard a sizzling hiss from the dagger. She started at both sounds.

Smoke rose from the severed cloth around Welstiel's leg. As he spun away along the bridge, Magiere saw the stiletto embedded below his left shoulder blade. She glanced at the dagger in her hand.

A red glow along its center hair-thin line faded quickly to its old charcoal black. Vapor thickened and sputtered softly as its moisture touched the blade-as if the metal had suddenly heated during her swing.

Welstiel came about. He fixed upon her in cold anger and advanced.

Magiere abandoned any notion of grabbing for the falchion. She came up, gripping the dagger's hilt hand over hand. Welstiel took a double hold on his sword as he brought it down.

Sparks scattered as weapons collided and then vanished rapidly in the humid air. Magiere let the dagger tilt upon the impact.

The instant Welstiel's sword slipped away, she slashed the blade back up across his face.

Welstiel whipped his head aside with a cry, and the stench of burning flesh filled Magiere's nostrils. She swung out, striking for his sword arm. Smoke erupted from his wrist as the blade slashed across. He shrieked as his grip on the sword's hilt went limp.

The longsword clanged upon the bridge and Magiere heard nothing more.

Welstiel grabbed for his wounded wrist with his fingerless hand. He tried to shield his smoking face with both arms, and one foot slipped off the side of the bridge.

"No!" Magiere screamed. "Not that easy!"

She grabbed for him as he fell, catching his forearm. Her knees hit the bridge as Welstiel's full weight dragged her down, and her grip slid up to his wrist.

Magiere held on to Welstiel and strained to pull him up.

She couldn't spend her life wondering if he'd truly died in the chasm's depths. She wouldn't live with that doubt. But she wasn't going to drop the dagger for a second grip.

Magiere slammed the blade down into Welstiel's chest.

He didn't even scream as smoke welled from the heated blade sinking into him. She heaved on the hilt, draging his torso halfway onto the bridge. She released his wrist, pinning him with her knee, and snarled her fingers into his hair.

Welstiel convulsed once as she jerked the dagger out.

The blade crackled as his black fluids burned off under its heat. Magiere pressed it to his throat.

A charred gash angled between Welstiel's eyes, running from the bridge of his nose and down through his cheek to the side of his mouth. Teeth and bone showed through smoking split skin. His eyes were filled with confusion and pain, as if none of what was happening could be real.

And it still wasn't enough for Magiere.

Not for all she had suffered or what so many others had lost because of him. She leaned close to Welstiel's mangled face, whispering, "Whatever waits for you… when you get there… give Father my hate!"

Magiere shoved the blade down.

Welstiel's face went slack as it split his throat. When she felt the dagger jam into bone, she ground it through.

The tip of the dagger grated on the stone.

Magiere let Welstiel's body tumble off the bridge.

Leesil hoped his stiletto had struck true. He rushed for Chap, but he wouldn't make it.

The large undead's back and head cracked against the bridge's side. He rolled off and fell.

Sgaile flung aside Leesil's old blade and bolted onto the bridge.

In midair, Chap tried to leap off the undead's chest. Only his forepaws hooked the bridge's edge. Sgaile reached out and grabbed for Chap, pulling the dog up. The yowling undead clawed at empty air, and fell into the chasm's clouded depths.

Leesil quickly closed on Chap and Sgaile, but then his gaze traced along the bridge.

Halfway out, Magiere knelt, staring over the edge, but Leesil saw no sign of Welstiel.

"Drop down," he said.

Sgaile buckled low, still holding Chap, and Leesil hopped over them. Before he reached Magiere, she lifted her face.

Her fingers were snarled in the hair of a severed head, and Leesil saw one white temple as he slowed. Magiere slumped and closed her eyes. Beneath her scowl, Leesil could see her pain. In the end, even killing Welstiel hadn't taken it away.

With her eyes still closed, Magiere flung the head.

Leesil watched it fall through the misty air, growing faint and small. It vanished altogether, though he never heard it strike in the chasm's obscured depths.

Magiere felt as if she'd awakened in one of those seven hells Leesil so casually spit out in his curses. Welstiel was gone, but it solved nothing-changed nothing-for her.

It didn't erase what she was, or change what might wait for her in the future.

Then Leesil crouched down before her.

Magiere gazed into his wild amber eyes, so faintly slanted beneath white-blond eyebrows. What might he say about all this? What was there to say? But the sight of his tan face and bright hair pulled her halfway from that hell.

"Where's Chane?" he asked, so softly, as if reluctant to ask anything of her.

The question shook Magiere fully back into the moment. "I don't know."

Leesil pivoted, and Magiere saw Sgaile and Chap near the bridge's end.

"Stay there," he called to them. "Watch the tunnel… Chane is still missing."

Chap spun about, and Sgaile followed the dog off the bridge. Leesil turned back and reached for Magiere.

"Let's see that arm."

She'd forgotten about the wound, and strangely, all the pain was gone. Leesil pulled apart the blood-soaked rent in the sleeve of her wool pullover. He wiped gently with his fingertips, clearing blood from her arm, and then stopped.

Magiere saw no wound. Not even a scar.

"Even you don't heal that quickly," Leesil said, looking none too pleased. "I saw a wound on that big undead close too fast. What is happening here?"

Welstiel had claimed he was untouchable in the orb's presence, and she wasn't. Apparently he'd been wrong-not that it made Magiere feel any better. She spun on one knee, looking back to the orb. Li'kan stood staring at it, and nothing on the platform had changed.