Alec watched as the sword spun and vanished. He swore a wolfish swear and turned to run.

The air erupted.

Five swords, laid point to point in a star. Five swords at each point of the star. Five swords at the inner vertices of the pentagon within the pentagram. Alec looked over his shoulder and saw five swords, twenty-five, six hundred and twenty-five, a mere five; they were bigger than the whole world and smaller than atoms, and Alec fell to his forelegs and vomited from nausea just to have glanced at the infinitely infinitesimal prison of swords. He heard Simon’s voice rise in an inarticulate scream that contained words like a coded message buried in white noise and thought his bones were splitting lengthwise.

A single miniature sword fell through the worlds and was gone; a demon fell with it.

The first thing Alec heard when he returned to consciousness – had he fallen unconscious? – was Simon saying, hoarsely, “I hope he didn’t want that back.â€?