Her voice trailed off and Reiter knew she was thinking of Mirian. Who’d flown, or floated, when that wasn’t apparently possible. He thought of Mirian facing the wolf…thought of turning, of needing to be by her side, thought of the wolf already by her side…
“Get them out, Captain.”
He had his orders. He forced his thoughts back to the problem at hand. “If she can make a glamour, why waste time on a physical disguise?”
“She can only convince people to see what they want to see. When they look at us, they already think first of the Sisters of Starlight. Lady Hagen is smoothing out the edges.”
Given that he knew what they looked like and the glamour still affected him, Reiter was impressed. And uneasy. Out of the nets, the mages of Aydori could change a man’s thoughts.
“Get them out, Captain.”
She’d changed his.
Helped change his.
Had she used mage-craft?
Did it matter? He couldn’t leave the mages where they were, so he was either under the control of a mage barely out of her teens or he was a decent man. He knew what he wanted to believe. Needed to believe.
“Captain?”
Careful not to brush against the illusion, Reiter moved through the women, preferring to lead rather than herd. “Keep your eyes down. This glamour thing, it’s not hiding the mage marks.”
It was no darker at the bottom of the stairs than it had been at the top—an absence of light was an absence of light—but as Mirian stepped off the stairs onto the uneven slabs of stone, the darkness took on an almost physical presence. The circle of lantern light seemed both dimmer and smaller than it had a moment before.
Which was ridiculous.
It might have lessened the oppressive weight if she could have seen into the darkness, seen what it was hiding—in her admittedly limited experience, imagination added weight to the unknown—but she could see nothing past the line between dark and light. On the other hand, it felt damp and smelled terrible, and maybe she didn’t need to know.
She could hear Tomas, so she turned, lantern in her right hand, fingertips of her left running along the wall as she moved toward him.
“Mirian, he’s bolted it behind him.”
A steel door. Her fingers slid over the oil on the upper hinges. Down the crack between the steel and the stone.
A steel bolt as well.
“Get behind me.” She patted Tomas’ chest, a large pale blur in front of her. “I’ll try not to take the whole door down.”
“It’d be better if we could close it behind us,” he agreed, rubbing his shoulder against hers as he passed.
What did she know about steel? Iron tamed, made flexible. It didn’t burn, fire had helped make it. It didn’t break, violence had given it strength. She concentrated on the bolt. This steel had never been laid over a single anvil, pounded into shape. It had come from a foundry, a molten river poured into molds. Most relevantly, it was between her and where she needed to be.
She felt it sag, heard it drip. Pushed the door open.
For a moment, the howling was as solid a barrier as the door had been.
Then it stopped.
“Tomas, find out where he went.” When he growled, she added, “We need to know there’s not a division or two of the Imperial army on the way.”
He changed and went reluctantly, but he went. He’d been a Scout in the Hunt Pack. He knew better than she did the value of an advance warning.
Mirian pushed the door closed and softened one edge. Hopefully, as it hardened, it would seal to the stone. She felt along the wall and hung the lantern on a steel bracket, carefully trimming the wick to lessen the light. At this point, it made little or no difference to her, but the Pack she could hear waiting…breathing…whining…. had been kept in the dark and she didn’t want to blind them.
Too.
She didn’t want to blind them, too.
Reaching out both arms, she touched damp stone. A narrow hall.
“There’s a flight of stairs and another steel door.” Tomas’ hand brushed against hers. “It’s bolted, too.”
Mirian laid metal-craft on the air and sent it to fuse the bolt. She knew steel now. “What do you see?”
“Nine cell doors. Ask me what I smell.”
“Tomas.”
“There’s nine alive, one to a cell. There used to be more. There’s at least three bodies down here.”
She stumbled past him, felt her skirt brush fur as he changed. Both her palms slapped against rough metal. Iron. The cells might not be older than steel, but they were older than foundries. Iron was simpler. Changed less after being pulled from the ground before being put back into the ground…
The door sagged. Collapsed.
Mirian gagged at the smell. Heard scrambling. Heard Tomas growl. Felt something push against her leg, damp and foul even through the layers of fabric. She reached down, slowly slid her fingers over matted fur and open oozing wounds, felt the silver before she touched it. It wanted to slide away as she removed it, so she let it go, let it run down a stinking drain. As long as the palace stood, no one would ever use it again.
She had to swallow before she could speak and even then she didn’t dare unclench her teeth. “Convince him to change, Tomas. He needs to heal.”
As she moved to the next cell, the howling started again.
They’d had to move out of the straight lines of the shortcuts twice. Once to cross a wide, three-story hall where sunlight fell from the upper windows to gild the mosaic floor. Once to skirt the back wall of a small room that held two enormous ceramic vases and nothing else. They’d passed servants—looking harried—and courtiers—looking supercilious—and neither seemed surprised to see an Imperial army officer leading four women dressed in torn sheets through the hidden halls of the palace. Hands clasped in front of her, Danika murmured the words of the glamour over and over.
She heard Stina say something quietly in Aydori.
Jesine brushed past her to walk by Captain Reiter’s side. “You’re leading us deeper into the palace, Captain.”
Earth-mages of Stina’s power didn’t get lost.
“Yes, I am.”
“How do we get out by going farther in?”
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
Mirian Maylin trusted him. Danika wasn’t certain she did. Had it been as early as she’d believed it to be, she might have risked walking away from him, having Stina lead them through a nearly empty palace and out into the predawn streets of Karis. But the palace was full. The streets would be full. And the captain had brought them the artifact to remove the nets.
And Mirian Maylin trusted him. This was not the time to second-guess her submission to the younger mage.
The captain paused at the end of the hall and beckoned them in close. “From here on, we’ll be out in public. We go straight to the Sun Gallery and then left, out into a courtyard. There’s a balloon there. You’re going to steal it.”
“A balloon? With basket large to carry all?” To Danika’s surprise, Annalyse seemed to know what she was talking about even if her Imperial wasn’t entirely fluent.
“It’s the emperor’s personal balloon. It’s not so much a basket as a boat.”
“And the aeronauts? We steal them, too?”
“No.” He nodded at Danika. “You have an Air-mage.”
Annalyse frowned. “Should work, but…”
“No buts. It has to work. I’ll go out and…”
The elderly man who slipped into the hidden hall saw them first, and his annoyed expression turned to one of bland welcome.