At minute forty, the fog lifted all at once, as though someone had pulled a sheet off a table.
The lake underneath it was a graveyard. Wreckage drifted everywhere—shards of hulls that were slowly dissolving back into mana, slicks of coloured mist on the water, a single Pillen pennant floating on its own. Of a hundred and twenty captains, perhaps thirty were still afloat. The board above the stands showed the top of the field:
1. IAN VISERION · 45
2. CECILIA SLATEMARK · 44
3. TALIA MOOR · 38
One point.
I stood on my deck with one escort left and blood drying on my chin, and looked at that one for a long time.
"Phase three," said Valerie. "The lake is closing."
