Page 49

T APPING THE TIP OF HER WAND TO THE LEDGER, HER BACK still to the door, Saffron whispered under her breath, “ Et lusio Lost Dragonborn. ”

The illusion shrouded the ledger in a faded indigo clothbound cover. She hadn’t been specific enough, and there was no volume number on the spine, but she hoped Segal wasn’t enough of a fan to notice. She turned to face him.

The smile on his face was as crude as it was smug.

He was delighted to have caught her.

A quiet fury unfurled inside her, like a porcupine unrolling its barbs.

This man had slaughtered her parents, and even though some distant part of her understood that he had been following orders, she couldn’t rationalize away her hatred of him.

Her impulses twitched, longing to slay him as she had slain Vogolan.

Because truthfully, it was troubling how easy it had been to kill the kingpin’s right-hand man, how difficult it was for them to trace it back to her. How little remorse she felt in the aftermath. Only a vague, abstract guilt—a shadow, an afterimage, a distant vestige of shame but not shame itself.

How good would it feel to avenge her parents this very moment?

But she didn’t. She simply stood from the chair and held up the fake novel.

“Trying to read in peace.”

A beat of suspicion. “And you couldn’t do that on the deck?”

“Miret was snoring.”

His eyes narrowed. “There’s sensitive information in this room.”

Saff made a show of looking around, as though seeing where she was for the first time. “Is there?”

“You expect me to believe a former Silvercloak is so unaware of her surroundings that she missed the row of shipment ledgers?”

She gave him a twisted smile. “Surely the brand would kill me for snooping.”

Segal leaned against the doorframe, blocking the only exit.

One half of his bulbous face was red and wrinkled from the way he’d slept on the bunk.

“Something doesn’t sit right with me, Filthcloak.

Your parents died at our hand, and yet here you are.

Working missions. Lurking amongst ledgers.

Now tell me, Saffron Killoran, why would the daughter of two murdered mages willingly walk into the den of the monsters who killed them? ”

The lie came to her from thin air. “I got hooked on loxlure in Duncarzus. One of your scarlets supplies the prison. When I was released, I just … followed the scent. All the way to the gamehouse. The need overrode everything else.”

As all the best lies were, it was rooted in truth.

The Bloodmoons did supply Duncarzus—Saffron had overheard them discussing it the previous night.

Half the guards were in on the smuggling, and paid handsomely for it too.

After all, some of the best gamehouse patrons were vulnerable ex-cons with nowhere better to go.

The Bloodmoons hooked them fast and early, the moment they were hauled through those gates in deminite chains, and by the time they were free …

their feet would find the gamehouse before their heads caught up.

Segal studied her for signs of deceit. “A neat little story.”

“Feed me truth elixir, then.”

“Or I’ll cut you open and see how black you bleed.”

Saff proffered her forearm, feigning casualness, when her body was straining at the effort of holding the ledger illusion. She fought to keep the tremor from her hand. “You’re most welcome to. But I’ve been clean for weeks. I’m in the monsters’ den, after all. I have to keep my wits about me.”

Before Segal could respond, a hulking silhouette appeared behind him, head and shoulders taller than the squat brute.

Levan.

“What’s going on?” His teeth were gritted, his cold eyes hardened even more than usual—and pointedly averting Saffron’s own gaze.

Segal scoffed. “The Filthcloak was snooping through the ledgers.”

“I was just trying to read Lost Dragonborn in peace.” Saff held up the book, but her pulse faltered for a second. Levan wouldn’t be as easily fooled by the illusion.

Sure enough, he frowned at the indigo spine. “What edition is that?”

“I’m not sure. It belonged to my uncle.”

“Can I see?”

As she handed him the enchanted ledger, she prayed to Naenari, the patron saint of enchanting, that it would hold up under scrutiny. All those hours of practice with her father could not have been in vain.

He flipped through the pages, and Saffron held her breath. He paused over the elaborate world map and the meticulously ordered glossary, then handed it back to Saff, expression impenetrable. Perspiration beaded at her temple. Her well must be emptier than she thought.

In the dim light of the hallway, Levan’s under-eyes were shadowed. Eventually he turned to Segal and muttered, “Don’t call her Filthcloak. ”

An entertained smile spread across Segal’s face. “Whatever you say.”

