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E mery went rigid next to Ambrose. “What could you possibly have to—”

“Alone,” Morcant clarified. He gestured toward the gardens of the inner courtyard.

Ambrose couldn’t summon any surprise that a man obsessed with the witch king would relish an opportunity to speak with his resurrected guard. That didn’t mean Ambrose had to humor the request.

“I have nothing to say to you, either.”

“Really? Not even a little curious?”

“No.”

“Good chat,” Emery said.

He took Ambrose’s hand and made to brush past Morcant. Ambrose experienced an abrupt shift of his focus from the threat in front of him to the warm contact of Emery’s hand in his, so he didn’t notice Morcant moving to intercept them until he nearly collided bodily with the man.

“I’d rather not use my authority as professor to report some of your recent behavior, but if you don’t at least honor me with a conversation, I won’t have much choice.”

Emery froze, fingers clenching briefly. Ambrose reluctantly extricated himself—he wouldn’t allow Morcant to further sully Emery’s reputation just to avoid talking.

They were in public, on castle grounds. It was perhaps the safest opportunity to have this discussion, and maybe he could glean information from it, such as the whereabouts of the witch king’s grimoire.

Emery released him, and Ambrose faced Morcant, who studied him with undiluted surgical interest.

“It’s fascinating, to see you in the flesh. Unprecedented, really.”

“He isn’t a lab rat,” Emery said heatedly. “He’s not yours to dissect and play with.”

“He isn’t yours, either.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“He was the witch king’s,” Morcant finished, his gaze barely flicking to acknowledge Emery before fixing with strange gravity on Ambrose. “I wonder if he still is.”

Ambrose bristled. By questioning his loyalty, Morcant had undressed his dilemma: his growing fondness for Emery and his oath to the witch king competing for dominion.

He didn’t want that inner conflict playing out in front of Morcant—not when Ambrose hadn’t the time to parse his own feelings, and not when it could weaken his position in this conversation.

Morcant wanted something out of this. He wouldn’t bother otherwise.

Ambrose needed to know what that something was and prevent him taking it.

Still, his words got under Ambrose’s skin. He was the witch king’s. I wonder if he still is.

Ambrose’s magic stirred, and the voice of the witch king purred in his ear.

Listen to him.

Ambrose relented. “You can have your conversation, but I doubt very much you’ll get what you want from it.”

Emery was looking at him, his (unfairly pretty) eyes large and dark with worry. “Ambrose …”

“Very good,” Morcant said, and gestured toward the courtyard once more. “After you.”

Ambrose’s desire to reassure Emery warred with his instincts to conceal his fondness from Morcant, who’d doubtlessly exploit it. In the end, he only gave the witch a stiff nod as he passed.

Each step drew his leash tighter. He felt the distance more acutely than when he’d ventured into the bog in search of leeches.

Morcant chose a secluded bench, sat, and gestured to the spot beside him.

The weather had cooled, so aside from students using the courtyard as a thoroughfare, none stopped or lingered long enough to overhear them.

From here, Emery was still visible, leaning against the stone wall of the portcullis and watching warily.

Ambrose quickly came up with a plan of approach.

The history books claimed he was a bloodthirsty dog of the witch king, a mindless weapon that bent to his whims. It would be best to behave accordingly and give Morcant no indication he had a mind of his own.

Once he understood what Morcant was after—information about the witch king’s immortality, no doubt—he could focus on keeping him from it, or perhaps leverage it to learn more about the witch king’s grimoire.

Morcant cast a charm to prevent eavesdropping and said, “So. You have a name. Ambrose. Appropriate. I assume the witch king gave it to you?”

He had helped. The name Ambrose had surrendered in the spell hadn’t suited him, but he didn’t wish to tell Morcant so much. “What do you want?”

“To ask you questions. It’s rare to expend so much passion and energy researching figures of ancient history, and then find yourself with the opportunity to speak to one of them.”

“You’re not merely sating your curiosity,” Ambrose said. “You want something.”

Morcant’s smile leaned to one side. “Can’t it be both? I will get to the point, I promise you, but first, there is something I’m dying to know—Why do you serve Emery?”

