Page 81 of Acolyte (Tempris #2)

The voice came from up ahead, but when Vaughn turned the corner, all he saw was the girl’s reflection slinking off the edge of an old oval mirror.

“I’ve never liked it personally,” he said, keeping his footsteps light as he emerged from one row and edged around the dragon. Its head followed him, a strange, tinkling groan echoing through the room. Steam began trailing from its nostrils.

“I didn’t understand it at first,” she conceded. “But then it came to me. The Draegon embrace their vanity, whereas most species don’t like to be confronted with that aspect of their nature. We like to think we’re above such worldly things, that we can’t become victims of our own pride.”

A pause. The light around him shivered as her image flashed in and out of focus around the next turn.

“But then,” she continued, “I suppose I shouldn’t have to say anything to you about vanity. I saw that cosmetic glamour on your finger. By any chance, are you trying to hide those scars I gave you at the relay? As I recall, you made a lovely torch. Very flammable.”

Vaughn leashed his temper, refusing to study one of the thousands of reflections that shimmered at him from every angle.

The healers had done well, but there was still some discoloration along his jaw.

When the time was right, he had every intention of punishing her for that little stunt.

“This will be easier for you if you don’t struggle.

You only got hurt last time because you struggled. ”

“Oh, you are a gem.” Her faint chuckle echoed through the hall, bouncing off every surface. “I can see now why my mother chose my father over you.”

With a snarl, Vaughn slammed his fist into a nearby pillar, sending it toppling and filling the room with the crash of shattering glass.

All around him, his own reflection shifted and flashed, but just ahead—

Vaughn shoved the next pillar and the next, sending them hurtling to the ground as he chased the flicker of an image. She moved from one mirror to the next. In front of him, and then behind.

He began swinging his fists, shattering the mirrors on the walls, the tables, knocking over statues and sending splintered shards of glass spraying into the air.

Until the room was empty, filled only with the echo of that deafening clash and clatter of tinkling glass. Until he finally saw her, standing beneath the dragon’s head.

She held a dingy little air dagger at her side, and her eyes were as murderous as those of the glimmering monster that loomed over her, so close that the steam curling from its nose fell down around her like long, white ribbons of smoke .

Glass crunched beneath his boots as he made his way across the now-empty room. “You,” he said, reaching for her, “are coming with—”

Vaughn barked out a curse when his hand passed right through her shoulder. He tried again, but the image sputtered and faded.

“What do you think about Draegonian art, Vaughn?”

He whirled, only to see the girl standing in the corner of the room.

“I didn’t understand it at first.”

This time, she was hovering mid-air, standing on a platform that now lay in pieces.

“Clever girl,” he murmured to himself, turning in a circle and surveying the room. A glint of gold sparkled from beneath the dragon’s mirrored perch. He stooped and dug out three time crystals, each as big as a thumbnail.

Despite himself, he began to laugh as he easily snapped the spells bound to the stones. The apparitions blinking around the room instantly faded.

A trick. He’d forgotten just how loathsome time mages were with their traps and games. He turned one of the crystals over in his hand, grazing his thumb over the sloppily penned rune engraved into the surface.

He had been chasing a wraith—a moment in time captured and replayed over and over again. It was little more than a party trick, but the way it had been tied to the crystal—that was advanced magic, if a bit crudely executed.

Not the Queen’s work then . Even without the full extent of her powers, she was better than that.

Vaughn smiled as he rolled the crystals in his palm.

Perhaps the Queen wasn’t trying to protect the girl after all.

Granted, the little bitch he’d met at the relay had been barely more than a child—utterly unaware of her power and abilities.

During the few weeks she’d been hiding in this place, she’d likely found some books and cobbled together a few spells, hoping to fill in the cracks with a bit of cleverness and sleight of hand.

But that wouldn’t protect her for long. Not from him.

Chuckling softly, Vaughn gave each crystal a tiny nudge with his magic, searching for the slight tether that still connected them to their caster.

