They flew north in intervals. Three hours in the air, then rest while Azura recovered her strength. Hunt when needed. Sleep in scattered clearings or rocky outcroppings where they could see approaching threats.

  The second day brought them into colder territory. Snow layed on peaks ahead. The forest below thinned to scrubland.

  Clive sat at the edge of their current camp, sketchbook open, staring at a blank page. His brush was out. But he hadn't painted anything yet.

  You're troubled, Azura said from behind him. She'd finished her meal—a mountain goat this time—and watched him from her corner.

  "I'm thinking."

  About her.

  He didn't bother answering. The bond carried enough of his emotional state that denying it would be pointless.

  "She tried to kill me," he said finally. "With that lunar blade. If you guys hadn't been there..." He trailed off, then forced himself to finish the thought. "I would have let her. Wouldn't I?"

  Would you have?

  Clive looked down at his hands. "I don't know anymore. In the moment, seeing her face, hearing her voice—I froze. Part of me still..." He shook his head. "But I can't just roll over and die because she has Jill's voice. That's stupid. That's worse than stupid. That's suicidal."

  So you prepare to defend yourself.

  "I prepare to defend myself," he agreed, though he wished that he wouldn’t need to. He looked up at the sky. The sun was setting, and the moon was already visible. "Her power comes from that. The moon. Lunar magic. I need to figure out how to counter it."

  And have you?

  "Not yet. But I'm working on it."

  He turned back to his sketchbook, flipped to a page where he'd been sketching ideas. Rough diagrams.

  The first idea was simple. Moonlight was still light, which meant that it could be reflected.

  He started sketching a flat disc with a smooth surface. Added some shading to suggest reflectivity.

  [Draw: Mirror]

  The object materialized in his hand.

  He held it up to reflect the moonlight. The light went straight through the disc, passed through the other side, and scattered on the ground behind him. He could see the trees through it. The stars. His own fingers holding the edges.

  "What the hell?" He turned it over, examining both sides. "This is just glass."

  Were you expecting something else? Azura said.

  "A mirror. I drew a mirror."

  Why would mirror be made of glass? She looked at him with amusement. Glass doesn't reflect light, Clive. It lets light through. That's what makes it glass.

  He stared at the disc in his hands. She was right. Windows didn't reflect. They were transparent. Glass was see-through by definition. So why did mirrors...

  He thought about the mirrors back home. The one in his bathroom. The rearview mirror in his car. They were made of glass, weren't they?

  Mirrors are made of bronze, Clive. Have you really never seen a mirror before?

  "Bronze?" He was pretty sure mirrors weren’t made of bronze.

  Polished bronze. Copper-tin alloy, buffed until it reflects. That's how it's been done for centuries. Or silver, if you were wealthy.

  Silver… of course. Clive was starting to remember now. It was the silver coating at the back of the mirror that reflected light wasn’t it? Then what was the glass for?

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  Clive dumped the glass disc on the ground. It was time to give silver a try.

  He sketched again. This time a disc of silver.

  [Draw: Silver Mirror]

  A disc of silver materialized in his hands. He held it up, and there was his face, distorted slightly, but recognizable.

  He angled it toward the moon. The light bounced back, creating a pale spot on the ground.

  "It works," he muttered.

  I told you so.

  He set the silver mirror on the ground and examined it more carefully. The reflection stared back at him, but something was wrong. His face looked blurred, softened at the edges. Like he was seeing himself through fog.

  This worried him. If the reflection was this diffused, the mirror wasn't redirecting light efficiently. It was scattering it. And scattered light meant absorbed energy. Heat.

  "If this keeps absorbing instead of reflecting..." He touched the silver surface. Still cool, but he'd only been testing with moonlight. What happened when she threw an actual attack at it? "It might just heat up and melt."

  He examined the mirror again with his [Artist’s Eyes] and [Fine Resolution]. The enhanced perception kicked in, and suddenly he could see the problem.

  The silver wasn't smooth. Not really. What looked polished to his normal vision was actually covered in irregularities. Light hit those imperfections and bounced in random directions.

  That explained the blurring.

