Page 55

T HEY MET LYRIAN IN A NARROW ALLEY, SCARLET CLOAK PINNED at his throat, garnet wand gripped tightly in his palm. With him was a milky-eyed Segal and a mage Saff didn’t recognize.

“Evening,” said Lyrian, gesturing to the unfamiliar mage. “This is Aviruna Castian, the strongest Wielder I’ve ever known.” A pointed look at Levan, who did not react to the words. “She’ll be accompanying us this evening, should we need to bend the river to our will.”

Aviruna was a coltish woman with short white-blond hair sticking up in clumsy tufts, pale skin with acne scarring, and earthen brown eyes lined with thick black kohl. Three stars were tattooed below each waterline. Crow’s-feet deepened at the corners; she looked to be in her forties.

“Evening,” she said, her expression a little glazed, a little imprecise, as though she had recently slammed back a blackcherry sour. Sure enough, her lips were stained dark, and her limbs hung too loose from her body. She did not ask Saffron’s name, and nobody introduced her.

They set off for the docks, and it felt like walking to the gallows.

It was around half an hour to darknight, and Atherin was flecked with rain so fine it blurred the streetlamps, a silvery mist drifting down the streets in thin whorls.

Aviruna waved her wand and muttered a few incantations, and the drizzle began to flow around them instead of onto them.

Saffron’s hair stayed dry, her cloak warm against the brisk night air.

This was how it felt to be a Bloodmoon in general—everyone, everything, even the elements, gave you a wide berth.

Fear was a powerful repellent, and its wielders could move through the world with ease.

Still, Saffron thought it was a risky endeavor to move so many valuable players at once.

What would happen if Lyrian and Levan both perished on this routine mission?

Perhaps they had grown complacent in recent years, assuming nobody would try to take on a band of Bloodmoons, assuming the Silvercloaks were forced to keep a safe distance, thanks to the corrupt Grand Arbiter.

While they walked, Saffron was painfully aware of Levan’s every movement, his every breath.

Her lips still tingled with the imprint of his kiss, and her tongue still tasted the clove tea.

She loathed herself for losing control, for falling into the arms of everything she hated.

Although such was the nature of dangerous things: gambling, loxlure, whiteroot, flamebrandy.

The wrongness was the entirety of the appeal.

Yet, part of her wished the circumstances were different. That they had met at university and bonded over their scholarship, their shared grief, their love of Lost Dragonborn. That his potent magic could be something fierce and bright, not sinister and terrifying.

But fate was rarely so kind. Saffron knew that better than anyone.

As they neared the quay, Saffron spotted several familiar faces in plain cloaks.

Detectives Alcabal and Jebat sat on a marble bench, laughing uproariously and passing a flask between them, pretending to be drunk as dormice.

Detectives Qubayan, Dallar, and Ronnow stood on various street corners, checking their pocketwatches and reading pulp magazines as though waiting for a friend to arrive.

Too many, Saff thought. They’ve sent too many. It’s too obvious.

But Levan wasn’t looking at the undercover Silvercloaks. He was looking at her. Their eyes met, and something sharp and bright and complex passed between them.

He was about to suffer so immensely at her hands.

The cluster of Bloodmoons reached the quay and strolled along the paved dock. The Wielder crew who’d worked the Port Ouran mission sat with their legs dangling over the edge, passing a poorly rolled achullah between them.

Aspar’s familiar, Bones, perched atop a mooring bollard, innocently licking her paw.

The sight of the cat brought it home.

This was finally happening.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” muttered Lyrian, looking around with an air of paranoia.

Levan’s gaze snapped to his father. “What do you mean?”

Behind him, Bones stopped licking her paw.

“I thought the same,” Castian said, pursing her lips. “I ran dozens of these shipments with Vogolan and something just feels … different.”

“Different how?” Levan’s tone was urgent, knowing, as though he’d felt the same himself but couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

The drizzle still fell around them, the sound muffled by the repelling enchantment.

Castian tapped her wand to her lip, more sober than she was a few moments ago. “More people around than usual. The docks are usually deserted at this time of night.”

She pointed to two figures leaning against a large shipping container, muttering in low voices. Saff’s stomach twisted. Detectives Alirrol and Fevilan were not doing a particularly good job of feigning nonchalance. Their bodies were tightly drawn, their gazes darting.

Levan glared at the two interlopers, then muttered, “Excuse me.”

He strode off in the opposite direction.

“Where are you—Levan?” Lyrian snarled.

But the moment Levan hit the shadows, he melted into the darkness.

Saff stared after him, bowels in turmoil.

What had he just figured out? What was he going to do?

“Ten minutes until the boat docks,” said Lyrian crisply, the edges of his voice even harder since Vogolan’s death.

“Segal, search the quay.” He dug a vial of clear liquid from his cloak pocket.

“One of Vogolan’s last fading tinctures.

Stick to the shadows. Listen in to conversations.

If anything feels truly wrong, we scarper. ”

Segal drank the tincture, and his contours faded to a vague smudge. True invisibility was incredibly difficult to brew, but in the inky night, this was close enough. He slunk away in the direction they came.

As they waited for the boat to arrive, Lyrian and Aviruna muttered in low voices.

Saff was too jittery to pick up most of it, but they seemed to be discussing the Whitewings.

Saff knew she should be concentrating on what might be the final piece of intel she gleaned from this operation, but her mind corkscrewed violently over where exactly Levan had disappeared to.

With a brain as ruthlessly efficient as his, was there a chance he’d figured everything out? The thought choked all the breath from her lungs.

Several agonizing minutes later, Levan reappeared, slightly out of breath. His crimson cloak was rumpled, and he hastily rearranged it. Saff stared inquiringly at him, but he actively averted his gaze.

