Sarah awoke beneath a woolen blanket with the scent of cinnamon wafting through the air. It was early morning, and a ray of sunlight was shining through the large, bay window set into the eastern wall. The hour was late enough that the shaft had begun to creep across the lace trim of her warm comforter; if she'd slept for another twenty minutes, the beam would have risen high enough to stab her directly in the eyes.

'I should have closed the curtains,' she thought idly to herself. Sarah weighed the advantages of doing so now and decided to roll over, instead. Down the hall, she could hear metal rattling around as her grandmother bustled about the kitchen. The sound reminded her of lazy Saturdays spent sleeping in this exact spot and how little she had valued them during her youth. Like most eight-year-olds, her thoughts had been focused on other obsessions - 'grander' concerns - that now seemed trite when re-examined with the weight of experience. The fact that those interests had been darker than her peers was irrelevant: they'd both been just as blind.

"I want to stay like this forever," she whined softly into her pillow. There was a world beyond the predations of the Offal Sea, and it was found in the taste of morning dew as you stretched your legs before a run. In the chilly condensation coating a cold beer while the ocean's waves lapped against a sand-covered pier. And yes, in moments like this one when all you wanted to do was go back to sleep but knew the second time you woke up, it would never be this perfect.

Above her head, a strand of mana began to twist beneath the coffered ceiling as it was colored by wonder and nostalgia. If the sentiment had been more common, Sarah might have been tempted to nurture a core of it deep within her gut. Unfortunately, feelings like these only came once a season, and sometimes less often than that. Still, she refused to let the dream go until the fragile motes had fully faded.

Ten minutes passed in lethargic contentment before the sun had risen high enough to fulfill its hateful promise. Sarah answered the assault by throwing her arm across her face. The experience wasn't the same, though. She sighed. The blonde crawled out of her toasty cocoon and ducked into the ensuite bathroom, next to her crowded bookcase.

The counter of her porcelain vanity was missing its usual toiletries. Sarah kept an electronic toothbrush upstairs, in case she wanted to spend the night; however, it was too much effort to go hunt the widget down, so she made do with her finger and a handful of water, instead. By the time she was done rinsing her mouth out, the smell of French toast had stoked her hunger enough to go beg a slice from her grandmother.

She should have spared herself the indignity; there was a plate already waiting for her while Amelia cleaned the stove. "Oh," the old woman said when she noticed her granddaughter slink in. "I was just about to fetch you. I suppose this spares me the trip."

"You made me breakfast?" Sarah hovered by the doorway, her elbow dangerously close to an egg-encrusted blender. "I'm grateful, but what's the occasion?"

Her grandmother arched an eyebrow in amused disbelief. "Mmm, I wonder. Be a dear and grab a bottle of maple syrup from the fridge."

Sarah flushed and did as she was told. A tub of butter soon joined it, in addition to a pitcher of orange juice, which had been left sitting on the shelf. She took a moment to hunt for the container it'd originally come in, but there must have been an issue with the carton because she couldn't find hide nor hair of it.

Amelia set the table while her granddaughter continued to search. "Oh, do sit down. You're worse than Maria. Always fidgeting that woman."

Sarah retreated towards her chair with a jar of jam clutched between her thumb and her fore finger. Across from her cup, close to where her grandmother normally sat, a weathered tablet was resting on an elevated stand. It looked like Amelia had been listening to the news in between minding the pan.

Sarah took a second to read the scrolling ticker while her grandmother grabbed a pair of forks. 'Eight dead following a shootout on I-93. Officers claim the situation is 'contained' while gunfire erupts at half a dozen locations.' The studio controlling the feed was having their cameraman direct his attention to an elemental in the background. Every once in a while, there'd be a puff of smoke as its billowing form was dimpled by a bullet before its flesh popped back into place. Sarah thought the cops would have had better luck if they'd beaten it with a broom. "How long has this been going on?" she asked, pointing at the monster made of ash.

Her grandmother squinted at the screen. "Two - maybe three hours?" She shook her head. "No, it must be closer to two. Penny Williams was interviewing the Board of Ed. when they found the first body." She watched one of the officers begin to wave at someone off-screen; a few seconds later a patrolman ran over with an M-32 and braced the grenade launcher against the hood of a car. The weapon began firing flashbangs to no effect.

Sarah felt vaguely ill on his behalf. The only way they'd be able to put the construct down was if they poisoned it with the right kind of mana. Normally, that'd mean launching a dozen 'Water' cores at the elemental until its structure destabilized. What were the chances of an arcane fusillade, though? Few of the first responders carried themselves like a mage.

