Page 45

V IOLIN MUSIC RANG OUT INTO THE STREET. THE PAVEMENT tables of the Jaded Saint were full of young mages doing raucous lines of lemon shots, and from their light-blue scholar cloaks and the collection of matching monocles, Saff suspected they were students from the University of Atherin.

She shrugged off her cloak and passed it to Levan. “Will you—?”

“Wait here. Yes.”

Swallowing the pitted stone of dread in her throat, Saffron entered the tavern.

She spotted Nissa tucked into a quiet corner, her black hair a glossy sheet and her lips painted ruby red.

The table was lined with empty tumblers—by the looks of things, Nissa had been drinking a lot while she waited.

She’d also sparked up a hand-rolled achullah, despite the many placards stating they were forbidden inside the vine-strung tavern due to fire risk.

At the sight of Saff, her bronze eyes lit up and she stubbed the achullah out into an old glass.

“You’re still alive,” Nissa slurred, as Saff took a seat beside her.

“I’m still alive. And I’m so sorry for dragging you into this.”

“As far as I remember, I dragged myself into it. Please do not imply that you have the power to make me do something against my will. My will is iron.”

Saff snorted. “Iron can be struck into shape if the forge is hot enough.”

“Fine. My will is coal. Black and ugly and misshapen.”

“But coal—”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Nissa’s brandy-slackened lips twisted into a half smile, half grimace. “Metaphors aren’t my thing. Let’s just say I’m a stubborn wretch and be done with it.”

It was only then that Saff noticed how unwell Nissa looked. There were dark smudges beneath her golden eyes, and a sort of sickly green pallor to her usually warm brown skin.

“Are you alright?” Saffron asked, resisting the urge to reach out and touch Nissa’s forearm.

Nissa grunted. “Crescent moon.”

Of course. Nissa’s monthly blood cycles, which always fell on the crescent moon, caused her immense pain.

Searing, clenching agony around her lower belly, radiating around to her back.

Nausea, vomiting, and a sharp nosedive in mood.

The Healers thought it’d be very difficult for her to conceive a child, which Nissa was largely delighted about, but she could still do without the debilitating symptoms.

“Still holding out on Paliran’s tincture?” Saff asked.

Nissa’s expression darkened. “I’ve told you, I’m not touching whiteroot.

No matter how bad it gets. You know how addictive my personality is.

I’ll be begging in the gutters within the month if I go near the stuff.

And anyway, the pain is what makes my wielding so powerful. I don’t want to lose my edge.”

Flawed logic Saffron had heard one too many times.

Her mother had suffered badly with anxiety, but since she was convinced that it made her a more vigilant Healer, she refused all medicinal and psychological aid.

But Saff knew better than to argue with Nissa, to insist that living in pain was no way to live at all.

Nor should she offer any sympathy. Even at the height of their relationship, Nissa hadn’t wanted Saffron’s comfort. She’d just wanted to be left alone in the pain cave until it was finally time to emerge. And so they would proceed as normal, pretending Nissa was not a shadow of her usual self.

Saff looked around the bar, squinting through the hazy spores and the dim light. “No Auria and Tiernan?”

“Night shift.” Nissa didn’t meet Saff’s eye, and Saff suspected her former friends simply did not want to be seen with her. Despite everything that had happened, their rejection still stung. “How have things been?”

Saffron grimaced. “Well, they made me carve out an innocent man’s eyeball with a letteropener, so not great.”

“Hells, Killor. You know I enjoy a bit of sadism, but that’s …”

“I know. Do you have anything on Nalezen Zares?”

Nissa nodded briskly. “She’s a necromancer and known criminal.

Detective Jebat has been building a case against her for some time but hasn’t gotten enough evidence to stick the charge.

Essentially Zares seduces mages in bars, brings them back to her apartment, and executes them just so she can practice bringing them back to life.

Well, practice is the more charitable theory. Jebat reckons it’s a fetish of hers.”

Saff tried not to blanch. The Bloodmoons had been looking for a necromancer twenty-one years ago, on the night Saff’s parents were killed.

Never mind that raising the dead went against nature.

Never mind that the Risen never truly rose.

Something essential in their spirit would be forever lost. Hundreds of years ago, the state would have put the Risen to death once more, struck them with a Crown-sanctioned killing spell in a jeering town square.

Now they were simply cuffed with deminite, to minimize the damage their corrupt souls could do, and at the first sign of trouble, they’d be hauled off to Duncarzus for life—the harshest punishment decreed by judge and jury since the Grand Arbiter had abolished the death penalty.

