“I thought we discussed this.” Rossi’s voice couldn’t be dryer, almost dripping with disapproval. Celine ignored him, continuing to painstakingly scrape the rune into the bank of the river with the sharp edge of a shovel, sweat dripping down her back. It was almost done. Hours of backbreaking tedium in the sun, the reek of something rotting nearby in her nose, her muscles shaking with exertion and hands cramping and slippery, blisters stinging, struggling to move the tool through the gluggy mud. All to make this wide rune, about an arm’s-length across, one she wasn’t even sure would work.
Almost done.
Well, theoretically. In practise, it was a goddamn f*****g mess of soil and rocks and grass roots, and her epigraphy teacher would have shot her if he’d seen it.
“Ryder.” His voice again,
