Page 12 of Silvercloak

Nothing happened, but the Bloodmoons spun their heads wildly, a strange expression on their faces. Something like fear, or revulsion, or disbelief.

Saff sharpened the intent in her chest to a single defiant point. “Ans praegelos.”

Still nothing.

Was she pronouncing it wrong? Had she misremembered the word?

Or was the prefix the wrong one?

Magic was commanded verbally, and when casting a spell, one had to announce one’s intentions.Ansrepresented honorable intentions, whilesenrepresented ill. An important distinction, a built-in fail-safe, making it difficult to injure or destroy by accident. There were a couple of other prefixes—donfor the elements, which didn’t particularly care for human notions of right and wrong, andetfor the practical everyday magics—but neither of them fit this scenario.

Why wouldn’tansbe the correct prefix? Saff believed her intentions were honorable: save the hostages. Get Auria medical attention. But magic was as elusive as it was pedantic, and it had its own ideas as to what constituted good and evil. Some commands were inexorably linked to a prefix, such assen incisuren,because the magic would always consider cutting and severing to be a destructive act.

Did it have similar preconceptions aboutpraegelos?

The Bloodmoons recovered their composure, raising their wands simultaneously.

“Sen praegelos,” Saff bellowed with as much ferocity as she could muster.

There was a burst of blue-silver light, and the world fell silent and still.

All except Saffron.

The hostages ceased squirming and fake-sobbing, and the Bloodmoons froze in place, one of them in the middle of a backward stagger, the tilted angle of his body defying gravity, the ruby brooch at his throat shining like a pearl of fresh blood.

Even the distant muttering from the viewing gallery fell to nothing.

Every inch of Saff’s body shuddered and coiled with the effort of holding it, an immense pressure pushing at her from all angles.

Time was not a beast that took well to being bridled.

Not wasting a precious second, she grabbed the three outstretched Bloodmoon wands and tossed them into the corner of the room. Sheused the two manacles looped to her belt to fix the three Bloodmoons together, knowing the restraints might not hold once she unfroze the world, but it would be enough to buy the surviving hostages time to escape through the spiral corridor, enough to seal herself as the clear winner of the final assessment.

Dizzy with the effort of holdingpraegelos,every fiber of her being willed her to let it drop, the bottom of her well exposed and scraping, but something else bothered her. She had to know if her initial instinct was right—that the Bloodmoons had a motive for holding up an innocent temple.

Searching the chamber for a potential vault entrance, she spotted a large, well-worn rug arranged rather precisely over the apex of the round room. Another small yank in her stomach—something she’d come to realize was a gut instinct. She followed it to the faded blue rug, pulling it back from the mosaicked tiles of forest green and star white and amethyst purple.

Beneath the rug was a hatch. It blended almost seamlessly in with the rest of the tiles, but it was an unmistakable hatch nonetheless. She dug her fingernails around the edges, trying to haul it upward, but it was too heavy, its seams too smooth. And while holding time still, she couldn’t use magic to open it. Remembering a trapdoor with a spring-loaded mechanism in her own family home—devised by her father, in case magic should ever fail them—she pressed her palms against two opposite corners and pressed downhard.

The hatch swung open, and Saffron blinked rapidly, forcing her vision to clear.

She’d half expected a spiral staircase leading to a vaulted cellar, but there was just a small round compartment no wider than a horse’s cart, no deeper than a grave. At its center was a purple velvet cushion with a wand-shaped indent in the middle—but no wand.

Validation surged in Saff’s chest. She’d been right. They were hereforsomething.

Where was it now?

She only had a few more seconds left in her, and she used them to study the room.

There.Tucked into the waistband of the mid-stagger Bloodmoon.

Another wand. Short, chunky, made of a warm-hued wood Saff didn’t recognize.

Saff reached for it. Just as thepraegeloscharm fell, Saffron’s quaking fingers closed around the tip—

—the world bleaches white.

A figure emerges through the blank mist.