Richard's heart hammered as he made his way around the table, swiftly tracing lines through the spell. He used a finger, keeping it just clear of the lines of light, to track the primary pathways, the sweeps of the pattern, the fabric of the form.

He found what he was expecting. "Here. Look here, at this newly formed structure that has built up around these older, original lines. Look at the disordered nature of this new cluster; they're a variable, but in this emblem of lines it should all be a constant."

"Variable…?" Zedd sputtered, as if having thought he was following Richard's reasoning, had instead suddenly found that he was completely lost.

"Yes," Richard said. "It's not emblematic. It's a biological form. The two are clearly different."

Nathan wiped both hands back over his white hair as he sighed but remained silent.

Ann's face had gone crimson. "It's a spell-form! It's inert! It can't be biological!"

"That's the problem," Richard said, answering her point rather than her anger. "You can't have these kind of variables tainting what's supposed to be a constant. It would be like a math equation in which any of the numbers could spontaneously change their value. Such a thing would render math invalid and unworkable. Algebraic symbols can vary — but even then they are specific relational variables. The numbers, though, are constants. Same with this structure; emblems have to be constructed of inert constants — you might say like simple addition or subtraction. An internal variable corrupts the constant of an emblematic form."

"I don't follow," Zedd admitted.

Richard gestured to the table. "You drew the Grace in blood. The Grace is a constant. The blood is biological. Why did you do it that way?"

"To make it work," Ann snapped. "We had to do it that way in order to initiate an interior perspective of the verification web. That's the way it's done. That's the method."

Richard held up a finger. "Exactly. You deliberately introduced a controlled biological variable — blood — into what is a constant — a Grace. Keep in mind though, that it remains outside the spell-form itself; it's merely an empowering agent, a catalyst. I think it must be that such a variable in the Grace allows the spell you initiated to run its course without being influenced by a constant — the Grace. Do you see? It gives the verification web not only the power invoked by the Grace, but the freedom gained through the biological variable to allow it to grow as it needs to in order to reveal its true nature and intent."

When Zedd glanced her way, Cara said, "Don't look at me. Whenever he starts in like this I just nod and smile and wait until the trouble starts."

Zedd made a sour face. One hand on a hip, he took a few paces away before turning back. "I've never in all my years heard such an explanation of a verification web. It's quite a unique way of looking at it. The most troubling thing is that, in a perverse way, it actually makes sense. I'm not saying that I think you're right, Richard, but it certainly is a disturbing notion."

"If you're right," Nathan said, "it would mean that we've been children playing with fire all these years."

"That's if he's right," Ann added under her breath. "Sounds a tick too clever to me."

Richard stared up at the woman frozen in space, the woman who could not at the moment speak for herself. "Whose blood did you use to draw the Grace?" he asked the others behind him.

"Nicci's," Nathan said. "She suggested it herself. She said it was the proper method and the only way to make it work."

Richard turned to them. "Nicci's. You used Nicci's blood?"

Zedd nodded. "That's right."

"You created a variable… with her blood… and you put her inside of it?"

"Besides being what Nicci told us had to be done," Ann said, "we have a lot of research and reason to have confidence that this is the proper method of initiating an interior perspective."

"I'm sure you're right — under normal circumstances. Since you all know the proper method for doing such things, then that can only mean that the corruption is far different than any ordinary problem that could be anticipated to arise in the verification process." Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "It would have to be something… I don't know. Something unimaginable."

Zedd shrugged. "You really believe that having Nicci in there when she was the source of the blood to power the web could mean something troublesome, Richard?"

Richard pinched his lower lip as he paced. "Maybe not if the originating spell-form you were verifying were pure. But this one isn't. It's contaminated by another biological variable. I think that providing the source of the control variable — Nicci — might allow the contamination all the latitude it needs."

"Meaning?" Nathan asked.

Richard gestured as he paced. "Meaning that it's like throwing oil on a fire."

"I think the storm is letting our imaginations get carried away," Ann said.

"What biological variable could possibly contaminate a verification web?" Nathan asked.

Richard turned back and stared at the lines, following them around to that terrible arc that ended when it should be supported. He glanced across the empty space to the waiting intersection.

"I don't know," he finally admitted.

Zedd stepped closer. "Richard, your ideas are original, and they are certainly thought-provoking, I'll grant you that. And it could be that they may provide us useful insights to help us understand more than we otherwise might have. But not everything you say is correct. Some of it is simply wrong."

Richard glanced back over his shoulder. "Really? Like what?"

Zedd shrugged. "Well, for one thing, biological forms can be emblematic as well. Is not an oak leaf biological? Don't you recognize that emblematic form? Isn't a snake something that can be expressed with an emblem? Isn't a whole entity, say a tree or a man, able to be represented emblematically?"

Richard blinked. "You're right. I never thought of it that way, but you're right."

He turned back to the spell-form, viewing the area of biological contamination with new eyes. He scanned the confusing mass, trying to make sense of it, trying to discern a pattern. Try as he might, though, it seemed useless. There was no pattern.

But why not? If its delineation was biological in origin, as he knew it was, then, according to Zedd, there should be some kind of source pattern expressed within that depiction. But there was none. It was nothing more than a confusing mass all tangled up in a nest of meaningless lines.

And then he realized that he thought he recognized a small portion within that mass. It looked… somehow liquid. But that made no sense, because he saw another part that looked almost the opposite. That other fragment looked more like an emblematic representation of fire.

Unless there was more than one element to it. A tree could have an oak leaf emblem, an acorn, or the form that represented the whole tree. And what was to say that it couldn't be three different things all contaminating the spell-form together.

Three things.

He saw them, then — each of those three elements.

Water. Fire. Air.

They were all there, all tangled together.

"Dear spirits," Richard whispered, his eyes going wide.

He straightened. Goose bumps tingled up his arms. "Get her out of there."

"Richard," Nathan said, "she's perfectly — "

"Get her out of there! Get her out now!"

"Richard — " Ann started.

"I told you — the spell-form has a flaw!"

"Well that's what we're trying to find out, now, isn't it?" Ann said with exaggerated patience.

"You don't understand." Richard gestured toward the wall of softly glowing lines. "This isn't the kind of flaw that anyone would be looking for. This one will kill her. The spell is no longer inert — it's mutating. It's becoming viable."