  He shifted his focus to the edges. There were discolorations there—patches where the silver had darkened, turned almost brown. Those areas didn't reflect at all. The light just stopped.

  He rubbed his thumb across one of the patches. The discoloration came off on his skin as a fine, dark powder.

  "Is this... tarnishing? Already?"

  All metals tarnish Clive, Azura said. Especially in open air. You'd need to polish it regularly to maintain the reflection.

  "So even if I fix the surface roughness, it'll just tarnish again in hours."

  Probably.

  "That's not going to work." He looked at the degraded mirror, mind racing. There had to be a solution. He'd owned mirrors in his apartment for years. Never needed to polish them. Never saw tarnish. They'd stayed perfectly reflective.

  Why?

  The realization came slowly. The glass. It wasn’t the mirror. It was the protection. The glass kept air away from the metal and prevented oxidation.

  He flipped to a fresh page in his sketchbook. This time he drew it as a composite structure. Started with the glass layer first. He took his time with it, using [Artist's Eyes] to ensure the surface was absolutely flat. No ripples or distortions that would bend light.

  Then he drew the silver backing. A thin coating, but this time he obsessed over the smoothness. Used careful cross-hatching to show a surface that was mirror-flat. No peaks, no valleys. Perfect uniformity.

  And finally, he drew them sealed together. The glass pressed directly against the silver.

  [Draw: Silver-Backed Mirror]

  The object formed in his hands. He held it up, and his reflection looked back at him. It was sharp, clear, and undistorted. Exactly what he needed.

  He angled it toward the moon. A bright, focused spot appeared on the ground beside him. Perfect. This could probably reflect lunar beam attacks. But what about that lunar blade of moonlight?

  It was an interesting thought experiment. A mirror could reflect laser, he was sure of that. But could a mirror reflect a lightsaber? How could he test this? He couldn’t exactly ask Jill to throw practice attacks at him.

  He needed a backup plan.

  He looked up at the moon again. If the moon was the source of her power, what if he just... removed it?

  You're going to destroy the moon? That sounds extreme. Also impossible.

  "I don't need to destroy it."

  Then what?

  "I just need to block it out."

  And how exactly do you plan to do that?

  "Same way you block anything else. I put something between it and the ground." He looked at Azura. "We need to fly. High."

  She stared at him like he was a madman, but relented, and they launched into the night sky. A thousand feet, two thousand, higher. The air grew thin and cold. Clive's breath came in visible puffs.

  The moon hung ahead of them, larger now, brighter. Still distant, but closer than it had been on the ground.

  How high do we need to go? Azura asked.

  "High enough that I can paint over it." Clive pulled out his brush, opened his palette. Black paint. He'd need a lot of it. "From the ground, the moon looks small, maybe the size of my thumb at arm's length. But if I can get between the moon and the battlefield below..."

  You create a shadow.

  "Exactly. I don't need to reach the actual moon. I just need to block the light from reaching the ground where we'll be fighting."

  They climbed higher. Three thousand feet. Four thousand. Clive's hands were going numb from the cold, but he kept his brush ready.

  When they reached five thousand feet, he called a halt.

  "Here," he said. "This should work."

  He looked down at the ground far below—a dark expanse dotted with the occasional fire or settlement. Then he looked at the moon, calculating angles. If he painted a disc of darkness here, at this altitude, how large would the shadow be on the ground?

  Large enough, he hoped.

  He steadied himself on Azura's back, raised his brush, and began to paint. He swept the brush in broad strokes, laying down black paint in a wide circle. Focused on the concept: absence of light, a barrier that swallows illumination, a shield against the moon itself.

  [Aerial Illustration: Lunar Eclipse]

  The massive disc of pure black hung in the air, devouring the moonlight trying to pass through it.

  From where Clive sat, the moon vanished completely. Hidden behind the painted darkness.

  He looked down at the ground below. A shadow had appeared, casting a circular patch of darkness moving slowly across the landscape as the moon continued its arc across the sky. It wasn’t huge, but at least it was a zone where moonlight couldn't reach.

  Sometimes survival means blocking out the very light you once lived for.

  —The Legendary Moonlight Artist