His smile widened. He had a location now. The girl had made a mistake.

Satisfied, he pocketed the handful of crystals and set off in the direction of the Water Maze.

Taly watched the main doors of the palace.

She had felt the spell for the wraith snap, which meant that Vaughn had finally figured out that she was no longer inside.

He had chased around a flicker of an image—a few moments in time easily captured and replayed—for nearly an hour, goaded on by the fairies who had been planting her scent all over the palace, always just a few steps out of reach.

Taking a breath, she soothed that simmering rage that had begun pulsing in her ears like a second heart. There was no reason to wait any longer.

Her trap was ready .

A figure appeared in the distance, and Taly waited just long enough for him to get a good look at her before turning, dropping a time crystal and hastily kicking some dirt over it before approaching the Water Maze.

Winding ribbons of white stone slithered across a wide, reflecting pool, but instead of following the path or giving the command to move the stones to the side, she tugged on her magic and watched as the pathways collapsed into dust. She’d never been able to execute that spell, but now—

Her aether responded to her so easily.

It was an entity unto its own. A fiery maelstrom howling through her veins, snarling and snapping and thirsting for blood. Something had been taken from her—from them . Something precious. Something dear.

Now! it demanded.

“Soon,” she soothed, stepping onto the surface of the pool. Beneath her, the water that used to gently gurgle between the snaking pathways hardened, each molecule as stiff and immovable as though it had been turned to ice.

Bells tinkled on the wind.

“You did fine,” she said to the fairy that zipped past, little more than a ribbon of light. “It was more than enough time.”

The fairy chirped a reply.

Taly shook her head. “Don’t bother. While I’m not sure what the Queen has suddenly decided is more important than a fucking shadow mage intent on kidnapping me” —she stepped over a pile of dust still hovering on the surface of the water— “if you see her, make sure she stays out of the way. This is my kill. ”

Taly was halfway to the hedge maze at the center of the pool when the fairies gave another chime. She glanced over her shoulder, checked her Sight, and when Vaughn stepped behind a copse of trees, momentarily obscuring his line of sight, she turned, looked, and then phased .

Only a moment later, she neatly stepped onto the platform of the hedge maze, at least a hundred yards away from where she had been less than a second ago.

She wasn’t supposed to know that spell. It was seal five, at least—a more advanced version of the enchantment the Queen had ordered her to learn: celerity .

Celerity could give a time mage the appearance of speed, allowing them to accelerate their body and its movements.

But it also came with the problem of needing to adjust for the added momentum when the enchantment ran out.

Shadow mages could toughen their bodies to cope with the physical strain that came with moving faster than the eye could track, but time mages…

well, Taly had quickly discovered that she didn’t have the coordination to exit the spell without breaking an arm or a leg, sometimes both.

But if she phased —looked ahead and gave her timeline a yank—she didn’t have to worry about the problem of momentum. She just stepped and phased and stepped and phased—as easy as walking down the street. Even the Queen had been reluctantly impressed that she’d managed to learn it.

Her aether gave another flare, coating her skin like a veil as she dropped another time crystal, hiding it beneath one of the hedges. Then, throwing a glance at the shadow mage that was now wading into the pool, she disappeared inside the maze.

Walls of blue ivy arched up and over as Vaughn stooped, picking up yet another time crystal. As expected, the spell attached to the small stone was crude and easily broken, and he slipped it into his pocket before moving forward through the maze.

The girl had left him several more traps to collect, each one poorly concealed.

It was a valiant effort on her part, and to his surprise, some of the spells even managed to detonate before he’d finished digging them up.

The leaves would start to shiver as time distorted, and the vines would attempt to crawl off their trellises and obscure the path.

But the magic was weak—so adorably undeveloped—and all she had done was leave him a trail to follow.

Each crystal had a tether, rapidly fraying but bright as a dying star to those that knew how to look.

Which he did, though even without the crystals, it wasn’t hard to guess where she had run. Not as he circled closer and closer, finally emerging into the labyrinth’s heart.