Page 19

T HE BLOODMOON STRODE TOWARD SAFF, THE HEM OF HIS SCARLET cloak skimming along the blood-spattered cobbles, and a dark thrill hooked through her belly.

It was him.

A fate emerging from the shadows.

Now the games began in earnest.

The Bloodmoon barely looked at her as he reached the mouth of the alley, finding her crouched behind the nearest wall.

She should have run, perhaps. Should’ve drawn on a mattermantic illusion to shield herself. Yet a thrum was rising in her chest, like a roulette ball spinning around its wheel, and she found herself unable—or unwilling—to cower and hide.

As it happened, he did not even raise his wand.

“Kill the witness.” He spoke over his shoulder to his accomplice, calmly, casually, as though placing a tea order. “Take both bodies to the incinerator.”

As though Saffron wasn’t worth the effort of killing himself.

Loathing carved through her like a hot knife.

Oh, how she would enjoy destroying this mage.

The accomplice turned his wand on her, but Saffron had trained all her life for this. To adapt, to reroute, to change course between one second and the next.

“ Sen ammorten, ” incanted the accomplice.

Saffron threw up the mattermantic spellshield just in time.

The next two killing spells ricocheted off it, but the shield shimmered and fell.

Saints. Saff’s magical well had been drained by the blackcherry sours. A counterfeit pleasure, a trick of the light, a hat with a false bottom. She felt almost entirely depleted already.

“Sen ammort—”

She couldn’t waste her dwindling magic on the fancy boot-leaping trick, so she ducked to the ground and rolled out of the way, mind whirring as she assessed her options, as quickly and cleanly as a croupier shuffling a deck.

“I have something you want,” she said, as the hood of her black cloak fell away from her face.

“What’s that?” he asked, bored, as though used to strangers begging for their lives.

But then, upon a second glance at her, something shifted in his posture. A subtle straightening, the briefest recoil. As though he recognized her, somehow.

Saffron dismissed the thought—he couldn’t possibly.

“Information.” A sense of calm settled over Saff, her training kicking in. “I used to be a Silvercloak. I can tell you everything they have on you.”

The flicker of almost-recognition vanished, and his stone-hewn face betrayed nothing but disdain. “If the Silvercloaks had anything on us, we’d be having this conversation before our good friend the Grand Arbiter.”

He was close enough that she could smell the flamebrandy on his breath, the leather of his belt, the mint leaves and lemon zest of his soap, the unmistakable scent of warm skin. Close enough to see that though his blue eyes were a pure cerulean, there was no real light behind them.

Something essential in him had died.

“But I could—”

“And now you just gave us even more reason to dispose of you.” He shook his head, sighing, scathing, like she was a bitter disappointment, like he was terribly used to everyone being less clever than he was.

“Why is a former Silvercloak sniffing around Bloodmoon territory, willingly offering themselves to us?”

“I lost everything on the roulette.” Saffron’s pulse skipped as the Bloodmoon raised his wand, her body reacting to the danger even when her mind held firm. “Went outside for some fresh air, heard the yells, and came running. Old habits.”

“Sen ammorten.”

The curse flew low and fast.

Saff rolled once more along the blood-slicked cobbles, dodging the spell.

Of course, it wouldn’t actually kill her, but she could not allow it to strike. If the Bloodmoons knew she was immune to magic, they wouldn’t even bother to brand her. They’d slaughter her the old-fashioned way: a knife to the heart, a blade to the throat, a noose around the neck.

A scarlet crescent burned into her lifeless cheek.

The murderous Bloodmoon swung around to face her. “ Sen —”

“ Sen vertigloran, ” she hissed, aiming at his ankles.

He didn’t dodge quickly enough, and the dizzying curse buried into his shin.

He stumbled backward but did not fall, palm pressed against the wall to right his balance.

“Nalezen Zares,” Saff rushed out. “I can help you find Nalezen Zares.”

There it was again: a shift, a recoil. The Bloodmoon’s grip tightened on his thick oak wand. “How do you know of Zares?”

“I fucked her mother.”

A reckless riposte, perhaps.

His brow furrowed. “You can’t have. I killed her mother.”

A quirk of her lip. “But you seem such a peaceful fellow?”

Humor, she found, was a useful way to disarm those who believed themselves more intelligent than everyone around them.

A way of saying Here, look, I’m as quick on my feet as you are, as mentally agile, as sharply observant.

I’m a person worth your time. Or, if they didn’t believe the idea that humor correlated with intelligence, at the very least they might translate shock as interest.

