“And now there is another that I will take again, though not for myself. She belongs to her maker.”
Ghassan lurched back as an unseen force struck his whole body. He saw the gray robe drift up the hallway farther into the dark. He barely grabbed the doorframe’s sides as someone rushed up from out of the cellar.
Magiere spun, looking everywhere. No matter where she turned, she did not appear to see the gray-robed figure lingering just beyond her. Something was wrong with her face, though it was not clear in the dark.
Ghassan lurched again as the force upon him grew.
“Get out ... you petty little pretender.”
Wynn began shouting, pulling on him, and all he could do was fix on Magiere. He barely raised and held one sign in his mind’s eye for an instant. He uttered one command into her thoughts before his focus broke.
—Clarity—
Ghassan stumbled back, dragging Wynn with him, and heard the front door slam shut.
As Magiere charged out of the cellar, her insides burned, her guts ached, and hunger overran all of that. Fed on hate born of fear while she’d been in that cell for a moon, something more had happened to her near the end that she’d told no one.
She’d lost everything except a name that wasn’t hers.
Each time her tormentor came, less and less of her life—her memories—remained when he left. She forgot faces, events, places, as piece by piece was taken from her or lost under anger, then panic, and then fear ... and then nothing.
The last piece she clung to in the dark was only a name.
By the end she was alone and too weak to move. The face that matched the name blurred more and more after each visit. It faded further away in the dark of her cell and her mind. And she then couldn’t remember Leesil’s face anymore.
Even when he’d come for her, her first thought was to kill him.
She’d opened her eyes when he spoke because she could hear a voice too close that wasn’t in her head ... wasn’t the torturer’s but was somehow familiar. That terrified her.
When she saw and then remembered him, it made it that much worse.
After that, Magiere swallowed down that moment and kept it hidden. She’d locked it in the place inside where she’d always feared that she was the worst threat Leesil might ever face. He mattered more to her than anyone, and she might have killed him if she hadn’t been so weak when he found her.
Magiere couldn’t bear this. Each time it slipped into her thoughts, she wanted to die.
As she lunged out into the main floor hallway and halted, she didn’t think—didn’t care—whose flesh was inside that robe. Hunger sharpened violently, and by that she knew her prey was close. Though the hallway was nearly too bright in her fully blackened eyes, she couldn’t find what she was hunting, no matter which way she turned.
Something moved at the hallway’s front end.
When she twisted toward it, dim light well beyond the open door seared her sight. She saw only a dark silhouette in a doorway and ... pain cut through her head like a thin, sharp blade. So much pain that it stripped away hunger with one word.
—Clarity—
Magiere chilled as the hallway darkened before her eyes.
The fire in her that she’d longed for died with two thoughts.
What had she done now, and where was Leesil?
“Get up!” Wynn shouted to Ghassan.
She’d barely gotten to her knees after he’d shot backward and nearly flattened her. Just before that, she was certain she’d glimpsed Magiere in the hallway. Somewhere in the house, the others were trapped with Khalidah, and who knew what had—was—happening in there.
The domin lay on his back, breathing quickly and shaking as if struck. Shade leaped over him and went to the closed door, but it didn’t even flex when she hit it with her forepaws.
“Oh, seven hells. Please, Ghassan, get ... up!” Wynn begged as she yanked on his arm.
His eyes snapped wide and did not blink as he looked at her. He lurched upright to a sitting position on the landing.
Wynn looked quickly about, for she’d dropped the staff in her tumble. When she spotted it lying farther back with its butt end overhanging the landing’s steps, she sighed in relief. At least the crystal hadn’t broken. She reached for it.
“They are coming up!” Ghassan said behind her.
Wynn looked back as she gripped the staff below its long crystal. “Who? I saw only Magiere ... and that robe.”
“We must get inside another way,” he said. Strangely, he looked up at the landing’s roof.
Wynn never had a chance to follow his gaze, for the staff lurched in her grip. Shade snarled and wheeled from the door. All Wynn could do was tighten her grip, but the staff jerked harder. Her knees skidded and she barely twisted around as she was dragged to the edge of the steps, and she looked into the face of another imperial guard.
Where had he come from?
He held the butt of the staff with one hand ... and a raised sword in the other.
Wynn did the only thing she could: she gripped the staff with both hands and shoved on it.
She never saw what happened as someone—something—snatched the fallen hood of her robe and yanked her backward. She heard the hood or robe start to tear as she skidded across the landing. When she pushed up, Ghassan stood over her. Nearer the landing’s edge, Shade half crouched with all her hackles stiffened.
A muffled crack made Wynn roll away to one knee, and when she looked beyond Shade ...
Brot’an rose up and dropped the guard’s body. The man’s neck was twisted at an impossible angle, and his head flopped as it hit the street.
Wynn didn’t have time to turn sick at the sight.
Ghassan pulled her up by her free hand and wrist, and she swallowed hard once.
“Where’s Osha?” she asked.
Brot’an stepped up on the landing, ignoring Shade’s rumbled warning. “Watching from above, I would hope. Without further arrows, I came down ... fortunately.”
Ghassan too quickly dragged Wynn past Brot’an off the landing and down into the street.
“Enough talk,” he commanded. “Wynn, hold on to the staff at all costs.”
“What are you doing?” she asked. “We have to get inside.”
“We will ... from above.”
“What?”
Nearly lost in frustration, she was about to jerk out of his grip and run for the door.
Ghassan pulled her in and wrapped both his arms tightly around her. Shade lunged off the landing, closing in.
Ghassan ignored the dog and looked to Brot’an. “Let no one out of that door until you hear from one of us.”
Brot’an took another step, looking once at Wynn. Shade snapped her jaws at the domin.
Wynn had no idea what Ghassan intended—but she also had no notion for how to get through that door if the specter could drive him out so easily.
“Shade, enough!” she said. “Stay with Brot’an and do as he does.”
“Do not let go of the staff,” Ghassan repeated.
Wynn never had a chance to respond.
All she heard was another snap of Shade’s jaws as Ghassan’s arms tightened ... and her feet left the ground. She should have never looked down.
Shade quickly became smaller and smaller below as Wynn rose higher into the night within the domin’s grasp. And it felt like her stomach had been left behind. She really was about to get sick.
Pain vanished from Magiere’s head. Everything around her turned suddenly dark, though she still felt that gnawing in her gut like hunger. The burning inside her began again as she turned.
She heard someone pounding up the cellar stairs but ignored the sound. That thing she wanted to mangle was close.