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it was gone he would have no defenses against them. His wards would go down, and Cora and Icarus would be vulnerable.
    “Oh, no, dear mechanical man.” Victor leaned close with his mouth to Archimedes' ear. “Don't leave us yet.” He pressed his thumb into a particularly painful blistered burn on Archimedes' neck. The sizzle of electric pain made his head clear. Victor chuckled.
    “I'm not here to harm my son. When science is destroyed, and magic is all that's left, the people of London will need a wizard like my son to turn to.”
    “Science cannot be destroyed.” Archimedes felt the tunnel of darkness closing in on him again, but Kane's finger on his wound made him hiss in pain.
    “Wrong.” Kane pressed harder, grinning as Archie held back a scream. “It can, and it will. And when it's gone, we will be left to pick up the pieces.”
    Kane released him and Archimedes slumped forward, the relief as intense as the pain.
    “Dump him.”
    Baiandelio hissed. “No! He's mine!”
    Archimedes had the bleary impression that Victor was smoke on the air as he lifted Baiandelio in the air with one hand. The man flailed in Victor's grip as the stronger mage squeezed his throat.
    “He is mine!” Victor shook Baiandelio. “They are all mine! You are mine!”
    He dropped the man to a heap on the floor and turned to Gecko, who bowed low and nodded. “We'll dump him in an alley.”
    “Take care with him. I want my son to know that I still care for him. I'll return his apprentice to him as a show of good faith.” Victor narrowed his eyes at Gecko. “And return him in one piece.”
    He was gone as Archimedes struggled to hold on to his consciousness. Baiandelio gripped his hair and pulled his hair back savagely. “Our time will come, Archimedes. Be sure of it.”
    Archimedes couldn't help the smile that crawled across his lips. He was dying anyway, Victor's edict be damned.  “I hope Icarus cuts off your balls and feeds them to you.” He managed a bark of pained laughter. “And I hope you choke on them.”
    He couldn't hold back a scream as Gecko's white-hot brand hit a fresh patch of skin on his back. Baiandelio pushed him over and kicked him, kicking him harder and harder until the world finally went black.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    ***
     
    It was a rare dry night as Icarus held up the bowl. The smoke drifted left and right, writhing.
    Cora was shivering next to him, her breath fogging in the air. She gripped his arm, her eyes wide with fear and worry.
    “ Ostende mihi platearum.” he whispered to the bowl. The smoke curled around his arm and then darted away down the street.
    “It's going to take us to him?” Cora asked as they followed.
    “It will.” He reached between them and picked up her hand. Her fingers curled so trustingly around his. He found it easier to touch her, show her affection, when she was too distracted to notice. Too distracted to question it, or him. To want to talk to him about what it meant.
    The smoke took them weaving down streets and through alleys. He saw, here and there, the tell-tale signs that the High Coven's wizards were about. Their wards and the lingering smell of their magic let him know that the Grand High Master had not lied to him about his support.
    Cora was quiet, her eyes watchful as they moved through the crowds of night dwellers. London had its share; those who were more comfortable in the dark of the approaching midnight that in the light of the sun.
    Icarus rounded a corner near Henrietta Street and steadied Cora as she stumbled. He felt her fingers tighten on his when she saw the crowd before them. A group of dirty non-magics, covered in coal dust from the steam mill, were blocking the mouth of the alley.
    “Well, well. What do we have here?” The speaker was a young man, nineteen or twenty and brash in the way of the young. He swaggered up to them to bow a low, exaggerated bow. “It's our grand adept himself.”
    “What's going on here?” Icarus kept his voice