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says Steele. ‘They’re all dead now.’
    I try not to think about it, but he’s only following his orders, the same as I am. We have to do anything and everything possible to protect the Lightstone. The flaming car recedes into the distance until it’s only an orange glow on the edge of sight.
    ‘Any more?’ he asks me.
    I scan the road in all directions. It’s late enough now that the motorway is almost empty.
    ‘I can’t see anything...’ I say. ‘No, wait!’
    How many cars has the Northern Prince sent after us? This one is hiding in a lay-by, waiting for us to pass. There’s nothing much else we can do, so we pass it, Steele shooting spells at it as we go by.
    ‘Damn!’ Steele says.
    I see his spell fizzle out on the air, feet away from the other car. That fireball must have taken it out of him. I wonder about saying he should have saved his energy and used something less impressive, but it’s too late for bickering now, so I stay silent.
    The other car is freshly charged with speed spells, and ours are beginning to slip under the pressure we’ve put on them. They’re gaining on us. Steele does his best but his powers are depleted for now.
    ‘Do you know any spells?’ I ask Tarian.
    ‘Not a single one,’ he says over his shoulder. ‘Finding’s all I’ve ever been good for. I’ll keep driving, though.’
    It seems ridiculous now that I never learned a single defensive spell - but then I never needed one. I was always under the Prince’s protection, always surrounded by guards. Apart from my innate power to see the future, I only know a handful of basic spells. I run through them in my head anyway in case there’s anything that could be useful - alarm clock spell, summoning spell, music spell, illumination spell...
    Illumination spell. It’s not much but I was always pretty good at it, although I haven’t bothered in years. I boost myself up to join Steele hanging out of the roof of the jeep.
    ‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
    ‘Helping,’ I say. ‘I hope.’
    I take a second to remember the incantation and then start muttering it under my breath.
    ‘Not a bad idea, Oracle,’ says Steele, catching on.
    I feel the power build inside me as I say the last phrase, the one that seals the incantation and begins the spell. I aim it squarely at the other car and close my eyes at the last moment. I still see the flash through my eyelids. When I open my eyes, the other car is swerving, the driver temporarily blinded.
    ‘Yes!’ says Steele, turning to grin at me triumphantly for a fraction of a second before he remembers himself and glares at me again to compensate.
    I try not to smirk and don’t quite succeed.
    We put a bit of distance between us and the other car, but soon they’ve caught up again. Something dark red and twinkling leaves that car and hovers near ours, then sticks itself to one of the doors.
    Steele swears. ‘Tracker,’ he says. ‘I know the spell to remove it but I can’t do it right now. We need to abandon the car.’
    ‘We’ll have no chance on foot!’ I protest.
    ‘No chance with a tracker, either!’ he says. ‘Look... can you prepare another illumination spell, but keep it until I say? I have an idea...’
    I shrug. Nothing to lose by trying. I start the incantation again, leaving Steele to do whatever it is he’s doing. I hear him clattering and banging, talking under his breath to Tarian and then saying an incantation, but I don’t dare take my eyes off the other car to see what he’s doing.
    ‘Oracle, now!’ he yells.
    I let off the illumination spell like last time, and before I know what’s happening Steele is pulling me out of the sunroof and we’re jumping away from the still-moving car. I brace myself for a crushing impact and it comes - I thud to the ground so hard that it shakes my bones. But it’s not as bad as I thought it would be - Steele must have cast some sort of protective spell. I roll to a stop by a line of bushes and his arms are