Page 55 of Silvercloak

Satisfied that she’d thought through the likeliest outcome—and that the likeliest outcome was not too devastating—she dressed in her tunic, slacks, and scarlet cloak; reapplied salve to her burning wound; and left the bedroom to a deserted corridor.

She kept her hand tucked around her wand, preparing to throw up a spellshield at a moment’s notice. To freeze time if she had to. She ran through the arsenal of offensive and defensive spells she’d had to master to pass through the Academy, ready to cast them in the split seconds between life and death.

But to her surprise, Saffron moved through the mansion like a warm knife through soft butter. There were only a few servants around, dipping their heads in acknowledgment and continuing with their duties. The scarlet cloak afforded her an immediate respect, a kind of inherent power, and she supposed none of the underlings knew the truth of how she came to be here. None of them had heard her scream or plead as the hot poker melted her skin and flesh.

They simply saw the cloak and bowed.

Snaking back through the warded tunnels—she’d memorized the route on the way to and from the Jaded Saint—Saffron kept peering over her shoulder, expecting to see Levan or Segal or Vogolan on her tail, but nobody followed.

So much blind faith in the loyalty brand.

The arrogance.

Several minutes later, Saffron entered the gamehouse the same way she’d left it: through the smoky haze of the Achullah Terrace. As she moved through the domed atrium, the other patrons cleared a path, parting like water around a rock. They nodded their heads, giving tight, fearful smiles. One even curtseyed, as though she were royalty. It was a curious, almost intoxicating feeling, to be so powerful.

Because fearwasa kind of power, far easier to wield than magic. A well with no bottom.

No wonder the kingpin found it so irresistible.

Even in the dead of the night, the gamehouse was still in full swing, but there was a looseness to it Saffron didn’t like. Slack faces, emptyeyes, veins pulsing darkly in throats. That same hunger and thirst had returned to her too: a draw toward the blackcherry sours, toward the pure, raw pleasure, the heightened euphoria.

At the roulette table where she’d gambled the previous evening, Neatras had been replaced by a young mage with olive skin, an upturned nose, and an Irisian griffin necklace dangling around her neck. Her name badge readVenda.

Venda set the wheel spinning and tossed in the ball, watching as it clacked and clattered in a silvery blur. As it slowed, a slate-gray iris took shape, narrowing hatefully as it spotted Saffron. The eye was glazed over, dizzy. Saffron felt the nausea secondhand, writhing and curdling in her belly.

As Venda swept the chips from the felted table, Saffron approached. The croupier purposefully didn’t look at the scarlet cloak or the mage who wore it, but the visible pulse in her neck betrayed her fear.

Saffron aimed her wand at the roulette ball. “Ans convoqan.”

A simple summoning spell. The roulette ball sailed through the air and landed in Saff’s palm. For a single shocked moment, Venda locked gazes with Saffron.

“Speak of this to no one,” Saffron muttered, tucking it into her cloak pocket.

The croupier gave a single petrified nod, her fingers clutching the silver-and-sapphire griffin resting on her collarbone.

Saffron strode off without a backward glance, heart thumping against the cage of her ribs. Was Lyrian watching through the roulette ball? Or was it late enough that he’d be asleep?

She’d almost made it to the Achullah Terrace when a hulking figure stepped out from behind the slots.

Levan stared straight at her with an impenetrable look on his face, those blue eyes cold and cadaverous. At the sight of him, Saffron thought of searing flesh and bloody wrist stumps, pleading croupiers and wolves tearing vocal cords from pale throats. Her mother and father, dead at her young feet, corpses spread on the faded rug her father had once charmed into flying.

“Subtle.” Levan glanced pointedly down at her pocket, then meaningfully back at the roulette tables.

Loathing bolted through Saffron like white lightning.

“There’s no need for her to suffer anymore.” She spoke in a low, hateful snap. “Her father is dead, and there’s nobody else you need to keep in line. Leaving her here is just cruel.”

“I’ve never claimed not to be cruel.”

Levan took another step toward her, so close she felt the heat of his body. Even though the riotous gamehouse rattled and roared, it all faded into the background, her senses vignetting around him. Half of his face was illuminated by the blinking lights of the slots, flashes of gold and blue and green and white dancing over his sharp cheekbones and scarred lip, the chiseled lines of his face, the penny dent of his chin, the gloss of his cocoa-dark hair.

Loathe as she was to admit it, she was terrified of this mage, of how fast and free he flung the killing curse, of how he severed appendages in the pursuit of information. And yet the prophecy foretold that she would get the upper hand, eventually. She would lay her lips on his, and he would let out a soft, rough moan, and she would fire a killing spell into his stomach. And it would feelgood.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, stamping the fear resolutely out of her voice.

“I have my ways.”

He glared at Saffron so harshly that she wanted to look away—he seemed either to not look at her at all, or to stare all the way down to her bones—yet her pride kept her gaze pinned to his. Smeared up the side of his throat was something dark and red.