The two watched in silence while they picked at their food. About ten minutes later, a bunch of private citizens showed up and tried to subdue the monster using thrown together spells. It didn't go very well. After one of them hit a van by mistake, the vehicle exploded in its best Michael Bay impression. The elemental drifted closer to feed off the rippling flames; the would-be adventurers got pulled away by the cops. As for the cameraman - well, he took the time to get a wide-angle shot of the two teens who'd collapsed by the pyre.

Sarah raised her cup in a half-mocking salute. "If I ever do anything that dumb, please scream at me."

Her grandmother grimaced at the blood-stained shrapnel peppering the broken asphalt. "I trust you not to be so foolish."

Sarah couldn't stop a wave of self-deprecation from twisting her lips. "I'm sure their parents said the same thing. Has the Governor released a statement, yet?"

Amelia tapped her finger against one of the pastel squares stitched into the checkered tablecloth. "Just the usual tripe about putting together a task force. Between the President's 'Department of Significant Studies' and the mayor's 'Assessment Pannel' there must be half a dozen different programs by this point. If we're lucky, one of them might even accomplish something by Christmas."

She said it with the same rising lit she employed when talking about the lottery. Like she'd already written the money off, even though she knew she could win. Sadly, framing the sentiment around a loss was probably the right way to put it. The odds of the government getting a handle on the Light were pretty low, statistically speaking. If they followed the usual bell curve, Sarah suspected it'd take them around three years to internalize the basics, then two more to clean up the stopgaps they'd used to stem the bleeding. It'd depend on how much they split their attention once the Offal Sea staked its claim.

"Do you really think they'll botch their response?" Sarah asked her.

The old woman pursed her lips. "You might be too young to remember this, but it took nearly three weeks before there was an official death toll for Hurricane Katrina. Since our current difficulties cover a much broader swathe of the country, I'm tempering my expectations."

Sarah stuck the last of her breakfast into her mouth. The taste of the pan-fried eggs mixed with the sweetened bread and almost drowned out the floral notes clinging to the tips of her tendrils. "That might be for the best. Everyone's been getting way too excited about jumping on the magical bandwagon. It's nice to see a more sober take, for once."

Amelia shuddered theatrically. "You're going to put me in the grave with talk like that; I'm only supposed to be as old as I feel." Sarah flinched at the morbid joke while the old woman missed her granddaughter's growing pallor. "Blasted thing, where's the..." She tapped a button on top of the tablet, causing the window to close with a beep. This must not have been what she was aiming for because she released a troubled sigh.

Sarah refused to read into it. Between the dry rasp and her previous complaint, the exhalation struck her as a particularly ill omen. "How serious were you last night? About me always being welcome."

Amelia glanced away from the reflective glass. "Hmm? Oh, always, dear - you know that."

"Are you sure?" Sarah pressed. "Because I was thinking it might be a good idea to stick around for a few days in case that guy comes back." 'Or in case he comes here,' Sarah fret, though Townsend seemed like a distant threat, strange as that may be to say.

Amelia narrowed her eyes, suspicious of her granddaughter's motives. "This is about Maria, isn't it? And the hospital."

"It's about a lot of things," Sarah deflected gracelessly. "Don't tell me you wouldn't enjoy the company. You're always saying that I should try to visit more."

"Yes, because you work too hard. Life should be shaped by mundane intimacies, not a catalog of grand events we've been taught by tv to treasure." Amelia's words were cutting in their sardonic intuition.

Sarah couldn't bring herself to disagree. The source of her fervor might have been kindled in a crucible of cruel neglect; however, she knew her manic obsession was liable to be a mistake all the same. Deravan; the Light - magic and the war: these weren't the things she should be focusing on when the curtain was closing on the world she had come to love. If she was stronger than her scars, she would have made an effort to cherish her blessings before they could all fade away. Alas, Sarah was a selfish bitch, and greed was in her blood; if she could have her cake and eat it too, she'd risk what she had for what she could hold and spit upon the idea that it'd all slip through her fingers. She'd already been burned once this week when Townsend had shot up her apartment; there was no way she'd let Amelia come to harm if there was any hope of preventing it.

"I really do want to stay," Sarah insisted doggedly. "This might be the last chance we have to be a family."

Amelia's hand twitched towards her hip for all that she suppressed the gesture. "Nonsense; now, we're both being melodramatic. I'm sure this kerfuffle will blow over in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can crash in your old bedroom if it really makes you feel better. None of this fearmongering, though: it's far too depressing."

