Kel Dorr’s hands were blistered raw where the backlash from his gold-trimmed summoning wand had scorched his palms. The taste of copper and stomach bile filled his mouth. For three hours, he had been trapped in this waking nightmare on Fish Street. He watched the granite carrier spirit he had summoned tear itself and the neighborhood apart. The College training list had taught him forty-two variations of compulsory binding. But it had never taught him what to do. Just then, a subcontractor tore down a wooden ramp to save three silver coins on work frames hire.
His silk apprentice mantle, stitched with the golden hydra of the Sluice Faculty, was soaked with cold sweat. Every time the ten-ton cut stone block struck the brick wall, a violent sound recoil traveled up the golden binding lines into his chest. That made his heart stutter. His knees trembled so badly he could barely keep his boots inside the protective chalk circle. If his foot crossed the white line, the uncontrolled leftover energy would ground through his body and shatter his bones.
He looked at the parchment service order clutched in his left fist: Deliver to Platform Four. No rest. No deviation. Seal of Master Sorell. The legal wording was airtight, designed by academy barristers to prevent spirits from resting on company time. But the law had met an unbending physical reality. Platform Four was an isolated stone shelf twelve feet in the air. There was no longer a path to reach it…
