Page 28

A mbrose took a moment to comprehend what Emery meant.

The rats weren’t rats.

Craig Kendrick turned up dead with a stab wound as if from a massive dagger.

A massive dagger, or else he had been transfigured very small at the time of the killing blow.

“They’re human?” Ambrose asked.

Emery nodded.

“All of them?”

“He never said. But I think so.”

“Where does he get his victims from? Surely a slew of deaths and disappearances from the same area draws notice.”

“I think Craig Kendrick was an anomaly. I can’t be certain, but I think Morcant tried to recruit him, but he got wise to what Morcant was up to and became a loose end.

The others? I have no idea. I think … I think he tries to find the sort of people few will report missing. ” He swallowed. “Could have been me.”

Ambrose had never ventured to ask after Emery’s family. By now, it seemed clear he didn’t have any. He waited for Emery to say more, and when he didn’t, decided to leave it for now. He didn’t like to pry, or to be the one pried open.

“Did you know?”

“At the time? Of course not. I thought it was a rat. I didn’t want to kill an animal, either.”

Ambrose paused, a recollection floating to the surface in his mind. “All the ghosts of rats in the castle, you said they were new.”

Emery’s mouth twisted ruefully. “Call it a desperate act of a guilty conscience. I tried to bring the rat back. Didn’t realize the grounds were beset by a plague, once upon a time. Perhaps I … overdid the spell.”

Ambrose tilted his head, trying to envision that youthful version of Emery. The one so aggrieved by the death of a supposed rat, he raised an entire castle of rats from the dead. The image was so at odds with the Emery of today, who’d tithed his familiar and tried to murder his mentor.

But then, Ambrose didn’t recognize the man he’d become when compared to the idealistic boy he’d once been, either.

“Why did you?”

“He was still putting on his kindly mentor face at the time. Told me, so long as I was quick, it would be painless.”

The witch king had said the same of Emery.

We are not the same.

Emery continued, “Afterwards, when no one else was around? That was the first time he dropped the act. Told me it hurt him to see me upset, and it was unfair to care more about the rat’s pain than his.

” Emery screwed up his face. “The mental gymnastics were spectacular, but I couldn’t see what was happening while in the middle of it.

When someone’s only ever been kind, the first time they’re not, you still think the kind version is the true one. I trusted him, so …” A helpless shrug.

Ambrose shifted uncomfortably. His mind jumped to the witch king gifting him a filly. “When did you find out the rat was a boy?”

“There was a professor who tried to help me. Do you remember? After getting him fired and destroying my reputation, Morcant told me the truth. If I tried to bring anyone else into our business, he still had the murder weapon. All the evidence he’d need to have me put away.”

“He might have revealed as much to all his students tonight if you’d successfully raised Craig’s spirit,” Ambrose murmured. “Did nobody investigate or think to ask the ghost who killed him?”

Emery shook his head and launched into an explanation.

Most spirits hardly remembered anything about their lives or how they died.

Certain objects of significance or music could trigger a memory, but they seldom remembered everything .

Poltergeists were slightly different, anchored to the world of the living and retaining their original personalities, but most spirits were like the threads from an unwoven tapestry.

They could be rewoven, but rarely. The threads retained echoes of emotions they experienced in life, hence why some were more reactive and aggressive while others were peaceful.

Ambrose understood, but it still raised certain questions. “I see why the ghost might not threaten his secrets, but you can. You’ve involved me. That’s proof enough the secrecy pact is fallible. So, if Morcant can have you imprisoned for murder, why risk your continued interference?”

“I didn’t know.” Emery pressed his knuckles to a rising headache. “Not until tonight.”

Ambrose waited.

“What does he have to fear from me?” Emery asked. “He’s immortal.”

Ambrose knew all too well how fallible immortality could be. Morcant’s overconfidence could prove an advantage to them. “He isn’t invulnerable. Whatever spell he’s used, it can be undone. We just need to determine how he’s achieved immortality in the first place.”

“I don’t know where to start. I don’t even know whether I have any right to ask for your help.

” Emery wet his lips and looked away, some of his hair falling into his eyes.

“It’s hard to trust someone who’s done the things you have, but I started thinking last night that I …

haven’t been the most trustworthy, either.

Or kind.” His expression crumpled, as if pained. “But you’re the only hope I have.”

Ambrose had been associated with many things in his time. Power, justice, and retribution, he’d thought. Fear, doom, and carnage, according to history. A living nightmare.