Sarah released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Sure," she agreed easily. "I appreciate it."

Amelia waved her gratitude off. "It's really not a big deal."

It was. More than she knew. More than Sarah was even ready to admit. She may have followed Amanda into the Blue Hills out of a mixture of sympathy and concern; however, Sarah was prepared to sprint through the streets of Sélune if it'd disperse the coil of dread that was squirming in her chest. To that end, she excused herself from the table and quietly returned to her bedroom. She'd need the privacy if she was going to stop this from ending too tragically.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

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Sarah took a deep breath as the door closed gently behind her. The local mana level seemed to be low, but there was enough osmosis from the Light's scattered seeds to permit a faintly astringent burn. It felt like... just under one mana an hour. The specifics were hard to pin down without more specialized tools, but the flavors ran the gamut with the biggest surprise being a surfeit of the temporal elements. Most fields could barely manage a hefty two percent. The local bouquet was sitting closer to seven. When combined with a robust supply of both 'Air' and 'Earth,' it left her with a number of options, provided she was willing to juggle several cores.

A less experienced sorceress might have shrugged and tried to mash everything together into one big ball. Sarah knew that doing so was a good way to end up with an unserviceable mess and ignored the urge to cut corners. Instead, she settled down on the narrow balcony and stuck her feet through the slats in the railing. Her toes dangled over the geraniums as the mana curled between her toes.

She spent the afternoon separating the toxic stream. By the time the sun set, she had four relatively solid orbs, which she thought might be worth the trouble. The first contained a few units of 'Flower' mana while the second was comprised of 'Air.' The third, a centimeter wide ball of 'Earth,' would have been her biggest gain if the fourth hadn't contained almost two full motes of 'Time.'

It was this last prize which left Sarah uneasy. The esoteric elements were never as pure as their material counterparts, and you could make an argument that what she held was closer to an unstable mixture of 'Stasis' and 'Transmutation.' It wasn't necessarily a problem; some concepts had fuzzier borders than their peers - and you could stretch things if you knew what you were doing - but... yeah. There was a difference between theory and practice.

"Something on your mind?" Amelia asked while they played a game of Scrabble after dinner. "You've been rather quiet today."

Sarah glanced up from her wooden rack and realized she'd barely said a word since breakfast. When her grandmother raised her eyebrows in silent query, Sarah felt her face abruptly flush. She rearranged her pieces so she wouldn't have to meet Amelia's gaze. "I've... ah... just been settling in. There's this project I want to finish, and I'm worried about one of the programs I've been using to access the database back at the office. Sorry if it's made me poor company."

Amelia watched her granddaughter slap an 'E' and a 'W' down to turn 'Cash' into 'Cashew.' "When were you working on this?" she asked her. "While you were lazing around in bed?"

For once, Sarah barely had to lie. "That's the benefit of working from home. Like most people, I can do half my job from my phone."

Her grandmother snorted and added the word 'Ski' to the end of 'Jet' to steal the double letter bonus. "Sounds more like brooding to me."

"It's really not." If anything, it was the antithesis. Unlike the angsty teens, who were quietly bemoaning their fate, Sarah knew how to fix her problem. It was called the [Crumbling Wall Technique], and its premise was pretty simple. Based upon the notion that the root of a sorcerer's control was predicated on aligning a core with their body, the [Crumbling Wall Technique] externalized this process by altering the environment to resemble the flesh. Naturally, this resulted in a deceleration of the mana's attenuation; perhaps more significantly, though, it allowed for a level of 'reach' that was impossible for casual adherents. At some point, Sarah was going to resume hunting Townsend; since she wasn't comfortable leaving her grandmother undefended, measures needed to be taken.

Preferably via a core that wasn't housed so close to her heart. "By the way, do you know whatever happened to my old art supplies?"

Amelia tapped her cheek as she rearranged her tiles. "The ones from your high-school mentorship? I believe they're still in the attic."

Good, this was going to be messy, and Sarah didn't want to stain her grandmother's best glassware. In the meantime, she simply ruminated over her predicament while she finished up the match. When the scores were done being tallied, she realized she was down by forty points; she'd settled on her spell's structure, though, so she wasn't exactly heartbroken by the loss. If anything, it was a good excuse to disappear for an hour while she gathered the necessary materials.

