Caleb watched the knife go from the dull, lifeless black-gray of cold metal to the warming orange of something forge-lit. He was not unfamiliar with the practice. His own fires were more easily controlled, more rigorously channeled. But he had seen the magics done, and Mind Blank kept him calm, for the moment.

He turned up his sleeves, revealing intricate, old scars on his forearms, the net that knives and residuum and magic had laid into him when he was younger, and he stepped toward her.

"What is your name, Fräulein?"