“Her last broadcast from New York.”

“Yeah. I was about twelve, and thought it was really cool, so I drew it—the way I saw it in my head. When I showed it to Arlys, I realized, not so cool, not for her. But she said I got it right, and asked if she could keep it to remind her to tell the truth even when it’s scary.”

He took Fallon’s hand. “Come on.”

He led her out of the office, into the place with the desks, the long counter under the lights, in front of the camera.

“Put Arlys and the dead body up there, and that’s my sketch.”

“That’s why,” Fallon acknowledged. “That’s why it’s here for us, why it’s here to serve as the center of command. Fred protected it, Arlys told the world the truth. They held back the dark, and now so will we.”

* * *

For two weeks in the bitter cold, war ripped claws through the already torn city. It rampaged through the boroughs like a wild thing. In the third week, the Light for Life forces lost fifty troops in an ambush when they worked to clear a crosstown tunnel. Fallon led in a hundred more to beat back the alliance of DUs and Raiders in the green glow of faerie light.

She emerged into winter sunlight that struck the huge mounds of snow her troops had cleared from the streets and entryways. The crows still circled, smoke still spewed skyward, but the tide was turning. She felt it in her bones, and with it a hope that drove away the fatigue.

She started to mount Laoch, paused at the call of her name. Starr streaked toward her.

“You need to come. It’s Colin.”

“No, he’s not—”

“Alive, but he’s hurt. He’s hurt bad. You need to come.” She who rarely touched, gripped Fallon’s hand. “He’s with Jonah and Hannah. They got him to the mobile, but—”

With her hand vised on Starr’s, Fallon flashed them both.

Colin lay on a gurney, his face bleached white, his eyes glazed, his body trembling. With horror Fallon saw the tourniquet above the elbow of his left arm, and Hannah holding compresses to the stub beneath.

Jonah submerged that arm, wrapped in gauze, sealed in a bag, in a tub of ice.

“The bleeding’s slowing down. You’re going to be all right, Colin,” Hannah assured him. “We’re going to get you back to New Hope. He’s in shock. Starr got him here fast—and the limb, but…”

Fallon turned, looked directly into Jonah’s eyes. “Will he live?”

“I don’t know.” Jonah laid a hand on Colin, obviously willing the vision of life and death that had once nearly driven him to take his own. “It’s just not clear, it’s not yes or no the way it usually is.”

“Then it’s not no. Can you reattach his arm?”

“Not here, and…” He drew her toward the back of the mobile. He kept his voice low, kept it calm. “We haven’t done anything like this at the clinic. I don’t know if Rachel can or not. She’ll try. Like Hannah said, Starr got him here fast. We’ve cleaned the arm, done the emergency treatment, but this is massive, complicated surgery, Fallon. And we can’t flash him back. The blood loss, the shock. He wouldn’t survive it.”

“Then he stays here. Starr, I need you to get my mother. Get someone who can flash, and get her here. She needs to bring her cauldron, three white candles, carnation petals, bay leaves, fresh earth, blessed water, three bloodstones, a white cloth, and leather. Enough leather to cover his arm right down to over the fingers. Her healing balm, her strongest healing potion. Have you got all that?”

“Yes. It was a sword strike,” she added. “It took his arm, and still he killed the enemy before he fell. I’ll be fast.”

“What are you going to do?” Hannah bathed the cold sweat from Colin’s face. “I cleaned the wound, and Jonah’s protected the viability of the severed limb, but we need an OR, and even then—”

“He’s not going to lose his arm.” After nudging Hannah aside, Fallon leaned over her brother. “Colin, look at me. Hear me, see me. I can give you back your arm, but it has to be your choice. It won’t be the same as it was. Do you understand?”

“No. Son of a bitch!”

“You’ll have to relearn how to use it again,” Fallon persisted. “And it’s going to hurt like hell. Pain’s part of the price. It’s your will, Colin. You have to want it, be willing to go through the pain. You need to be awake and aware. You’re strong. You can do this.”

His teeth chattered, and his eyes swirled with pain. “Can’t they, like, sew it back on?”

“They’re not sure, and we’re not sure how long it would take you to get back to New Hope.” As she spoke, she opened herself to his wound. Pain, searing, even with whatever Hannah had given him to dull it. But clean. She’d done her job well. “But I’m sure. Trust me.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and before he opened them again, she felt that will inside him, steely, snap strong.

“Maybe you could toss some magick in. Make it like a super arm.”

