They were underwater, speeding to the bottom of a lake and Gavriel Sterling wanted that thing gone.
Every instinct he had screamed to burn it out. His magic agreed.
His green coiled around the parasite, or suppressor, or whatever it was, and pulled hard, the way you pull a weed from wet soil, and for half a second he felt it give, felt the smothering thing loosen its grip on her magic, felt her pink flare brighter in response like a fire finding oxygen.
Then he felt the roots.
Deep. Tangled into things he couldn't see, threaded through pathways he didn't understand, connected to systems he had no map for. This wasn't a weed. This was infrastructure, and he'd almost yanked it out of the ground without knowing what it was holding up.
Rationality kicked in like a boot to the chest.
