"The shape, and not the sense of it? It had no particular shape--no." He remembers the shape of his light with sudden clarity. "Not precisely an orb, nor a flame. It had a slight point at both top and bottom, and was wider at the center. Like a top spinning slowly over my hand."

He gathers up all that diffuse brightness, winding up the leaf-gold hay-warm light, and suddenly he realizes that it's not a top at all--it's ... "A spindle."

And with a wash of energy that feels like stained glass shattering and reforming, cool white light blazes in his palm.