“Let’s just get you whole again. I need more room. We need to move him outside.”

“Out—” At Fallon’s swift, ferocious glare, Hannah bit back the objection.

She could hear the battle raging, only blocks away from the safety zone in Midtown. North now, Fallon knew, moving slowly, steadily toward the great park. As they set the gurney in what had once been a promenade near the ice rink where during the winter months people had spun and circled, slipped and tripped, Starr flashed back not only with her mother, but Ethan.

Good, she thought, the more family the better.

Lana rushed to Colin. “There’s my boy. Mom’s here. Let me see.”

“We need to cast the circle.” Fallon took the satchel her mother carried. “And fast.”

“I need to see. I might be able to—”

“You can’t.” Brisk to the point of cold, Fallon cut off her mother’s words, the voice that struggled not to shake. “I’ve looked. But we can. The Book of Spells is in me, that knowledge. There’s a chance, but we cast the circle first. Ethan, you’ll help. Set the candles in a triangle at Colin’s head. Light them. Starr, roust some of the troops off rotation. Magick can draw magick. I don’t want any interference.”

“How can we help?” Jonah asked.

“Get your weapons, stand guard. Mom, the circle.”

“All right, all right. You hold on.” As the scarf she’d tossed on snapped in the wind, Lana pressed a kiss to Colin’s brow. And with Fallon and Ethan, cast the protective circle around her oldest son.

“Float the cauldron over the candles,” Fallon told her mother. “And in the cauldron put seven carnation petals, seven bay leaves, one bloodstone.”

Fallon took the white cloth and, pricking her finger with her knife tip, carefully wrote Colin’s name.

“This is my brother, blood of my blood. Know his name.” She wrapped another bloodstone in the cloth, added it to the cauldron. “This is water, blessed by the mother. Know her love. This is earth, given brother to brother.” She nodded to Ethan. “One fistful,” she ordered. “Know his faith.”

She lifted her hands and the wind came in stronger, in circling whirls. “This is air, stirred by the sister. Know my devotion. And now this air lifts the flames on candles white and pure, to offer these elements. Rise, rise, rise, flame and power, rise, rise, rise, a healing tower. Merge water, earth, wind, and fire, rise straight, rise true, rise higher.”

As the flames shot up, lances of light, what was in the cauldron began to bubble and smoke. In it she slid the leather, and the third stone.

She sheathed her knife, drew her sword, one taken from fire, one lifted in faith.

“We are three and family, this healing spell we seal.”

She held out a hand for Ethan’s, and without hesitation he offered it, kept his eyes on hers when she scored his palm so his blood dripped into the cauldron. “Here, in a brother’s blood, is kindness.” She scored Lana’s. “Here, in a mother’s blood, is selfless love.” Then her own. “Here, in a sister’s blood, is faith. We are three. We are family. This spell we seal, this wound to heal.

“Unwrap the wound,” she told her mother. “Coat it with the balm. Then take his right hand, push all you have into him when I say. Ethan,” she continued as she took the arm from the ice bath, “at his shoulders. Hold him down, give him all you have.”

She unwrapped the arm, pushed away the doubt and fear that wanted to creep under the shield of power.

“He’s going into shock again,” Hannah called out. “Let me—”

Fallon merely flicked a hand, shoved Hannah back two steps. Then drew the leather, now slick as skin and shimmering, from the cauldron.

Her eyes, dark, lit with power, met Colin’s. “Your will,” she told him, “your courage. Let them see your power, your heart.”

Holding out her hand, she caught three of Lana’s tears in her palm, let them fall on the wounds as she pressed them together.

“Hold him down. Push!”

When she laid the leather over his arm, the sudden, searing pain ripped a cry out of him. His body arched against it, his eyes went wide and glazed.

“Will it,” Fallon snapped at him. “Want it. Take it. I call upon the power of light,” she shouted as she ruthlessly coated his arm, from fingertip to elbow, with the shimmering, smoking leather. “Restore your warrior for the fight. Knit and join to heal, skin to skin now merge to seal. By the power you granted me, as I will, so mote it be.”

Light flashed from her hands, streaked over his arm.

She heard the crows, ignored them. The lightning that flashed at the circle others deflected. She kept her hands clamped on Colin even as his pain cut through her and the wind snapped with keen teeth.

Then it died, like a switch flipped, and the pain, the terrible burning of it, fell to a pulsing ache. His pulse, she thought, one she felt through his arm.