Grace fell, but it was a real fall this time and not the workings of the mage on her mind. She didn't fall far.  

She landed on soft earth, her leg sending pain coursing through her all over again, but she caught herself on her hands before her head could land on it too.

She couldn't see. There were blue and purple and green shapes covering her vision, the after-imprint of a blinding explosion of power, and she blinked and blinked but couldn't seem to clear them. In the end she squeezed her eyes shut and hugged the earth in the hope that the mage couldn't see, either.

It was the voice that made sense of it all: a voice she had heard sweet, and playful; and furious and bitter; and which now she heard with a great and ancient sadness to it.

"I let you do this."

There was hissing sound and then another booming explosion, and Grace flinched, but it was the mage who gave a yell of pain.

"I let you hurt my people, and I let you destroy everything that I love."

Grace could hear tears choking the voice, and when she tried to open her eyes again, she could just make out the shining golden-white form of the Queen. She seemed to be wreathed in magic; almost made of it.

She had the cold mage at her feet, his bear-like form cowering.

No, not cowering, Grace thought, as she saw threads of golden-white magic around and across him. Held down.

He was snarling in pain and anger, and with his burned face he looked more like an animal, caught as he was. He could have been a snapping flesh wolf, or one of his dog-creatures.

"But I won't let you do any more," she said. "Now that everything has gone, there's only me."

She drove a fiery symbol through the air at him, and it sank into his body. He roared again, writhing, and Grace wondered what she was doing to him. It was difficult to feel sorry for him when she remembered his words, but a little part of her mind still recalled that frightened little boy she had seen in his memories.

He lowered his head, and Grace thought he must have been defeated by the pain, but then his huge hands clenched into fists, and he was suddenly covered in his own green power. It pushed and drove at the bonds around him, and the Queen stepped back with a gasp.

"Not enough, Your Majesty," he said, and his arms broke free, sending the bonds fizzing and snapping into the air.

She saw the Queen stumble, and without any more thought, she threw her will into a shielding spell and drove it between the Queen and the mage. Almost in the same moment, he threw himself upwards and sent a blast of force at the Queen.

Grace felt it when it hit her shield, cracking it and forcing its way through, until the shield shattered into orange-red fragments in the air. The remainder of the spell travelled onwards and struck the Queen, but it was only part of the force he had sent, and it did little more than knock her backwards a few steps.

Grace could see the fear on the Queen's beautiful face, though. She had believed herself to be stronger than the mage. Bitterly, Grace realised that she had hoped she might be, too, even though it had been a stupid thought. If Dedora and Ruidic and Ma couldn't stand against him, what hope had the Queen?

The mage gave a grin that made him even more an animal than he had been.

But I'm here, too, Grace thought, and they only needed to survive for long enough for Ruidic to finish his spell.

She conjured a rope of fire, and while the Queen sent daggers of ice flying at him, Grace snapped it around his feet and pulled.

He fell, heavily, the spell he had begun to cast dying away in his hands. But he landed with his hands close enough to swipe at the Queen and he pulled her down with him. She struck the earth, and he landed a vicious blow across her face that made Grace cringe.

I can't send power at him without hurting her too, she thought, and then she saw some of the curling vines that remained of Ruidic's garden, and she sent out a symbol of summoning. She drew them up away from the ground, and wrapped them around the mage, binding his hands beside him.

The Queen scrambled away, and then lashed at him with another blast of bright light. Grace closed her eyes against it, and when she opened them again, the Queen had vanished.

She saw the mage looking around him, and then he turned to see her. Grace put her hands behind her and began to back away as he fought free of the vines. She threw another shielding spell up and an instant later he flicked a quick and razor-sharp spear of ice at her.

It shattered against the shield, and Grace was thankful that it had been a quickly-created spell of little force. It still felt like being hit by something hard.

The hissing noise she heard next confused her for a few seconds. She thought it must be another spell of his, until she realised that it was coming from the over her head.

The cloud outside seemed to be creeping into the gap where the dome had been. A blanket of fog was floating downwards, and she watched as it touched the broken top of the spire and kept falling, frozen in place.

Oh no, she thought, as she realised that it wasn't fog. They were evanescents, so many of them in a mass that they made an almost continuous mass of vapour.

