The Counselor's birds circled lower overhead as if to see what would happen to us, and I genuinely wanted to know that, too. They flew together in a perfect V formation, then dove for a landing a safe distance away from the plummeting liquid fire. The air blurred around them until they morphed into the Counselor of Death standing across the blood pool from us.

Lava fell faster and faster, but Gretchen never wavered. She kept pointing. Something was happening to her other hand ...