Soon, a well-lit trader boat glided against the fenders on the edge of the dock, its Bloodmoon banderole hanging sodden and limp. A mage stood on the upper deck, manipulating the mooring ropes with her wand so that they looped in midair and tossed themselves over the bollards.

Bones made no effort to move, even when a rope almost lassoed her throat, even when the mage on the boat hissed at her.

“Let’s go,” muttered Lyrian, starting toward the vessel.

“We shouldn’t board the boat,” Levan said, gaze raking over the docks. “Castian says something doesn’t feel right. We should stand back. Watch but not interfere.”

Lyrian glared at his son, as though he’d suggested razing the entire city of Kylgard. “We need to oversee the offloading of every single pallet. Make sure none of these vocks ever steal from us again.”

As the kingpin turned back to the vessel, Levan grabbed his arm to stop him, and Lyrian shot him a look so vitriolic it took Saff by surprise.

“You’re not the kingpin, son. I am.” Lyrian’s voice was a low, malicious hiss, so far from its usual marble coolness. “Remember yourself.”

Levan dropped his grip, cheeks pinkening with anger.

“Where did you go?” Saff whispered to Levan as they reluctantly followed Lyrian and Castian to the gangway.

Levan fixed her with a hard stare that made her feel like he knew everything. A stare that filled her with a cold, viscous dread.

Castian’s attention had sharpened, and Segal was searching the perimeter for disturbances. Levan was riled, rattled, extremely alert. Lyrian was a coiled snake ready to pounce. The very air was charged with tension so palpable it could be sliced with a blade.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They weren’t supposed to suspect a thing. Catching them off-guard was the best way to take them alive.

Yet Saffron was powerless to do anything but board the boat.

The cargo hold was in the hull of the vessel, and Lyrian stood vigil on the deck above, staring down at the pallets as they were unloaded. He interlaced his fingers and rested his forearms on the wrought-iron railings.

Castian stalked the deck, checking the small compartments beneath the cushioned seating benches as though traitors lurked in every nook and cranny.

Crew workers scurried below, levitating and maneuvering cargo pallets with enchantments so that they floated into an open shipping container a few hundred yards away.

Levan stood at the prow of the boat, staring upriver. He was rigid as a soldier, and Saffron found herself afraid to approach him, afraid to provoke a premature confrontation.

A half-faded figure on the docks sprinted back toward the vessel, waving one arm in the air, footsteps hollow and loud as they thumped across the forecourt.

Segal, wordlessly trying to tell them something, blank eyes pinned wide and white.

But before he reached the boat, three mages in pale green cloaks materialized next to Bones’s perch on the bollard. Segal ducked behind a stack of crates at the last minute, blending into the shadows as best he could.

How did the green cloaks get there? Invisibility tincture? It certainly couldn’t have been portari.

In any case, Saffron didn’t recognize them—they were not Silvercloaks.

“Good evening, folks,” said a tall mage with neat strawberry-blond hair. “Mind if we take a look inside your hold?”

Understanding struck Saff.

Customs officers.

They had sent customs officers into this death trap of a situation. A sneaky bid to work around the warrant situation. The Grand Arbiter might not have granted one for the Silvercloaks, but customs officers were well within their rights to perform randomized checks on trader boats.

Realistically, there was no way the Bloodmoons would let a routine search happen, and the moment they became hostile, the moment things escalated, the customs crew could legally call for reinforcements.

Aspar was clever. Ruthless, but clever.

Lyrian narrowed his eyes. “On what grounds?”

“Routine check,” said a round-faced mage with owlish glasses and a dark, whiskery beard on his full cheeks.

He wore a shaven head and Augur tattoos, which Saff knew would only inflame the situation.

Probably why Aspar, in all her savagery, requested him for the job.

“The banned import and export lists have been recently expanded, and we just want to make sure traders are following the law.”

Lyrian lowered his voice into a low, quiet seethe. “Perhaps in the dim light you can’t see the Bloodmoon flag flying above this vessel.”

The willowy mage with the posh accent stepped forward, drawing her wand. “Are you trying to intimidate us?”

“Oh, no. I’m trying to threaten you.” Lyrian laughed, and it was a cruel, rattling sound.

“Apologies if that wasn’t clear. Step back, or we’ll slaughter you right here and now.

We’ll dump your bodies so far upriver that your families will never find you.

They’ll spend the rest of their miserable lives wondering how you vanished without a trace. ”

Lyrian was playing right into Aspar’s plan.

Needless escalation. Fair cause to bring in reinforcements.

Saffron’s blood roared in her ears. Every sound and sight and smell was sharpened on the whetstone of fear—a fear she’d thought herself immune to, by now.

Levan stared at his father, every muscle in his body pulled taut. “Just let them search the hold. They won’t find anything. Do you hear me?” There was a light insistence on this last question. “They won’t find—”

“No.” Lyrian’s wand sparked with raw energy. “It’s the principle of it. We bend to them now, over some petty customs law, and then what? Then they know we’re weak, malleable, and they treat us as such.”

“They. Won’t. Find. Anything.” Levan forced the words through gritted teeth. “Swallow your pride. Don’t make a scene—”

Lyrian finally registered Levan’s meaning, and his face smoothed over. “Alright. Search the boat.”

The three customs officers stepped toward the hold, and then Lyrian’s whims swung violently in the opposite direction, as though he had lost some furious internal battle.

He raised his wand, face twisted and crude as a gargoyle.

“Sen ammorten. Sen ammorten. Sen ammorten.”

The three customs officers fell dead.

Someone screamed, and it echoed off the corrugated edges of the shipping containers.

A white crack of lightning forked the sky, illuminating the quay with a spectral paleness.

And then the world descended into chaos.