Page 98 of Silvercloak

Surely taking him alive was the best way.

Surely.

On Elming evening, Saff was lying on her bed, struggling to concentrate on aLost Dragonbornspinoff, when there came a knock on her door.

Levan stood on the other side, his jaw shadowed with stubble, his eyes tired and more lined than usual. At the sight of him, somethingdipped in Saff’s stomach. She remembered the moment he’d tucked her hair behind her ear, ran his finger along her jaw, looked at her with life in his eyes for the first time since she’d met him. The feeling in her belly was akin to hunger, to nerves, but the good kind of both of those things. A slight rumbling as you’re lifting a pastry to your lips.

But she had to remind herself who and what they both were.

What she was about to do.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked, oblivious to her wandering thoughts.

“Where?” she asked, though of course she already knew.

“The docks.” He shifted, and Saff caught a scent of the potent clove-anise tea she’d found in his desk drawer.

“More needless torture?”

“A shipment.” She couldn’t parse his tone. It wasn’tflat,exactly, but it was stilted, jaded. “Need to make sure the operation doesn’t spring any more leaks. None of us want a repeat of Kasan.”

Saff nodded. “You look tired.”

He shrugged. “I ran ten miles this afternoon, then did combat training with Miret. He’s a lithe old bastard.” He rubbed at his shoulder, as though a bruise was forming there. “We meet at the same time every day. Keeps us both sharp.”

The same time every day.Those compulsions might not be as potent as they once were—unless he kept his most obsessive rituals to himself—but he still made sure never to stray from his strict routine.

She raised her brow. “Why do you need combat training? Can’t you just sever all your enemy’s extremities?”

“You never know when you’ll be caught without your wand.”

Saff snorted. “You sound like my old commanding officer. Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

Judging by the hard look on his face, the joke did not land.

She pulled her cloak tightly around herself. It was starting to smell like her, and that was perturbing. She didn’t want it to become an extension of herself. She wanted it to be an ill-fitting impostor cloak.

“So is that all you do in the Bloodmoons?” she asked, knowing this could be her last opportunity to gather intel. “Train and brood?”

“No, I oversee a lot of operations. The gamehouses, recruitment,discipline.” The latter sent a shiver down Saffron’s spine. “But finding a necromancer has been my priority for a while.”

She stuffed her feet into her leather boots. “I note you don’t object to the accusation that you brood.”

The corner of his lips quirked at last. “I may be prone to such things.”

She followed Levan from the room, pulse uneven despite her best efforts to keep it in check.

Everything came down to tonight.

“How’s it going with Zares?” she asked, as they descended the ascenite staircase and strode toward the warded tunnels. The vast chandelier cast fractal shards of broken light all over the black marble atrium, and there was the distant sound of piano music playing in the minor key.

“Not well. She’s resisting my usual tricks. Her hands have spent more time off than on.”

As they slipped into the warded tunnels, Levan’s gaze drifted to the timeweaving carvings, a misty expression on his face.

“Then I suppose you need a Compeller,” Saff suggested.

“We brought one in, but it didn’t work. The sheer force of will, the innate desire, has to come from her. Compelling alone isn’t powerful enough to wake the dead.” There was a sort of reverence to his tone when he talked about magic, similar to Auria’s fascination with the intricacies of it, but with a darker underpinning. As though Levan loved and feared it in equal measure.