"Let's see... it should be... over here." Sarah dragged her finger across a row of dusty boxes until she reached the back of the attic's crawlspace. Surrounded by the remnants of her forsaken adolescence, the layers of abandoned bric-a-brac created a sociological record, which stretched back at least twenty years. If she had the patience or the nerve, she could have found the stuffed animals she'd inherited from her mother within the mess. Since the parasite would prefer to give that whole nightmare a pass, she settled on an opaque, plastic bin adjacent to the main aisle.

Sarah checked the corner of the container. Right beside the lip there was a bright red slash of permanent marker. This particular color marked the box as being from the '2010' cycle of spring cleaning. Unless her supplies had been misfiled, she'd just found the cache she was looking for.

Her nails picked at the duct tape, keeping the lid affixed. When she got too frustrated to continue fiddling with the strip, Sarah groped around on the shelf behind her and grabbed a filthy box cutter, which had been forgotten atop their broken space heater. She flicked the switch in the handle. The internals may have been corroded by mildew and rust, but the blade was still sharp enough to slide through the sticky mesh.

A wave of stale paint fumes wafted from the soiled interior. Sarah assumed a bottle of acrylic had broken open when they'd originally stored the box. She lifted her phone to better illuminate the potential damage, and then breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't extend past the egg carton, she'd used to keep her colors organized.

"Scared myself for a minute there," she muttered sourly. If the polymers had spread beyond the stained pulp, this could have gotten complicated. Most of her tools were comfortably make do and could be replaced with improvised equivalents; finding a substitute for her dagger brush, though, would've been a serious pain in the ass. All in all, Sarah was happy to be spared the hassle. Extracting the more 'sanguine' reagents was already going to be an ordeal.

The gentle rattle of steel on glass followed her out of the attic. Sarah didn't want to construct her ward where Amelia could stumble over it, so she brought her supplies into the ensuite bathroom, attached to her bedroom, instead. She turned the faucet on. While the heater worked its magic on the antique water tank, Sarah retrieved a pair of mason jars from the bottom of the bin. Both were caked with flecks of hard, green paint. Since the chips would need to be removed, least they ruin the alignment of the ward, Sarah set to cleaning them with a will. Every minute or so, she utilized the short break she was afforded while the vessels filled to dig through her over-stuffed first aid kit.

The first sporadic inspection failed to produce a needle or a coil of plastic tubing. Sarah dumped the entire case onto her bed to double check, but if she'd ever procured the equipment, it'd been lost in the shuffle of life. "Son of a bitch," she cursed. She'd have to do this the hard way. Now, where the hell had she put her knife?

On the planet, Joast, the ritualists of the Sunken Home sect spent their childhood forging a proper athame. In a more modern city like Pettor, they'd use bespoke tools, designed by a master with centuries of experience. Sarah had to settle for a small scalpel, she'd soaked in rubbing alcohol. The parasite figured she'd be lucky if the wound didn't scar.

Muted beams of madder and mulberry painted the surface of her palm as she considered where to place the incision. It was getting late, and the setting sun would only provide another thirty minutes of daylight, so she shouldn't pick a finicky location. At the same time, she didn't want to miss the vein. 'Maybe the back of my forearm,' she decided. 'It'll be easier to disguise the injury if I can play it off as a scratch.'

By this point, the mason jars were nearly spotless save for a thin film of soapy water. Sarah took the time to quickly whisk the bubbles away, and then balanced the empty vessels between her thighs, near the front of the tub. The blade didn't even pinch as she slid it across her skin. It was actually harder to go through with the decision than it was to endure the results. Mostly because of her doubts. What if she pressed too hard? What if she mutilated her host while trying preserve her family? Sarah loved Amelia, and wanted her to survive, but her altruism wasn't limitless. Throwing her life away was too big of an ask. Losing the use of a limb? That was closer to the line.

Sarah hoped she wouldn't have to go that far. She even said a little prayer in case it would help. Anything to take her mind off of what she was doing to herself. To blot out the quiet 'drip - drip - drip,' she couldn't mistake for water. "I should have saved this part for the end. It's going to be a pain to gather the other catalysts using only one hand."

That was a lie: if she'd put the bleeding off, she would have invented reasons to delay. 'The timing isn't right,' or 'It'll be easier with the proper equipment.' Meanwhile, the operation would keep getting pushed back by another few days. Sarah had behaved the same way when the Light had first arrived, and she'd probably still be dithering at home if Simon hadn't forced the issue.

Sarah checked the jar. It looked like there were about eight ounces in the container. She also wasn't sure when she should stop. Did she draw a line at the half-way point? Keep filling it up to the lip? She'd need to bind her arm, so she wouldn't bleed out, but more was obviously better. The full sixteen ounces would be great. A couple liters would be ideal. Sarah needed to settle for enough. Right now, that felt like two inches below the taper; therefore, she waited until the fluid hit the neck and then carefully sealed the lid before she could continue to second guess herself.

