“Lara,” I said, when I was done, “Thomas doesn’t have the same kind of relationship with his Hunger as you have with yours.”
“I’m very aware,” she said.
“That’s why I want you to observe,” I said quietly. “Share any insights you have with me. It could get complicated fast. I might have to make spur-of-the-moment decisions. Your knowledge of them could make a difference.”
I caught Mab staring at me hard as I spoke. I frowned at her. She simply kept staring at me for a moment, then curled her lips into a faint expression of approval and gave me a slow nod.
“I can do that,” Lara said quietly.
“Mab,” I said, “Lara’s Hunger was difficult for me to handle. I might need to borrow power to manage Thomas’s. I think it would be useful if you stood ready to loan it to me.”
“Yes,” Mab said, her voice faintly impatient. “I know precisely howI will be most useful and why you invited me to participate. I have brought all that is necessary.”
“Okay,” I said. “Time for my ritual clothing.”
I went over to my bag and took out a black T-shirt featuring Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots across the front, stripped out of my shirt, and put the new one on. I added to that a pair of aviator sunglasses I’d given Thomas a few years back, along with a White Sox baseball cap he’d owned.
Lara looked at me and smiled faintly. “I’m a minority owner of the team, you know,” she said.
I glanced at her and sighed. “Of course you are.” I took up my wizard’s staff, the one I’d carved new from a lightning-struck oak on this very island, looked over the circle once more, and took a slow breath.
“Alfred,” I breathed. “Please move my brother’s crystal into the circle.”
Silence rang around the chamber for the space of a long breath. Then the floor began to rumble as the genius loci of Demonreach reacted to my request. In the center of the circle, in one half of the infinity symbol, a slender column of crystal began to arise from the floor. My brother lay in it, his eyes closed, his face twisted into a rictus of pain, his body tensed into an agonized arch.
“Oh,” Lara breathed. “Empty night, Harry. His Hunger. It was tearing into him when you froze it last.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“He’s in pain,” Lara said. “I can feel it from here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “When I bring him out of the stasis, I’m going to have to act fast.”
Mab paced slowly around the exterior of the circle, tilting her head this way and that, staring at my entombed brother. “Power alone will avail you naught, I think, my Knight.”
I frowned at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Imagine a beast set upon a child,” she said, “its claws and teeth sunk in. Simply tearing it away will rend the child asunder as it is done. Precision is as much needed as power.”
“Super,” I said. “Great. Right in my wheelhouse. Dammit.”
Mab smirked. “In addition,” she said, “we have little time. Theisland’s spirit has slowed the passage of time to an intense degree within the stasis crystal but cannot stop it entirely. Your brother’s life has been ripped from him very slowly but surely over months. It might be too late already. Had you waited another moon, it certainly would have been.” She shook her head. “When he is released, the Hunger will be in the very act of ending his life. In my judgment, you will have seconds. At most.”
“Seconds?” I demanded. “Oh, come on.”
Mab gave me a frosty smile. “I will not be able to lend you power,” she said calmly. “I will have to stretch those seconds to give you more room in which to operate. It will require all of my focus.”
“Stretchtime?” I asked. “You can do that?”
“Theoretically,” she mused. “Yes. Though I will admit, it has not been necessary to attempt a working so severe before today.”
“Severe? How severe are we talking?” I asked.
“Expect extended consequences,” she murmured.
“Ah,” I said. “Fantastic. Because I never have enough of those.”
“Harry?” Lara said uncertainly.
