"I'm ready when you are" Briar called to Tris. She just nodded, defiance in her eyes, showing him that she wanted to do this, but clearly not with him. "Tris...you're going to have to open up your mind to me" he coaxed her. "Or at least send me a thread of your magic." She did the latter. Briar attached his mind to the little part of hers, so he could find the path to the halo, and then took in her lightning bolt of magic.

They were in the same room, with all the other dedicates in there, quietly watching, bodies tense, and breath's held. Briar didn't have time to look around at them, he was concentrating, concentrating on finding the path from Tris's body to the halo. But without her cooperation, and stregnth, he knew it was near impossible. He hated doing this, but he had to, it ruined his pride. "Sandry? Daja?" he called, while trying to hang on to the last piece of Tris's magic that was streched out to him. "Yes?" They both responded.

"I need he-" but before he knew it, he felt his and Tris's minds meld, and their magic's come closer and closer together.

Back in the real world, Sandry held a piece of string around a lap-loom, and she was furiously weaving. Weaving Briar and Tris together, one of the hardest things she had to do, not only physically and magically, but also mentally. She was bringing them closer.

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Briar, now feeling like he was in two bodies at once, and with re-newed energy from Sandry, Daja, and some from the closer Tris, began his way through Tris's magic. Traces of a deep green spotted it, and like a branch, ended in her heart, the source of life. Briar knew no other way to describe it but "evil" seeming, and stronger than anything he had ever seen before. Slowly, using energy, in magic form, he worked away the dotted traces in Tris's, his, Sandry's and Daja's magic, putting them into the large branch in the center, for there was no other place. When that was done, he murmured a protection spell around it, so that if things did go wrong, it wouldn't explode all over the place, killing EVERYONE in the room, after it was detached from Tris. And then he started the hardest part.

With magic, vine-like tendrils, he fought the part of the halo attached to Tris. The hardest part was tearing it away, without tearing parts of Tris away. It almost happened too many times, he had heard Tris sob, and then felt them meld together again as Sandry weaved fiercer, and harder than ever. It was one of the most horrifying experiences in his life. He didn't know what he was going to do if he was responsible for the death of all his closest friends.

But finally, after 2 excruciating hours, he had it free, free from Tris, but wild, the magic was about to explode, and it needed to be deposited somewhere. Tris was as worn out as him, because the magic had taken some of her life-force with her, Briar almost panicked. He had to store the magic somewhere, it was getting reckless, and wild, and Niko had said it was more dangerous this way.

"Put it back into me, except not the same way, I can take it with me..." he heard in his mind.

"Tris, no!" he said, after recognizing the voice.

"Briar...I would die for y-these people, don't do this to yourself, you've done enough, now let this evil go." she told him.

But because Briar was still connected to her mind, he knew what she really meant, and it made him lose some control over the magic.

'I would die for you Briar, I would take in all the evil energy, just so you can be happy' her mind was thinking.

She knew he knew, so he replied, "But I won't be happy if you die Tris..." But there was no more time for talk, he was losing his grip on the magic.

"Quick-" She said, stregnth seeming to go back in her, once she noticed that they only had a few minutes, if not seconds until all hell broke loose. She lay out a pattern, "Just follow it." Tris ordered.

Briar took the magic, and let it flow, in and out, lightning bolts and vines guiding it through out, until it came to the end, where Tris helped him seal the weaving.

"What now?" He asked,

"Back to the Hub" she replied. "We need to deposit it back into the hub."

"Are you joking?! You might as well say that you want to stab everyone in here, as well as all of Emelan!" Briar retorted.

"Then I guess you were too caught up in the directing of the magic to see what the pattern was for. It's a transforming pattern, it changes the type of magic to what it originally was, or what it's locked to. All this magic was once from the hub, we just changed it back."

Slowly, putting one of her magical hands on his, Tris guided Briar's shocked body, to the Hub, where slowly, and with precision, he took all the the once bad, and now transformed magic, and poured it back into the hub. After that he had time to be amazed. The transformation spell was one of the hardes he'd ever heard of, let alone dream about doing. He looked over at Tris, now back in their real bodies.

"We actually did that?" He murmured.

She just nodded, staring longingly into his eyes, while all the dedicates and mages swarmed around them, and even while Sandry took Briar up into her arms, embracing and kissing him.

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TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: I know, it may seem to be over, but it's not yet! stay tuned...