( Daphne Spinster's POV )
Brightvale came along the bank at a run.
Thirty-six of them.
Greywall had thirty-six.
That was the last time all day the numbers were even.
A blue Wellspring is not taken by touching it.
You put a hand on it and you hold, and the mana has to run for a count of thirty without breaking.
Thirty seconds is a long time when somebody wants to stop you.
We had two.
Locked.
Nobody can take a claimed one back.
There were three more on that bank, unclaimed, and everybody in the basin knew it.
Nadia formed the line where page two said to form it.
Barrier people forward, water people behind them, the two who exaggerate at the back where it does not matter.
It was a good line.
Marta did not hit it.
She split.
Two thirds of Brightvale came at the near Wellsprings, loud, slow, making a great deal of noise about it. The other third went wide. Downstream. Running hard along the water for the third Wellspring, four hundred paces off.