Never hope.

Katzica, lying on the rug by the fire, lifted her head from her paws and whined.

Emery groaned and rubbed his head. “I really don’t feel well. I’m freezing. Are you?”

“The evening’s exhausted you. You should rest. I’ll start a fire.”

As he piled two logs on and lit a wax ball of kindling beneath them, Emery’s labored breaths filled the quiet room. He didn’t sound well at all.

“Should I bring my blankets in here?” Ambrose asked.

“What?”

“I’ll sleep in the armchair, if you don’t wish to be alone.” Never mind that Ambrose had no intention of letting him sleep on his own when his breathing sounded like that.

“Don’t be daft. We have beds.”

Ambrose wouldn’t risk separate rooms in case Emery’s health worsened, and they certainly couldn’t share a bed. “I am used to the floor.”

Emery had started to move. Or tried to. He got to his feet and swayed.

“Wait. I can’t feel—”

His knees crumpled beneath him. Ambrose narrowly caught him to soften the fall, but something was wrong.

Panic laced Emery’s voice. “I can’t move my legs.”

“What?”

“I can’t stand.”

Ambrose swore. His eyes darted to the bandage on Emery’s arm. Had the knife been dipped in a slow-acting paralysis agent?

Katzica stood and let out a low growl, padding toward the door. Outside, footsteps approached.

“The wards.” Emery’s voice was hoarse. “Oh hell, the wards.”

“What?”

“They have my blood.” Emery looked at his bandaged arm. “They have my blood, they can get through.”

Emery’s hand had no strength or control to grip Ambrose’s as he tried to get to his feet.

“I’ll carry you.”

“Too late for that. They’ll know you’re here. You have to hide. You have to sneak up on them.”

“What about you?”

Katzica growled more viciously as the steps got closer and the door handle turned. They’d run out of time.

Emery’s expression flared with panic. “Hide!”

The magic hit like a thunderclap. Ambrose fought, but the arcane collar throttled him into obedience.

Invisibility cloaked him. Though he saw the sense in hiding when a deftly cast hex could spell disaster for them both, it chafed his instincts to leave Emery helpless.

The collar dragged him into a sheltered cove of books from which he could see the whole room—Emery, collapsed and still tangled in robes and blankets, and the entrance hallway.

The front door cracked open.

Katzica lunged at the intruder, but they were faster. A spell slithered like an intoxicating scent into the hound’s nose, and she reverted to the tail-wagging domesticity of her breed, even trotting alongside the witch who’d charmed her.

Hellebore stalked into the room. She wore leather gloves over her hands and a black cloak, the hood of which she swept off as she entered. Her eyes skipped over Emery and searched the shadows. “Where’s your new friend?”

“Ambrose—hngh!” Emery’s speech truncated with a grunt of pain.

Hellebore’s stoat familiar had raced across the floor and bitten Emery’s ankle.

At the same time, Hellebore snapped her fingers, the sulfuric scent of a spell poisoning the air.

Her familiar’s teeth must have been laced with a tithe, because when Emery opened his mouth, no sound followed.

“Sorry, I forgot I don’t care,” she said. “You’ll find it harder to give him orders when you can’t speak. Seeing as he’s not your friend, just the servant you resurrected to do your bidding, I doubt he’ll come to your rescue. But we’ll see.”

The words itched like a persistent bug bite. They’d once been true. Were they any longer? Had he and Emery not grown closer?

He waited. Better to show himself when she lowered her guard, believing he’d left Emery to her mercy. They didn’t know why Hellebore had come, or what Morcant was planning, but this could be their opportunity to find out.

Hellebore circled Emery like a scavenger. Her familiar climbed up her leg to perch on her shoulder, while she stopped at the fire, staring into its light with an unreadable expression. “Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?”

Emery couldn’t answer, but it seemed Hellebore didn’t wish for one. She carried on.

“You can’t fight him. You definitely can’t kill him.

Everything you try gets us punished. If you’d just followed along, I wouldn’t have to—” She broke off, throat constricting around a swallow.

Then she reached into her robes and drew out a dagger identical to the ones used in killing the rats for Morcant’s ritual.

It had a petal-shaped blade, rusty stains still tarnishing it, and from this distance, Ambrose could see the tip was chipped.

They found a chunk of metal in his chest, though. Tip of the knife broke off, probably.

It was the dagger Emery used to unwittingly kill Craig Kendrick.