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was just a thick wooden door, banded with iron,
and flanked by a pair of burly Guardians who didn’t look happy to be there. I
didn’t blame them.
    Sarad
Nukpana wasn’t going to go to sleep without a fight. I thought the comparison
to an obnoxious child was oddly appropriate. I’d threaten to spank him, but
unlike a child, Sarad Nukpana would probably enjoy it. In fact, I was sure of
it.
    “Once
we’re inside, let us know if the subject begins to misbehave,” Cayle reminded
me.
    It
looked like I wasn’t the only one using a naughty schoolboy analogy.
    “Trust
me—when the Saghred misbehaves, you’ll know about it whether I tell you or not.
But I’ll be glad to mention the obvious when it happens.”
    “You
mean if it happens.”
    “Well,
we can all hope for that.”
    Mychael
had been speaking in low tones with the Guardians on duty at the door. He
crossed the corridor to where we waited. “Are we ready?”
    “To
get it over with,” I said.
    Mychael
nodded, and the Guardians posted on either side of the door unlocked,
unlatched, and opened it.
    The
stairs and the room below were brightly lit, but only for the benefit of the
Guardians on duty. Being its own self-contained little world, the Saghred made
its own interior light. The outside world was not visible from inside.
Unfortunately, I had this knowledge firsthand.
    The
room contained only the essentials—four Guardians and the object they guarded.
One look at the Saghred sitting on its pedestal told me that the stone had its
figurative eyes closed, but it was far from asleep. Unlike with a child
pretending to be asleep, Mychael, Ronan, and I weren’t just going to turn off
the bedroom lights and close the door on our way out.
    Sarad
Nukpana was nowhere to be heard. Maybe he’d rolled over and gone back to sleep.
Maybe he and his new friends were up late last night plotting world domination.
    I
didn’t like any of it, no maybe about it.
    The Saghred
sat on a small table in the center of the room, still in the translucent, white
stone casket Mychael had used to transport it to Mid. It was still translucent,
but it sure wasn’t white.
    I
couldn’t ever think of a time when a red glow was a good thing.
    The
Saghred’s glow reminded me of an angry, red eye. I half expected to hear a
warning growl to go along with it. The rock was clearly not amused, which told
me the shields might be holding. Barely.
    I had
heard about the kind of power Conclave-trained Guardians could put into their
containment spells. It was an accepted fact that if a Guardian clamped
something or someone down, it stayed put. I didn’t think the Saghred had heard
the same stories—and if Sarad Nukpana had, he was delighting in ignoring them.
    The
Saghred’s glow faded to a softly pulsing pink, and I felt the faintest tug,
like a child’s hand wrapping around my little finger, a soft insistence, a
come-watch-what-I-can-do kind of invitation. Sweet and innocent and perfectly
harmless.
    “You
can bat your eyelashes at me all day,” I told the Saghred. “I’m not buying.”
    I
could only describe what happened next as a tantrum.
    The
containment box lid sprang open and a beam of blood-red light shot out and
engulfed one of the Guardians. He screamed, and I lunged for the box. I knew it
was a bad idea. I also knew it was exactly what Sarad Nukpana wanted. But I
knew the Guardian was dead or worse if I did nothing.
    As
soon as my hand touched the open lid, I realized just how bad an idea it was.
The last voice I heard from outside the Saghred was Mychael’s shout.

Chapter 4
    My
world turned gray and silent.
    More
of a twilight fog actually, the kind you see on a waterfront pier—just before
you step off the edge. Last time I had been inside the Saghred, it had been a
gray void filled with filmy figures. This almost looked the same, but with the
notable and welcome absence of the figures. I wasn’t going to complain; some of
the figures had wanted me dead. Besides, there was no one