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“She’s a precisian. What do you think it means?”
    “Trapped in amber,” Maledysaunte said. “Sealed away forevermore.”
    “Well,” said Riordan dryly, “she wouldn’t want to kill her daughter if she could avoid it.”
    The guardian, Bijou noticed, was not within their impromptu prison. Maledysaunte must have noticed too, because she cursed tiredly.
    The remaining six fell in back-to-back, a defensive ring. Bijou’s breath misted before her. “Cold,” she said.
    “The stasis bubble increases the effects of order,” Salamander said. “Heat is entropy.”
    “She’ll freeze us?” the prince asked.
    “Only in time,” Salamander said, avoiding glancing at Maledysaunte. “Long enough to finish her spellcasting.”
    “Right,” said Prince Salih. “After all, ‘she wouldn’t want to kill her daughter.’”

Six
     

After several minutes, Bijou realized that—slowly, inexorably—the bubble of light was creeping in on them. She watched its curtain contract at about the rate of movement of the dawn’s light crawling down a mountain. She couldn’t hear the echoing trickle of water any more: all the sounds of the cavern were gone.
    Ambrosias rattled at Bijou’s ankles. Salamander tucked her small orange associate into her bosom for safe keeping.
    “I know,” she said. He reared up beside her, his ferret-skull head at the level of her shoulder. She thought if he could have, he would have hissed.
    The cold raised the fine hairs on her arms, the nape of her neck. Her teeth ground together. Ice from the moist cave air rimed the rock and mud beneath her feet. When she shifted her weight, she heard ice cracking. Beside her, she could feel Salamander shaking. Only the bard seemed undiscomfited by the cold, and he had an excuse.
    “Oh,” said Maledysaunte from Bijou’s back, “I think not.”
    She didn’t speak those terrible words aloud again, for which Bijou was thankful. But Bijou turned anyway, feeling the presence of the Book within Maledysaunte as she raised up its aspect, and blistering heat rolled forth from her skin. Beside her, Prince Salih raised a sleeve to ward the side of his face. Bijou imagined she could smell his beard scorching. Riordan, on her other hand, seemed as unaffected by heat as cold.
    The terrible heat baked Bijou’s shoulder and the side of her face before she turned back, shielding her eyes. It was a destroying power, wild and terrible. Bijou felt it wrestling with the preserving chill of the amber light, leaving the rest of them a barely-habitable zone in the middle.
    “Can’t you mitigate that?” Kaulas asked.
    “Sorry,” said Maledysaunte, with no evidence of strain in her voice. “The Book was not written to preserve life.”
    The circle broke and reformed with Maledysaunte at the center, the rest ringing her within the band of light. Bijou squinted at the floor for several moments. Yes, the slow crawl of light had been arrested.
    “Well,” Bijou said. “That’s doom staved off for a little while, at least. Now let’s figure out how to break out of here.”
    “Punch through?” Prince Salih asked.
    “What have you got?” said Salamander.
    “Sword.” Bijou heard the rustle of cloth as he shrugged. “Poignard. Bullets.”
    “No firing a gun inside the bubble,” Riordan answered. “Did you bounce off that thing?”
    “Ricochets,” Prince Salih agreed. “You know, I’m not the one with the magic.”
    “No,” said Maledysaunte. “Kaulas, I’m kind of busy. Do you think you can find a loose end in that and un-weave it?”
    “Fight order with chaos?” he said.
    Her voice still showed no signs of strain. “Since we don’t have a precisian of our own, fire with fire isn’t exactly an option…”
    “So we’re all agreed that hitting it with swords won’t work?” Riordan said. Maledysaunte’s voice might show no strain, but that of the undead bard certainly did.
    Bijou wondered what it was like, to be dead and still know fear. Could he feel