PORT OURAN WAS A city latticed by canals, gondolas floating between rows of tall, wonky townhouses painted golden yellow and burnt orange and pinkish red.

The low bridges over the canals were hewn into floral friezes, and a brisk wind threaded through the narrow streets.

The city stood vigil at the side of the Malsea, and a clamorous ma rina rang bellsong through the neighboring districts.

The whole place smelled of salt and brine, damp wood and aged stone.

The Valiant Sword was a dingy tavern on the northern edge of the city.

Its sea-green awning was rotted at the edges, the terra-cotta planters were filled with dead flowers, and much of the blue paint had flaked away from the white sign, so it read The Vant Sod.

It would require a simple charm or an ordinary paintbrush to mend, but the owner was either a Ludder or simply did not care.

Upturned barrels on the street served as tables, next to a blackboard saying Strictly No Brewers!

!!! in faded chalk. There had been a spate of drink-spiking a few years ago, in which errant Brewers laced beverages with a dancing tincture that inspired the consumer to waltz uncontrollably for hours on end, resulting in a lot of unnecessary property damage.

“Wait here,” Levan ordered their gondolier as he disembarked, the sudden absence of his hulking weight causing the vessel to tilt severely. “And you, Miret.”

Miret smiled and gave a mock salute, then leaned back in the gondola, interlacing his fingers behind his head.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Levan said, with the sort of tone one might use to chastise a misbehaving grandfather.

Miret yawned and closed his eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

From the pavement, Levan offered Saffron a hand out of the boat—a truce, after their locked horns on the deck.

As their palms met, Saff’s stomach dipped.

She looked down at her newly animated wooden pendant, and found the same colors as before: pale pink, vibrant orange, clover green, and heart red.

The orange and green, contradicted each other.

How could he be both trustworthy and an enemy?

Don’t call her Filthcloak.

She thought of the prophecy, and of the want she felt outside the Jaded Saint the previous night, and sensed that they were marching closer to their fate. She wondered if that final moment would spring from nowhere, or would feel like a long, slow crescendo. Wondered which would be worse.

Segal followed them ashore, and the three of them entered the Vant Sod, whose interior was even shabbier than its facade.

There were a few tables of solitary drinkers inside, as well as a group of old mages in blood-orange Wielder cloaks sharing a trough of greasy seafood.

As the Bloodmoons arrived, all eyes turned to stare.

The Wielders looked to one another, silently communicating their fear, then hastily chucked a few palmfuls of ascens on the table before scarpering.

Levan approached the bar, and the barkeep blanched.

“We’re looking for Nalezen Zares,” Levan said curtly.

“Always knew that stult would bring trouble to our door.” The barkeep grunted his dissatisfaction. “Lives across the street. Number twenty-eight, with the mourncrow knocker.”

They crossed the canal over a floral-friezed bridge and came to Zares’s door.

The mourncrow knocker was made of scuffed brass, but it still sent a belt-whip of emotion through Saffron.

Spotted in the wild, mourncrow sightings meant one would dream of lost loved ones that evening.

She had spent so many days after her parents’ deaths stalking the unfamiliar streets of Atherin, trying to find a single damned bird, because seeing her mother and father in her dreams was better than not seeing them at all.

Levan raised a hand and tapped the brass knocker, and with a breathless yank, Saffron was mentally transported back to that fateful night in Lunes.

Ink-dark wood. A thin gasp.

Her mother laying down the goblet of honeywine with a trembling hand.

“Saff, you have to hide.”

“But Mama. Who is it? I’ve never seen the door black before.”

“Please,” her father is saying, hoarse. “Please, Saffy.”

Another knock. A towering fear in Saffron’s heart.

“Saffron, we love you. We’ll see you soon.”

She was on the other side of the door now.

She was the knock the whole world feared.

There was the sound of footsteps approaching from inside the house, a brief pause, and then the sound of decidedly more hurried footsteps disappearing again.

“ Sen aperturan, ” Segal hissed at the door, and it blasted clean off its hinges.

As Levan raised his wand and crossed the threshold, there was a sickening squelch, and he became ensnared in a kind of invisible membrane. Pulling himself free, his face and hands—the only bare skin on his body—mottled like a bruise before erupting in a grotesque crosshatch of welts.