Her head swam as technicolor spots flashed in front of her eyes. Alarmed, she pulled back towards the rear of the tub and braced herself against the textured safety mat. It took a couple of seconds for the disorientation to fully fade. When Sarah felt like she could stand up again without falling over, she relocated to the sink. Her forearm continued to dribble into the hollow of her elbow. "Right," she mumbled drunkenly as she flailed around for the dermal glue. "Where did I put the gauze?"

The answer was on her bed, along with all of her other supplies. Because of course it had to be in the most awkward place imaginable. Sarah swore. She tried not to smear blood on her wall as she shuffled across the carpet.

Once the warspawn had collapsed atop her sheets, actually treating the injury was easier than she'd feared. The wound wasn't deep enough to require stitching, and she had enough experience patching up the consequences of her various misadventures that she didn't even need to shake the rust off of her half-forgotten skills. The only difficult part was doing it all one-handed. Maybe next time, she should cut her leg, instead. Then, she could unroll the tape without having to use her teeth.

"Ugh, I'm going to be tasting the glue all night." She spat into a piece of tissue paper and lifted her arm to throw it at the trash can. She paused before the wad had left her hand. The mason jar would serve as a decent base for her ward, but she'd need a few more visceral elements if she didn't want to bias her working. To that end, saliva would be a good substitute for the traditional ampule of sweat. "Or should I use tears?" Sarah drummed her fingers against the ball. "I'm pretty sure I saw an onion in the fridge. Assuming its fresh enough to get the appropriate volume, what's left? Vaginal fluid? Peeing in a cup?" Both would be gross, but neither held a candle to the more extreme options. Technically, cerebral-spinal fluid had the best efficiency per cubic volume. She'd also never met anyone who was crazy enough to use it. All in all, it was easier to just get the wand out.

Sarah rubbed the back of her neck. She'd do the magical drug test first. If she was going to perform some sort of tantric sex ritual, she wanted to ease herself into it; otherwise, she'd cringe so hard, it'd be impossible to get off. "It's bad enough I'm sleeping in my old bed. I don't need to feel like I'm fifteen too."

Afterwards, all that would be left would be establishing the spell itself. She already knew what she wanted it to do; the only sticking point would be the targeting. The solution she'd devised was to incorporate a scent; one only another warspawn would recognize. Since Sarah was the individual setting the ward, she could simply disable the arming switch whenever she dropped by. The rest of the time? It'd linger like a dead rat, inert and out of sight. ...At least until it blew up, then it'd trap your feet in the ground and reduce the air pressure around your skull. Death should occur in about twelve seconds. If she beefed the circuits up, she could probably squash Townsend's head like a grape. It wasn't quite as immediate as she would have preferred, but that was what the temporal element was for. Those seconds could be subjective. Why worry about the delay when she could make the experience feel instantaneous? It would all be over in a flash. Like butter popping in the pan. Or her parent's Lexus crashing into a wall.

Sarah sat down on her comforter, her heart aching worse than her arm. She hated the idea of protecting her grandmother with the Light's pernicious essence. She wasn't willing to be squeamish, though, if this was what it took to keep her safe. It just sucked. Especially, since she knew how everything was expected to end.

The distant clatter of screaming children drifted through the open window. Outside, a pair of teens were arguing over who was supposed to babysit their younger brother while a car idled by the curb. A young man with orange bangs was behind the wheel. Sarah could see his hands pounding along to the faint beat blasting from his stereo system. It sounded like Magnolia Park.

For a moment, Sarah was whisked away to a time when everything was normal and the worst she had to worry about was who stole the ink from the printer. Then, her eyes picked out the burning disk the kids were bouncing off a tree, and the teen's argument began to circle around to their arcane education. She could hear the car's transmission backfire as motes of mana mixed with the fuel. Even the music wasn't real: the driver was conjuring it himself from what smelled like a screaming Stratocaster.

It wouldn't be long, now. Sarah was no seer, but she could feel the future settling in her bones. It was all going to come tumbling down.

Sarah buried her head in her hands. In between her calloused fingers, she could see a small stain on her bedspread, where a few drops of blood had dribbled down past the bleached gauze. The blemish both did and did not register in the cold September air. She summoned up the will to close the curtains. "I should pick up groceries," she reminded herself. "Amelia used the last of the milk."