The circle carved in the ice below, filled with intricate designs drawn from over a thousand years of humankind’s pursuit of the arcane, was now filled with blood. It was her blood. She lay on the frozen lake amidst those elegant lines and spidery symbols that had all failed her, unbreathing, three gashes shredding the front of her indigo-blue dress and exposing every layer of her body beneath. It had only taken an instant, but that instant had fully divulged her inner workings, and now the only evidence that she had been living were the hints of steam rising from that ruin.

To fix her would be impossible. All the magic in the world could not help. She would never breathe again.