Levan grunted roughly, tapping his wand to the affected areas and muttering ans mederan. The welts healed in an instant, and he sprinted down the hallway as though nothing had deterred him.

Saff could barely disguise her astonishment.

He was as powerful a Healer as he was an Enchanter. And with a memory as vast and exhaustive as his, she had to assume he’d mastered brewing too. A mage with three classes was almost unheard of—Auria was the only other Saff had ever met.

Rasso clambered over the discarded pane of wood into the dank corridor and hared after their target.

“ Sen ammorten, ” came a female cry from a room at the end of the corridor.

A male grunt. A lupine growl.

Had Levan dodged the killing curse? Had Rasso?

Segal burst into the room behind him. Saff conjured a mattermantic spellshield and followed, creeping through the doorway with a cold, misty dread settling in her lungs.

Her arm quavered beneath the effort of holding the enchantment—she was already depleted from the illusionwork on the boat—and she knew she’d have to exact some pain on herself if she wanted to ameliorate her remaining power.

The aubergine-colored kitchen had a solid ascenite island in the center—though the townhouse was narrow from the outside, it had been internally enchanted to create a capacious area.

Saff stared in bemusement at the island.

How had a lowly necromancer like Zares, who drank in an establishment like the Vant Sod, garnered enough wealth to afford such a mammoth block of ascenite?

Did she sell her unlawful services to weeping widows desperate to revive their loved ones?

Zares ducked behind the farthest side of the island, while Levan crouched on the floor beside Rasso, wand outstretched.

Tiny flames flickered in a set of sconces bolted to the walls, the fire white-hot and strange.

Three velvines perched atop the oak rafters, watching the scene with utter disinterest. A total lack of loyalty to their necromancing mistress.

“ Sen effigias, ” Levan snarled—clearly trying to take Zares alive—but the spell chinked the side of the island instead of meeting its mark.

Silently, Levan gestured behind him for Segal to wrap one way around the island while he went the other.

Segal crept around the edge, but was ensnared by another invisible membrane. This one was harder to wrench free from—or maybe he just lacked Levan’s raw strength—and Segal dropped his wand in an instant, making fraught gulping sounds.

Zares leapt to her feet.

She was around fifty or sixty, with long, straggly gray hair and feral blue eyes. Her olive skin was the faded leather of an old purse, and her cloak hung off her skeletal frame.

“ Az-ammorti, ” the necromancer bellowed—the killing curse used by Eqorans and the Mersini alike.

The forked spell struck Segal square in the chest.

He did not fall to the ground, but instead hung suspended in the membrane, like a dead spider dangling from a web.

“ Az-ammorti, ” Zares shouted once more, and this time the curse darted directly at Saff’s face. She dropped to the ground, because although the spell could not kill her, she could not let Levan know it couldn’t kill her.

“ Sen effigias, ” Levan snarled, aiming his wand up at Zares from his crouch on the floor.

Zares ducked back behind the island.

“ Az-iruani, ” she yelled, voice rasping and desperate, and a chandelier tore loose from the ceiling above Levan’s head. He hurled his body on top of Rasso, taking the blow to his back with a guttural ooft.

Glass shattered everywhere, and Saff grabbed a shard that skittered to her feet.

Dragging it across her forearm, she cringed as pain surged toward the cut, as blood welled in the peeled skin, her flesh parting like ripe fruit.

She’d gone too deep, and magic could not heal it, but the final vestiges of power in her well deepened and brightened.

Zares had ducked behind the island once more, and Saffron didn’t have a clear shot.

Time to lure her out.

“ Sen lusio dulipsan, ” she whispered, and the illusion sprang from her wand.

Guiding the illusion with her wand tip, Saffron sent her mirrored self around the island. Levan saw the illusion, and the briefest flash of panic flared on his face. Then he seemed to remember Saffron’s skillset, and with a quick glance back at her, the curious fear melted away again.

Zares, however, was not so privy to Saffron’s tricks.

She stuck her head out around the island, hissing, “ Az-ammorti .”

The curse struck the illusion—and passed through its insubstantial chest.

Straight at Levan.

“ Sen praegelos, ” Saff bellowed, the illusion dropping, the forked lightning still firing.

Time froze solid.

All except for her …

… and Rasso.