She started moving again, and she saw the mage smile as he snapped the vines that held him and pushed himself to his full height.

A bolt of electricity came out of nowhere, and earthed itself on his helmeted head. She saw the energy of it writhe around the metal, and heard him roar again. But it was a roar of triumph. Holding out his hand, he sent tendrils of green out in the direction the energy had come, and they spread and reached until they found something to latch on to.

She saw them snake around a human shape, and knew that he had found the Queen; and that he had been ready for her to attack.

Grace threw fire at him again, but it was a frighteningly weak spell. She was exhausted, and all but drained of power. He batted the fire aside easily, and then dragged the Queen towards him. She abandoned her invisibility after a moment, and Grace saw how frightened she was.

The first of the evanescents touched down as he lifted her in front of his face, close enough to kiss her.

What if the evanescents find Ruidic? Grace thought, and it was a more urgent thought than the Queen's safety, or hers, or anyone else's. He had to finish that spell.

As if in answer to her thought, she saw fire coursing up from somewhere behind her, heating the evanescents in the air and scattering them apart. But the voice she heard calling her name wasn't Ruidic's.

"Ma!" she shouted back. "I'm here, and I'm fine! Stop the evanescents!"

She saw one of the closer evanescents solidify into ice, and fix its hollow eyes on the source of the fire that was arcing into the air, and begin to make its glittering way towards Ma. The others began to follow. Which meant that helping the Queen was up to Grace.

The mage had hesitated for long enough for her to begin creating another rope of fire, but before it was complete, she saw a cluster of lights flow out of the air and surround the mage.

The spell died in her hands as she watched the cloud of lights surround the mage's head chest. He opened his mouth to shout, and they poured in, and his chest bulged as he tried to gasp for air. The lights were choking him, and then Grace heard words come from them.

"Run, Mommy, run!"

The Queen was suddenly free of the bonds cast by the cold mage, but she didn't run at first. She steadied herself as she landed, and stared at the lights, a painful mixture of hope and need on her face.

"Ori?" she asked. "Ori?"

"You have to run, Mommy," his child's voice said, and the Queen slowly, reluctantly, began to move away.

Her movement became faster as the mage began to hurl spells at random after her. He did it blindly, dazzled by the lights that were all around him and in his eyes.

Grace turned her neck as she heard approaching steps through the surviving greenery, and then smiled in relief as she saw that it was Dedora. The other girls came after her, and she saw the glowing links of the bond around them.

They looked exhausted, the lot of them, but there was a fierce pride on the girls' faces too. She saw little Lily Wong's determined expression, and wondered if the girls from her world would ever want to go back.

Dedora leaned down and lifted her up to stand on her good leg, and Grace was appalled to find that just that movement was enough to make her dizzy. Her vision faded at the edges for a moment before returning.

"Come on," Dedora said, looking at the mage. "You'd better leave him to your mother and the boys."

The mage was still trying, desperately, to breathe, but as Grace watched his green magic shone from his face and a blast of air sent the cloud of lights that had been Ori flittering away.

"Quickly," Dedora said.

But as they started to move, Grace felt something. It was a change in everything, as if she had suddenly become aware of how the air, the earth, the trees, and each of the people here were connected. And most of all, she understood in a rush how everything she did could change everything in a moment. It was a feeling that was full of possibility, full of life, and she understood that Ruidic had almost finished the first stage of the spell.

The cold mage felt it too. His head flicked around until he found her, as if he thought her responsible. She saw the change in his face as he realised that he had been tricked.

"Mage!" he shouted. "I will find you and I will stop you." He began to walk towards the spire, kicking shards of crystal out of his way.

With the strange feeling of the spell on her, Grace hadn't noticed that the fire blasting at the evanescents had stopped. She jumped as six of them landed in front of them, and then jumped again as Dedora sent fire pouring towards them.

They melted in an instant, screeching as they did.

But we need salt or flowing water to keep them that way, she thought. But then she saw the plants around them moving, their surviving roots and vines low at the ground reaching up to touch the vapours.

She watched in open-mouthed fascination as the evanescents devoured by Ruidic's plants, drunk out of the air as they screeched and writhed.