Ambrose refused to give Morcant anything too close to the quick, preferring a safer facet of the truth. “I’m indebted to him for resurrecting me. I will repay that debt.”

“So it is merely transactional.”

“Yes,” he lied.

Morcant’s stare bored through him. One of his eyes was a slightly different color—paler, glassy. For a flash, Ambrose thought he saw the shadow of a rune in the depths of his pupil, and wondered if the eye was enchanted. Could he see through magical illusions? Could he see through lies?

“It has nothing to do with these—” Morcant raised a hand to Ambrose’s neck. “—these fascinating marks?”

He made to touch them.

Ambrose grabbed Morcant’s wrist in a bone-crunching grip.

“Did I touch a sore spot?” Morcant said.

Ambrose squeezed, allowing the magic to seep hungrily through.

Morcant winced. “You know by now, threatening me is pointless.”

“I can’t kill you,” Ambrose allowed, “but I can hurt you.”

He released Morcant forcefully, and Morcant put respectful distance back between them. Ambrose concealed the nausea of using his abilities with a thick swallow.

He’d been a fool to assume Morcant only wanted to know about the witch king’s immortality, rather than the witch king’s unique spells, of which Ambrose was a living demonstration.

In his periphery, Emery moved away from the wall, clearly debating whether to intervene. After a quelling look from Ambrose, he relaxed. Barely.

“I assume from your reaction that I’m correct, then. I wondered if it was a trick of memory—I did die shortly after I saw it used for the first time—but it seemed the collar compelled you to obey Emery’s order to kill me.”

Ambrose could think of nothing worse than information about his pact in Morcant’s hands, but he also couldn’t summon any plausible deniability to bolster a lie, so—

“He’s promised never to use it and to help break it,” Ambrose said.

“Oh, I don’t care what sort of ethical quibbles Emery’s self-flagellating over. I’m more interested in how the collar works . How the spell is cast, how the magic persists long after the witch king’s death.”

“Fortunately for me, I don’t know.”

“And you wouldn’t tell me if you did.”

Ambrose smiled.

“Well, since you aren’t inclined to volunteer anything, allow me to lay out my theory,” Morcant said. “I have a lot of them, you understand, but this one relates to your famed loyalty.

“By the time the witch king was assassinated and deposed, he had no remaining allegiances, no loyal followers, none but you. You, who never wavered. You followed his orders to the letter, even when it made people fear and abhor you.

“Why were you different? I had so many theories, but having met you, I’ve narrowed it down to two.”

Ambrose debated leaving. He didn’t know what Morcant was driving at yet, but his instincts told him he wouldn’t like it.

But he needed information.

“The first theory is perhaps the most obvious,” Morcant said.

“The witch king controlled you through magic. Your abilities were legendary, and I couldn’t imagine him imparting such power without a safeguard to ensure you never turned that power against him.

This first theory seemed, until recently, the most probable.

Now that I’ve met you, I think I might favor the second. ”

“And what’s that?”

“You loved him.”

Ambrose felt no different from Morcant’s rats, pinned to a sarcophagus beneath the point of a dagger, heart and soul expunged for his dark purpose. Inexplicably, he glanced toward Emery waiting in the portcullis.

He couldn’t hide the truth of it. He’d loved the witch king, and he might have given it away minutes prior to this conversation.

He’s the witch king’s. I wonder if he still is.

He should have refuted it. Now he felt as though, between the witch king and Emery, he had two weaknesses while Morcant had none.

Morcant continued, “If I were you, and I had been placed under a restrictive contract, forced to obey my master’s every command, I’d start to chafe against that control.

I’d want to rebel. The most logical explanation is you never did because you submitted to your master willingly.

Because you loved him.” His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you still do.”

“It’s a pretty theory,” Ambrose said. He wouldn’t confirm or deny either. “It still doesn’t explain what you want from me.”

“I want to know what you want. Freedom? No … If all you wanted was someone powerful enough to break your chains, you’d have jumped at the opportunity to speak with me. So it must be …” His mouth formed an O of understanding as the reason came to him. “You want to bring him back.”