Sure enough, something like intrigue quirked on his face. The banter was buying her more time—or more rope with which to hang herself.

“I don’t know Zares,” she admitted, a little breathless. “But I have an old friend in the Silvercloaks—the most gifted researcher I’ve ever known. If anyone can find them, she can.”

As the Bloodmoon considered this, something hope-shaped bloomed in Saffron. Miners in the Mountains of Promise used a homing charm to locate patches rich with ascenite . This was how it must feel to find a promising spot of earth: a glow, a hum, an innate urge to keep pushing forth.

“What’s her name? Your friend.”

Guilt lanced through Saff at the thought of dragging Auria into this. “That I won’t tell you.”

A muscle feathered in his jaw, accentuating the cleft in his chin. “Is stubbornness worth your life?”

“It’s worth hers.”

This earned her a caustic eye roll. “The integrity of a Silvercloak, even in your final moments. Admirable. Sen ammorten. ”

“ Ans clyptus, ” called Saffron at the same time, and one more shimmering spellshield materialized in front of her, absorbing the killing spell.

But as soon as the shield was struck, it collapsed inward.

Her well was drained; she was almost out of pleasure, only a few desperate dregs remaining.

Pain would have to suffice.

Letting her cloak sleeve drop to her elbow, she dragged her bare forearm along the rough stone wall. She hissed between her teeth as her skin grazed and shredded, blood blossoming in furious patches.

The last scraps of power in her brightened, deepened, the quality increasing if not the quantity. It was stronger, more potent, but she would have to spend it wisely.

Dodging another killing curse, she muttered an old faithful spell under her breath. “ Ans lusio dulipsan .”

“ Sen ammorten, ” he incanted, louder and shorter than before, as though she was beginning to piss him off.

Only now there were two of her.

The illusion surged from nothing. From decades of practice, it looked even more real than her own body, which she had shrouded in a kind of pale mist to make it seem like the illusion of the pair.

Both versions of Saff dodged the killing curse, and then they split in different directions.

Sure enough, the Bloodmoon’s gaze followed the illusion, wand still raised.

For a moment, Saffron was entranced by her own work. The illusion bore such an eerie likeness that it sent unease curling through her, like watching a mirror reflection act of its own accord.

Illusion-Saffron tucked her silver curl behind her ear and raised her wand to the Bloodmoon, parting her lips as though to utter a fresh spell.

“ Sen ammorten, ” the Bloodmoon snarled.

The curse landed true on the illusion’s chest—and flew straight through, smashing against the wall behind her with a chink . Shards of stone scattered on the cobbles below.

The illusion smiled sweetly at the Bloodmoon.

The Bloodmoon swung around in confusion, gaze flicking between Saffron and her curious apparition.

Sweat beaded on Saffron’s forehead at the effort of holding it. She couldn’t cast anything else to disarm her enemy—the magical well, with its infuriating single bucket—but the moment of disorientation allowed her space in which to bargain.

“I can be useful to you in more ways than one,” she said through gritted teeth. “I can find Zares, and I can also manipulate the Silvercloaks as you need. And as you can see, I cast some fairly convincing illusions.”

Her last vestige of power withered and died, and her illusion vanished.

The fated Bloodmoon shot her a brief glare, then a disaffected shrug, but she could tell she’d rattled him. “You’ve shown your cards too soon. Someone in the Silvercloaks can help us find Zares. Now we torture each member of your old cohort in turn until one of them squeals.”

“That Saints-damned integrity would never give for the likes of you. The approach needs to come from me.”

The Bloodmoon’s eyes narrowed, and he took a few steps toward her. “Do you take me for an imbecile?”

“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

His eyes were blank, unblinking, and somehow that was more terrifying than hatred. It was like he felt nothing. “This all reeks of Silvercloak work. Your sudden presence, your neat solutions …”

Frustration bursting its banks, Saffron snapped, “I’m not a Silvercloak anymore. You can give me all the truth elixir in the world and that answer will be the same.”

“I don’t have any more truth elixir on me. Wasted it on the Brewer, not knowing he’d swallowed an antidote. Segal?”

Segal, the accomplice, looked rather intrigued by the whole thing, and simply stared at Saff as though he’d forgotten something that he was trying desperately hard to remember.

As Saff met his gaze properly for the first time, recognition slammed into her chest like one of Nissa’s wielded gales.

He was one of the Bloodmoons who’d killed her parents.