Charlotte stared at the empty air where the rebuilt Nine Circles had glowed. Her face was still pale and her hands still weren't steady. A nine-circle Archmage and Master of the Tower, she understood better than anyone alive what had just happened. I hadn't handed her a few new spells. I'd handed her the plans for a new engine and made a thousand years of settled theory obsolete in the process.
She let out a long, shaky breath. "Arthur," she said, and her voice cracked. "I'm going to need time with this. The Tower… this rewrites everything. It'll take years to codify properly. Years to teach."
"I know," I said gently. "But it's a start. Something for the mages after us to build on. A fighting chance against what's coming."