And so not only was Zares committing a series of unlawful acts, she was also condemning her victims to a lifetime of damnation. All for a fetish.

“Grim,” Saff muttered. “Any idea of her whereabouts?”

“Last seen wreaking havoc in the Valiant Sword. A tavern in Port Ouran, by the King’s Canal.”

Saff nodded gratefully. Tiredness weighed her down, her bones made of molasses. She longed to sink into a hot bath and never resurface. “Thank you.”

Nissa studied her face as the bard plucked a bum note on his lute, and an old man jeered his disapproval. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“You don’t have to do it,” Saff muttered. “You can walk away from this now.”

“But you can’t.”

“No, I can’t.”

“And they’ll make your life hell if I don’t.” Nissa pressed her lips into a flat line. Her lipstick was smudged at the corner, and her eyes were fuzzy with liquor and pain. Sweat poured down her temples in slick runnels. “So it’s hardly a choice, is it?”

Saff sighed. “The spell-tracing charm. The one forensics have been working on for years. Any significant progress?”

An uncertain beat. “Aspar hasn’t mentioned it in an age, so I suppose not. At her last update, the spell would get distracted while following a trace back to the original wand, and latch onto the shiniest, most exciting one instead. It has a particular penchant for elm.”

Nissa gestured to her own black elm wand, and Saff realized for the first time it was carved from the same wood as Levan’s.

I clearly have a type, she thought, before internally recoiling from the idea.

She did not feel that way toward the kingpin’s son, no matter what her newly enchanted pendant might think.

“Why?” Nissa nudged.

“I need you to get it for me.”

Saffron wasn’t sure how dangerous this play was. There was a chance the tracing charm wouldn’t work on her, since she was magic immune, but could the same be said for her wand? Would it be able to trace the ammorten curse that slew Vogolan back to her own knobbly beech?

And yet as she so often was, she was backed into a corner. No other options, no less perilous paths. If she didn’t procure the charm, Lyrian would strike fast and hard.

“The charm? How? ” Nissa replied, aghast. “It’s under—”

“Lock and key. I know.”

“Who wants it?” Nissa picked up the nearest tumbler and examined it for any lingering flamebrandy.

There was none, so she caught a young, handsome bartender’s attention across the room and held up two fingers.

They had deep Eqoran skin and long glossy hair like Nissa’s.

At Nissa’s summons, they smiled at her flirtatiously and nodded.

“The kingpin. One of his top men was murdered.”

The fewer people who knew it was at Saffron’s hand, the better. Even people she could trust. Because though Nissa was hardened against torture, the same could not be said for truth elixir. Saffron was the only mage she knew of who could resist that.

Until Levan, of course. She’d yet to unpack how he’d managed to overpower it.

The handsome bartender brought the two flamebrandies over, setting them down on the table alongside a small scrap of parchment. The note read: et vocos Rababi ?in. An invitation to call them.

“ Hells, ” muttered Nissa. She was a few years older than Saff, having just turned thirty, and there were the beginnings of crinkles around her eyes.

A shallow notch between her brows. The last few weeks had aged her, and Saff felt equal parts guilty and touched.

“I’ll try my best, but I’m not promising anything.

” Something glittered in those dragonesque eyes as she glanced from Saff to the note and back again.

“Meet you here same time next week? Leaked intel and a quick fuck?”

Saffron laughed. “I thought you didn’t want to be distracted by me.” She threw mocking air quotes around the word, before mimicking Nissa’s own words: “ The best Silvercloaks cut off sentimentality at the root. ”

Nissa shrugged. “Fucking isn’t sentimental. Don’t let it go to your head. It’s just that all the danger is making me more attracted to you.”

Saffron’s heart darkened. “Trust me, if you saw the brand up close, you would not want to fuck me.” It throbbed in response, like a second heartbeat, even though she’d applied salve mere hours earlier.

A curious smile. “For what it’s worth, I’ll always want to fuck you.

” Nissa stood up, leaned in, and kissed Saff on the cheek, a warm, tingling kiss that lingered a second longer than it should have.

A kiss that suggested she wanted more than just to fuck.

“I’ll try to have the charm for you next week. ”

Then Nissa was gone, and Saff was left alone to finish her flamebrandy. It scorched down her gullet like molten candle wax. Which, incidentally, reminded her of Nissa’s bedroom. Sadism, indeed.