In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

expanded around the four girls creating a softly glowing rainbow in the room. Overhead, the Ley Lines flashed the same colors before fading.

"Wow!" Selene exclaimed. "Did you feel that? What was it?"

"It was the Ley Lines above Ironlyn responding to our touch," Rebecca said.

"I felt something too," Lela said, in wonder. "Was that how touching the Ley Lines feels? I never had it happen before."

Catrin grinned. "One more step; we need to finish wrapping wires around the stones, and claim them by wearing them. Once we've done that we can work on the ones we will be making for the others. I have some leather strings we can use to hang our protective stones on for now. We can replace the string with a pretty necklace chain later."

"Are we going to test these?" Rebecca asked, once they were all wearing the amulets.

"Well, I'd like to," Catrin said. "Rebecca, can you generate a small, tiny fireball and lob it at me? If it returns three times as powerful, I don't want to burn down the lab."

"Smaller ones are harder to generate," Rebecca told her. "Let me see, how does this one look?" She held up a finger, a ball of fire about the size of her thumbnail dancing at the end.

"Won't know until we try," Catrin said. "Selene, you and Lela get over there out of the way. Okay, Sis, let me have it."

Rebecca flicked her tiny fireball at Catrin. When it got about a foot away from her, the ball of fire splatted, dividing into nine minuscule fireballs that zoomed back at Rebecca who caught them in her hand, reabsorbing them.

"Well?" Catrin asked. "Were they as powerful as the one you tossed at me?"

Her sister nodded. "Yes, they were. Each of them. I don't think we need to do more testing. Let's go ahead and make the others."

Catrin turned over a page in the book. "This one is supposed to be almost the same, but instead of thinking about ourselves, we need to concentrate on the person we are making it for. The protection spell isn't supposed to become active until the one its meant for touches the stone. Everybody ready? Pick up your next stone and we'll get started."

"Draya Catrin?" Lela asked timidly, "Could I make one for my mother?"

Catrin handed her the bowl. "You remember what I told my sisters about picking out a stone for someone else?"

Lela nodded and shut her eyes to concentrate better as she fingered the stones. Finally, she drew out a yellow crystal. "This feels like my mother," she said shyly.

"This time when you visualize a warm light around your stone expanding, think hard about the person you are making this for.

Outside in the stables, Andre, who was brushing Blackfeather's coat to rid it of the dried mud stuck to it, recoiled, when a dark aura appeared around his hand holding the curry comb, spread over his body before rapidly fading away.

He dropped the brush and jumped back from Blackfeather looking in bewilderment at his hands. "What the Hell was that?" he demanded.

His eyes as big as saucers, the groom who had been brushing Lewys' stallion, pointed at Andre. "Drake, you glowed with shadow and then it faded. What was it?"

"Drake, the lines—" another of the grooms ran inside and blurted out. "Look!"

Andre stepped outside, looking up. Sure enough they were glowing brightly overhead as they had done during the battle when Rebecca tapped into their power.

"It's nothing to worry about," he reassured the man. "I think Draconi Rebecca is just fiddling with the Wards." Andre went back inside and returned Blackfeather to his stall, before he headed down to the infirmary.

"What did you just do?" he demanded, when he arrived. "Do you know those lines above the Keep just glowed different colors?"

"We're making protection amulets," Rebecca told him, cutting the tie on the leather string holding the stone she had made for him. "I'm glad you came here, now we can all see what it looks like when the spell is activated."

"You couldn't have warned me about my body being coated in shadows? One of the grooms nearly fainted."

"Is that what happened? I wonder if it happened to Owen and Grandpa as well?" Catrin said.

"Well, when we made ours, we couldn't exactly see what it looked like because we were inside it," Rebecca explained. "Come here so I can put this on you; the protection spell is supposed to activate when you accept it."

He frowned at her. "Activate? What does that mean? Am I going to turn purple or something?"

"It doesn't hurt," Selene told him. "It's for protection against a spell being cast on you. It sends the attack back to the attacker. You should have seen it when Rebecca threw a tiny fireball at Catrin to test it—the ball split into nine balls just as powerful!"

"Will it work on me since I'm not Magi?"

"It should," Rebecca told him. "the power is in the protection spell, not the wearer. Don't you trust me?"

"You've already got me wearing this," he complained, pulling out the Defender's disc from inside his shirt. "Too many chains might get in my way in a fight."

"I think I can attach this to the same chain," Rebecca said. "Sit down so I can reach it better. Selene, hand me another wire, please?"

As soon as she finished fastening the dark crystal to the Medallion, there was another flash of light which disappeared just as quickly. Andre touched the stone gingerly. "I don't feel any different," he said.

"Well, you two lit up this place," Catrin said, blinking. "Who would have thought a shadow could be so bright?"

"Catrin, Let's go and find Grandpa, so I can give him his," Selene said impatiently.

Laughing, she and Catrin went to look for Lewys.

As it turned out, the protection spell worked even better than the girls had hoped.

The Gate fascinated Selene, and she had developed the habit of visiting it so she could copy a different rune each time. She would take the new rune back