text: The next thing to do was the hardest thing I have done this whole mating flight. The last sixty years, even. I wrapped my vô around the painspell and crushed the life out of it, as if it was a baby goat in my paw. Well, breaking the spell was easy. Persuading myself to do it was hard.
  
  And the dull blank prison of unfeelingness was back on me again.
  
  "Did it work?" asked Tarcuna.
  
  "Yes. No pain spell anymore. No vow anymore. And no alarms either. I don't think Xolgrohim can tell when his spells are broken." I wrote to her. That was my real trick. "Now, tell me about how you planned to get us out of here?"