Grace caught Dedora's eye as she wiped her hand across her forehead to clear some of the sweat and grime she had there.

"Some garden," the old woman said, quietly.

            But then another four evanescents touched down in a cluster, and swung towards them with their razor-sharp limbs.

            It was Ma and Benjamin who stopped them. They charged out of the trees holding carrying handfuls of salt, and flung them towards the evanescents. This time they turned at once to liquid, and Grace watched them sink into the ground in the satisfied certainty that Ruidic's garden would drink them up and fragment them.

            Grace turned to smile at her family, but in the same instant became aware of where the spell was coming from. Ruidic was close, just beyond the fallen spire – and the mage was closing on him.

            "Ma, we need to stop the mage," she said, and met Ma's exhausted expression with her own grim one. "Are the other boys here, too?" she asked.

            Ma nodded. "They have salt. Take it off them when they get here, Dedora, and fight the evanescents as best you can."

            Grace tried not to think about how many were still floating up above, waiting to fly at them, as she took Ma's arm and began to limp towards Ruidic.

            The sensation of connectedness and purpose was growing in her all the time, and as it built and built she began to sense where each element of Ruidic's spell was. It encompassed them all, from the city dwellers outside right up to the cold mage here, with everything they did an integral part of it.

            They walked past the spire, which she had brought down, and which now seemed as though it had been created to lie there, broken and jagged; they hobbled onwards past the blackened remains of plants and trees, and caught sight of the mage where he scanned and scanned the garden, looking for Ruidic.

            Can he sense him too? she wondered.

            And then she became aware of two more huge wells of power closing on the mage and Ruidic both, and she caught at them in her mind, trying to understand what they were.

            The Queen, she realised. The Queen is one...           

            "Ma!"  she shouted, as a raven-haired form erupted out of the greenery, "There!"

            Benjamin reacted more quickly than either of them. He sent a bolt of energy at Edin that knocked him flat.

            He landed, spitting, in the snow as Ma tried to drag Grace more quickly towards him.

            "He's there!" Edin shouted, his mouth clearing of snow, and pointed to a half-blackened tree covered in hanging curtains of blue and purple flowered vines.

            Grace felt the same peculiar slowing sensation she'd had when the mage had first attacked her. In her endless awareness of them all, she could see each and every part of this, and how all of them had their own path; their own will; their own actions, all of them coming to this single moment in this one place.

            She felt Ma, beside her, cast a spell of binding at the mage. She saw Edin follow his shout with a dazzling blast of light aimed not at Ruidic, but at her and Benjamin. She felt her own hands describe a symbol of shielding, and in desperation hoped that it would be strong enough to protect her brother. And she saw the mage's hands glow green with a devastating rush of power that he was about to hurl through the screening greenery of the tree at Ruidic.

            But there was one more player; one more character still with their role to fulfil in this single instant. The Queen emerged from invisibility directly in the path of the mage, and Grace saw the resignation on her face as she held up her hands to protect herself from his spell.

            And then everything seemed to move at once, in a dizzying rush. Edin's spell struck her shield and hissed and crackled against it, knocking her backwards, but Benjamin's hands held a shield too and Edin wasn't strong enough to hurt them both.

            The mage's spell struck the Queen just before Ma's tired spell of binding caught at him, and then fell away.

            Grace watched the Queen's lovely face crumple in pain as green fire sank into her. She doubled over, her hand out to him, but there was a fierce, fierce joy on her face too as her mouth moved to form the word, "Ruidic."

            Grace could only see the mage's back, but she knew there would be no pity on his face. She knew what would come next – that he would kill the Queen, and then move on to Ruidic.

            Grace didn't want to watch. She wanted to close her eyes and pray that the spell would be finished in time, but she couldn't seem to tear her gaze away.

            Which was why she saw Captain Roschan emerge from behind a huge chunk of crystal spire, and swing the mage's own mace at him in a back-hand swipe stronger than anything even Afi could have managed. And she watched, with a feeling of said finality, as a blast of air and power hurled the mage into the air, and then let him fall onto the jagged points of the fallen spire.

**Only 3 more chapters to go! Thank you so much to everyone who's read, supported and kept me writing. I can't tell you how much it has meant. And I hope you're all firmly Team Grafi ;)

Xx**