Page 112 of Silvercloak

Amplicators were pivotal to Vallish society—they magically enlarged crops so that nobody would ever go hungry. The Crown had strict rules over what could or could not be amplicated, because if luxury resources like gold and silver and silk and cotton could be endlessly created, inflation would skyrocket, and it would become very difficult for anyone to sell their wares if nothing was scarce. Supply would far outstrip demand.

Saff’s uncle Merin often went on flamebrandy-fueled rants about how the Crown should abandon the outdated notion of “making a living”—a concept born before the amplication spells were perfected—and embrace the idea that in a world where nothing had value, in the traditional sense, everyone would be free. People would still work and make and buy and sell, because humans did not like to be bored. Mal and Merin would still make cloaks, because they loved the art of it.

But King Quintan was old-fashioned, and theeconomygave him something to control. And, as Merin would drunkenly yell, House Arollan lived in the lap of luxury, and would it be luxury if everyone had it?

“Lorissa was so beautiful, so smart, so powerful.” Lyrian’s tone was misty with nostalgia. “It didn’t start out so violently, you know. This drive for ascenite. But she grew obsessed.”

“Why did she want to gather so much?” Saff asked, determined to keep him talking, because if he was talking he wasn’t summoning her uncles for slaughter.

Lyrian, however, did not seem to hear her. “I don’twantto be violent or cruel, but I never seem to have a choice. Take this awful knot of a situation. I can’t just let you back out into the world, because you know too much. And I can’t keep you as a Bloodmoon, because you’re a rat. Once a Filthcloak, always a Filthcloak. And so what am I supposed to do? There’s no real option, is there, but to incinerate you?”

Saff withdrew her wand as discreetly as possible. The prophecy had not yet come to pass, so she must not die now. She just had to conjure a way out.

Lyrian took a step toward Saffron, and Rasso’s growls intensified.

“I don’t want to,” he repeated, almost pleading with the animal. “But I would do anything to protect my family. The Bloodmoons are my family, and my family’s safety means more to me than anything. I failed them once, the night Lorissa died, and I vowed never to fail them again.”

This seemed so at odds with the impression Saffron had from earlier that evening, the sense that Lyrian was impossible to bring down because he had no threads of affection to tug. That was certainly true of the version of him who’d seen red, or white, as he so claimed.

And yet he seemed too to be speaking the truth now. He was highly erratic, a walking contradiction, a game without rules or order. He was volatile, capricious, a pendulum always in swing. And he was all the more dangerous for it.

The kingpin gave a brittle, sad smile as he looked from the fallowwolf to Saff. “So I’m sorry. I am. But you must die. If it’s any consolation, I’ll let your uncles live. For once, there’s no need for collateral.” He raised his wand. “Sen ammorten.”

Rasso leapt in the way of the curse.

“Sen praegelos,” Saff cried.

The killing curse froze midair.

Saffron edged out of the way, so that if time suddenly flowed again, she’d be out of the firing line.

Rasso hit the floor, falling short of sinking his teeth into Lyrian’s chest, and looked back curiously at Saffron.

Heart thumping wildly, Saffron knew her only real option was to run. To flee the mission, a failure but alive. To abandon the thing shehad worked her whole life for, to beg and plead her way back into the Silvercloaks so that she might make some oblique difference behind the scenes.

Because what else could she do? The kingpin had resolved to kill her. And Lyrian Celadon was not one to change his mind.

The fallowwolf crossed to her in a flash, nuzzling her hand insistently, as though trying to communicate something critical.

“What is it?” she whispered, confused.

Rasso stared at her, and then at Lyrian’s desk, and then at his former master.

She followed the wolf’s gaze, and several disparate images coalesced with a sudden, startling clarity.

The golden hourglass, grains of pearlescent ascenite lying at the bottom.

The Timeweaver’s wand in the kingpin’s hand, power untapped.

The fallowwolf himself, the way the animal had curiously bonded to her.

Everything in her went perfectly still, as though she too were beholden bypraegelos.Rasso tilted his head questioningly, orexpectantly,as though he knew what she was thinking and had been waiting for her to finally figure it out.

She pressed her eyes shut, trying to conjure the image of the tunnel carvings that depicted timeweaving. She didn’t have an eidetic memory, like Levan, but her brain had retained the word, stashing it in the mental file markedimportant.

Tempavicissan.

It was preceded by something, she remembered. The hourglass turned upside down, to signal the reversal of time.