The witch king’s spirit seemed to rise like mist around them, as if summoned by that wish verbalized.

Ambrose tried to disguise his discomfort, but Morcant’s eyes gleamed, the paler one flashing. “I can help you.”

An unlikely ally , the witch king murmured, and Ambrose feared his shrewdly considering tone.

“Why would you help me?” Ambrose asked, hoping they could finally come to the crux of Morcant’s purpose here. He wanted something. He’d dug into Ambrose’s desires and come away with a bargaining chip. Now Ambrose waited to see what he’d use it for.

Morcant turned his head to look at Emery and said ominously, “He trusts you.”

Ambrose felt a chill. “He trusts I will honor our transaction.”

Morcant’s smile was an oil slick, prismatic in all the colors of malevolence it hid when the light struck it just so. “The way he looks at you, I’d say it’s something more.”

How did Emery look at him? Ambrose wished he knew, and wished it hadn’t been so transparent Morcant could use it for leverage.

“You’ve gleaned from a single look that he harbors enough affection to make me an effective tool against him?”

“His greatest weakness is that he’s lonely. He’s mistrustful but not guarded enough. Not by half. He yearns for companionship, and I think he’d risk anything for yours.”

Ambrose concealed the way his heart fluttered at the thought.

“Let me be plain,” Morcant went on. “Emery’s more a threat to himself than me, but I tire of cleaning up every mess he spills. I want you to help me rein him in.”

Ambrose didn’t like the destination of this conversation—one he’d only glimpsed in the distance, but which now resolved before him. “And I’m to do that … how, exactly?”

“Tell me how that charming necklace of yours works,” Morcant said.

Ambrose’s blood ran cold.

Unintelligible whispers blew through his mind like a fell wind. The witch king stirred, agitated.

The image of Emery bound in the manacle of the arcane collar made Ambrose sick. Emery could not even pretend at obeisance. To have it forced upon him would erode who he was, his identity—

For a split second, Ambrose wondered if that was what had become of him, too.

“If I help you, what will you give me in return?

“Your master’s grimoire.”

Though this was precisely the thing Ambrose had been angling for, it seemed too perfect that Morcant offered it right away. Too neat. “You have it? Where?”

“It would be a waste to tell you.”

“You want me to trust you on your word?”

“If it holds secrets to the witch king’s resurrection, isn’t that worth the risk of a little trust?”

“If you have it, why do you need me to understand the arcane collar?”

“Aside from a few journal entries, which are too cryptic to count as recipes for spells, the grimoire is mostly written in cipher. You could be the key to decrypting it.”

Ambrose might have laughed. Emery had promised to teach him his letters not an hour ago.

“I will happily share it with you and bring your master back, if that is indeed your wish,” Morcant continued. “It would be a relief to finally have an equal among witches.”

Equal.

The witch king’s spirit rattled like a serpent’s tail, incensed by the comparison, his desire to return warring with the desire to squash this pretender.

Ambrose almost liked the idea of letting Morcant perish in his hubris, but not at the expense of Emery’s freedom.

He decided to try and leverage something more. “I don’t trust you. Perhaps if you were inclined to impart some of that knowledge you prize so deeply.”

“Of which variety?”

“The immortal variety. How you achieved it, if not by the same means as my master.”

Morcant smiled devilishly. “A good magician never reveals his secrets.”

“So it has nothing to do with your initiates, the rats, and sacrifices like Craig Kendrick?”

The smile vanished. “An arcane collar for Emery in exchange for your king’s return. I’ll give you nothing more.”

“Why do you tolerate him when it would be so easy to avoid the risk he poses altogether by having him arrested? It makes no sense unless he serves some other purpose.”

“He’s already served his purpose,” Morcant said, but with a wary edge that hadn’t been there before. “And he will never allow you to bring the witch king back. He has the talent, but his spirit is too soft.”

“You keep recruiting each year, even though increased numbers may only attract more attention to your guild,” Ambrose pressed. “You must be getting something worth the risk.”

“Do you agree to my terms or not?” Morcant demanded.