I did not, as it happens, understand what that meant, and judging by Alfie and Sarah’s faces, they weren’t completely clear on it themselves. None of us were thick or anything; it’s just that kids who go for valedictorian in the Scholomance aren’t on the same bell curve with the rest of us. I do strongly suspect that I know at least a dozen incantations that would disrupt established thaumaturgical channels very thoroughly, but those are the kind of spells I avoid thinking about as much as possible. “Well, it sounds bad,” I said dryly. “Could you spare a detail or two?”
“No, and I shouldn’t have to,” Liesel said. “You can feel it anywhere in the place. You can feel it there!” She pointed at the power-sharer on my wrist. The only thing I’d noticed myself was the hideously alluring promise of infinite power, but I put my fingertips on the blank face and shut my eyes, trying a small pull—I would’ve quite liked to pull a lot—and instantly I did feel it. The power was there, endless oceans, but the oceans were churning, ninety-foot swells rising and crashing down again, whirling into maelstroms.
“You see?” Liesel said as I opened my eyes again. “I have not seen myself, but the damage must be somewhere in the enclave foundations. This maleficer has found some way to damage them, so they can get at the mana store.”
Which did make perfect sense. Even the most vile maleficer in the world wouldn’t go around picking fights with an entire enclave for no reason. But if they had worked out a way to get at the mana store of an enclave—absolutely. The bigger the better.
“Most likely they are staging an attack on the foundation point—the place in the void where the enclave is established. Such an attack would resonate throughout the enclave, throw everything off at once, the people and the artifice, all the wards.” Liesel moved her hands together back and forth, like sloshing a bucket around. “And then the maleficer can strike at the mana store and steal as much as they can while the rest of the enclave is disrupted. So London did not collapse, because it is old enough and large enough that it has more than one foundation point, but it will still be months settling. And in the meantime—”
“The maw-mouth hit you,” I finished.
Sarah had managed to cool off a bit in the interval. “Three wizards have already gone in, one after another, with a circle backing them,” she said to me, more controlled. “They’re all dead. All three, and a lot of the circles, too. More than a dozen senior wizards, we think.”
“You think?”
“They’re not exactly holding normal council sessions in the middle of this!” Alfie said. “All that we know for certain is that the first three tries didn’t work, and—and there’s only time for one more attempt.” His voice wobbled around it. “Tonight. With three full circles, reinforcing each other. They’ll all draw down as much mana as they can hold beforehand to try to avoid the disruptions. But…but Liesel thinks…”
“It’s not going to work,” Liesel said brutally. “Of course it’s not going to work. Three times they’ve tried already, and each one failed in less than a day. In Shanghai, it took weeks to get at the core of the maw-mouth, and it only takes one bad moment for everything to go wrong. His shield flickers for a moment, the maw-mouth takes him, and then it will drain the circles until the others break. With three circles, he will last a little longer, but he still won’t get to the core in time.”
Alfie swallowed hard and said without looking at me, “It’s—my father is—he’ll be going in. He’s volunteered.”
“It’s a stupid waste,” Liesel said.
“But it’s all right for me, is it?” I said, sourly. I didn’t feel like being sorry for Alfie or his dad.
Liesel snorted. “You killed that maw-mouth at graduation in five minutes, with mana you were pulling from a crowd of stupid frightened children!”
“It was barely the size of a Shetland pony! Oddly I have the feeling that the maw-mouth that’s killed a dozen senior wizards in London is a tiny bit bigger.”
“So what?” Liesel said contemptuously. “Your chances are still better. You’re not going to try?”
I scowled at her with enormous violence, because of course I had to try, but my expression was obviously open to misinterpretation; Alfie leaned forward and grabbed my hand in both of his and said, in ragged desperation, “El—I don’t know what you’d want, I don’t know what I can do, what anyone could do, to pay you back, but—I’ll find a way. Anything. If the council won’t make it good somehow, I’ll do it myself. My word and my mana on it.”