“No, he…There wasn’t…” Tomas’ grip on her arms tightened to the edge of pain. “Ryder’s dead, Dani.”
She wanted to scream, to weep, to wail, to lie on the floor and kick her feet and refuse to believe him. Except she could hear the pain in Tomas’ voice. Her belief was irrelevant. And they didn’t have time for her to fall apart.
Tomas stood as she did.
“Mirian and I came to rescue you.”
Unexpectedly, Annalyse spoke next. “You were at the opera. I saw you on the promenade.”
“My mother’s idea.”
Danika looked up to meet the gaze of a girl probably no more than Tomas’ age. Eighteen. Nineteen maybe. Younger by three or four years than Annalyse, who Danika had been thinking of as so very young. “You’re the sixth mage.”
She nodded. “Mirian Maylin. I’ve been following you since you were taken.”
“You should have gone to Lord Hagen…”
“That was the plan, but first I ran into Captain Reiter and then Tomas.”
“I rescued her.”
Mirian smiled pointedly at Tomas. “We rescued each other.”
“So just the two of you?” Jesine moved to stand by Danika’s side. “There must have been someone else.”
“Everyone else is fighting a war. Or dead.”
“If you were captured…How did you get the net off?”
“I heard your warning, Lady Hagen, and I twisted resin and sticks into my hair. It hasn’t been cut in Pack fashion, so there’s more of it.”
Hasn’t been? Hadn’t been. Danika listened to Tomas breathing beside her and thought, It could be now.
“We could have defeated the net with a hat?” Stina snorted.
“So it seems.” The girl, Mirian, reached back to pull Captain Reiter to the edge. If the skin was still up there, it had been rolled back. “The captain has the artifact to remove the nets.”
“The fork,” Jesine said in Imperial.
“That is what it looks like,” the captain agreed, reaching into an inside pocket and pulling out the small wooden fork they’d used to remove Jesine’s net before cutting into Danika’s chest.
The scar throbbed. She only just managed to stop herself from touching it. He’d been there when it happened. He’d been there when Kirstin died. “Why are you helping us?”
“There’s a difference between serving the needs of your country and supporting a madman.” Because he looked so miserable about realizing it, Danika decided to believe him.
“You didn’t know he was mad when you let Tomas and me go.” Mirian spoke to the captain almost the same way she spoke to Tomas.
He stared at the girl for a long moment then said, “I knew he was wrong.” But the look on his face told Danika he hadn’t been thinking of Leopald at the time.
“You have no mage marks.” Danika squinted up toward the rathole. Even from here she should be able to see the color in Mirian Maylin’s eyes. “You can’t be the sixth mage without mage marks.”
“My mage marks are white, Lady Hagen.”
Beside her, Tomas made a questioning noise—it seemed as though this was news to him as well—and Danika shook her head. “There’s no such thing.”
“Yes, there is.” Stina spoke in Aydori, but it was clear she’d understood at least the gist what had been said in Imperial. “My mother was from Orin. Most Earth-mages have closer ties to the old country, but that’s neither here nor there. When I was young, she told me stories of mages with white mage marks, mages who could work in all six of the crafts.”
“All six?” Annalyse shook her head. “My professors always said that to divide your power between disciplines would keep you from realizing your full potential.”
Stina snorted and, watching her stare up at Mirian through narrowed eyes, Danika wondered what she knew the rest of them didn’t. “All our professors said that. I suspect it depends on how much power you have and how much you’re willing to let it shape you instead of you shaping it.”
Smiling tightly, Mirian said only, “If you could throw the artifact to Tomas, Captain. It would be best to leave this discussion for another time.”
“Sensible,” Tomas murmured as he caught the fork. He grinned up at the girl, she smiled down at him and Danika could hear history in the word. They’d have a lot to talk about, her and Tomas. Her and Mirian Maylin. Later.
He didn’t give her a chance to tell him to free Jesine first. He shoved the prongs through her hair and forced the net up off her head. There was a flare of pain and then the headache she’d had since that morning on the Trouge Road lifted with it. It felt like a cool drink of water running down a dry throat. Like the first strawberry in the spring. Like stepping out of too-tight shoes. Like a lover’s touch…
“You could have warned me it would feel this good,” she said quietly to Jesine as Tomas freed first the Healer-mage then Stina and Annalyse.
“I was too distracted the last time to notice,” Jesine reminded her.
“Tomas, boost them up and let’s go. This is the only way I know to get you out,” the captain added as Danika turned her attention to him.
“They can’t go through the palace dressed like that,” Mirian protested. If Mirian wore current Imperial fashion, then she was right. Her wine-colored dress with the bulk of the skirt fabric gathered at the back below a fitted waist and hips looked nothing like the loose, high-waisted dresses they were wearing.
“Does it matter?” Annalyse asked. “It’s night.”
“Not out there,” Tomas told them. “Out there it’s midmorning, and there’s a crowd of people in the palace for a public festival.”
“But…”
Captain Reiter cut her off. “The emperor time shifted you, possibly to make it more convenient for him to observe you eating. Probably because he’s insane. Let’s move, people.”
“Their clothes will give them away.” Mirian grabbed his arm. “Even in the back halls, if a servant sees them…”
“We don’t have any other clothes,” Danika snapped. “Unless you want us to dress up in bedsheets.”
“There you go.” The captain pulled free of her grip and dropped to one knee at the edge of the wall. “Tomas! Boost them up.”
“Wait!”
Tomas froze, responding to Mirian’s voice. Danika added his reaction to the list of things they had to talk about later. He was far too young to make any kind of a commitment, no matter what he thought the girl smelled like.
“You have bedsheets?” Mirian asked. “Tomas, the Sisters of Starlight!”
Tomas grinned. “What was it you said, like they wore sheets over nightgowns?”
“Who are the Sisters of Starlight?” Danika demanded.
“A charitable religious order,” he told her.
“An Imperial charitable religious order.” Mirian grabbed the captain’s sleeve and released him almost immediately. “Would they be noticed in the palace?”
The captain glanced down at his arm, then up at the girl. “Not today.”
“Get the sheets…”
“We also have nightgowns.” Danika bent and picked up the lantern. “Jesine, you’re with me. Stina, Annalyse, jam the door leading to the dark cells. I believe that’s the way the guards arrive, and it has to be nearly morning. We need to delay them.”
“You need to hurry,” the captain snapped.
Both Tomas and Mirian made a small sound at the emphasis.
“Run,” Danika said, and led the way.
Chapter Sixteen
WHILE SHEETS OVER NIGHTGOWNS wouldn’t attract any less attention than what the mages had been wearing, Danika assumed it would attract a different kind of attention and with her head through a hole in half a sheet and it hanging down both front and back like an extra long historic tabard, she could only hope people would fill in the blanks in the illusion on their own.