The Quilt is a shield that protects an area. The technique was first used in The Desolations of Devil's Acre, to protect Devil's Acre from Caul.
Description[]
The Quilt is a shielding web that is woven around the loop.
During its creation, green light draws itself across the sky like a shimmering blanket, and as it spreads, veins of electric white light crackle through it. It casts a subtle green glow over everything. The ymbrynes then make a green net under, almost too bright to look at, creating a semi-translucent wall.
Technique[]
Prior to The Desolations of Devil's Acre, the Quilt had been untested on wide areas. It normally takes twelve ymbrynes to create.
The ymbrynes sing in Old Peculiar while walking in a circle with hands linked. Gradually, their song gets louder and they spin faster, creating a green light in the center of their circle. The light brightens and expands upward. The ymbrynes' song crescendoes in a high, wavering note that holds, before they change into their bird forms. They keep their circle, but making its diameter grow and with it the green light, pulling it like taffy. After, they fly into the sky and away, with the light following them. The light comes back, covering the sky, before the ymbrynes also fly back in a tight cluster, pulling a net of green behind them that also covers the sky.
After the Quilt's creation, all twelve ymbrynes must stay in the loop, or the protection will waver. If one dies, the shield will fall.
Eleven ymbrynes were able to create a miniature Quilt around Bentham's house, as there were certain enhancing elements in the Panloopticon that compensated for the lack of the twelfth ymbryne. However, they could not afford to even sleep in order to keep the shield up.