She couldn’t, though. The silly fop’s face kept appearing in her mind’s eye, wearing her earring and hair-beads and that priceless headband. She kept hearing his voice offering her his protection and telling her it was going to be all right and begging her not to die.
He cared about her. For all Cat knew, he was the only person in the Realms who ever had.
She also kept hearing him describe his dreams—the death cry of prey, the taste of warm blood, and the crunch of bone. For no good reason she could think of, the words excited her. In her own dreams, she was always fruitlessly searching dull desertscapes for something. She never knew what the something was. The dreams left her unhappy and anxious. Flattery denied having any dreams. He claimed they were for the guilty. How could such a weak fool as Giogi have such interesting dreams?
Cat looked down again at Drone’s journal, but her elbows were in the way. “Damn!” she muttered. The swig of invisibility potion she’d swallowed had worn off already, which meant she’d been staring into space far too long.
Outside the tower she heard the rattle of a carriage. She ran over to a window and looked down. Giogi and Ruskettle were driving away. They’d finished lunch already, servants had loaded the carriage with packages for Drone’s memorial service, and the halfling and noble were leaving for Selûne’s temple.
I’ve been staring into space far, far too long, Cat thought with a frown.
She flipped through Drone’s journal. It was merely a day-to-day diary. There were no spells written within, no formulas for magic potions scribbled in the margins, no treasure maps stuck between its pages. Page after page accounted family squabbles, purchases, meals, and rumors from court. The last entry was dated the twentieth of Ches, yesterday, just before Drone was killed. The full entry read:
Giogi arrived at last night’s meeting twenty minutes early, astonished Dorath. Boy looks fit. Traveling must agree with him. Didn’t get a chance to speak to him alone. Thomas went to meet his girl, but she never showed. Taught Spot a new trick. Gaylyn up all night with contractions. Frefford a wreck. Dorath in her glory. Healthy baby girl born after dawn—Amber Leona, named for both the parents’ mothers.
Breakfast burned.
Nothing, Cat thought with a sigh. An ordinary day in an ordinary castle. Arrivals, departures, births, deaths, the love affairs of servants, the muddling of a meal. A boring life.
A peaceful life, some other part of Cat’s mind argued.
The mage slammed the journal closed. She surveyed the lab impatiently. Where are his spell books? she wondered. Were they destroyed with their master? Which of the undead that Flattery commands can cast a spell of disintegration?
Cat took up Gaylyn’s catalog. What sort of wizard lets his possessions be cataloged in a pink book with pressed flowers on the cover? she thought disdainfully.
Yet, as she stared at the flowers beneath the crystal plate fastened to the catalog binding and thought of Gaylyn, she knew she was envious of the life the Wyvernspurs lived. They got to be happy—she would have to settle for surviving and, with Tymora’s luck, regaining her memory.
Cat spent half an hour sorting through the stacks of paper, gathering the most powerful spell scrolls and potions she could find. Dust billowed as she moved piles of documents, but her stack of magic grew steadily.
Then she came upon a stack that was missing a scroll—a scroll that held a disintegrate spell. She double-checked the pink book, but everything else was in place. “How odd,” she murmured.
“Don’t move,” a man whispered harshly in Cat’s ear. The point of a dagger pressing lightly against her jugular vein compelled the mage to obey. The dagger’s owner stood behind her. “One word, one move,” he said, “and you’ll be dragon bait, understand? Now hand over the spur.”
Cat remained speechless and motionless.
Her attacker shook her by the shoulder. “Did you hear me, witch? I said hand it over.”
“You also said don’t move and don’t speak,” Cat pointed out with a mocking tone, “so I’m just a trifle confused.”
“You’ll be a trifle dead if you keep acting smart, you little ass,” the man said. With his dagger still pressed into her flesh, he moved around her so that they stood face to face.
Cat shuddered when first confronted with the man’s face-Flattery’s face. After a moment, she saw it wasn’t Flattery, though. The man was too young, too nervous, and he had a birthmark by his lips. He was Steele, the kobold-torturer.
“Now, give me the spur and don’t try anything. My uncle was a wizard, so I know all your foolish conjurer tricks.”
“I don’t have the spur,” Cat objected.
“Don’t lie to me. I was at the inner stair door. That halfling freak locked it, but her people aren’t the only ones who can pick locks or listen at doors. I was listening. I heard Giogi call you a little ass, and he was right. Only an ass would risk her neck to save that idiot. The divination said the spur was in the little ass’s pocket. Now, reach into your pocket very slowly and pull it out and hand it to me.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Master Steele. I haven’t got the spur. Maybe the divination referred to the little burro that Master Giogi had yesterday. A burro is a small ass, you know. It’s missing, though, like the spur, I’m afraid.”
“Asses don’t have pockets!” Steele shouted angrily. “Now give me everything you’ve got in yours.”
“I have to put these scrolls and this book down to use my hands,” Cat said.
In a fury, Steele knocked the book and the scrolls out of Cat’s arms.
“Now, that pocket first,” the nobleman ordered, pointing to the right-hand side pocket of her dress’s skirt.
One at a time Cat pulled out three potion vials she’d removed from Drone’s shelves. Steele knocked each one to the ground, where all three smashed to pieces. Cat bit her upper lip angrily but remained silent.
“I want to see you turn the pocket out to prove it’s empty,” Steele said.
“There’s something else in there,” Cat replied.
“Give it to me.”
“Very well.” Cat drew out the last item and held it out for Steele’s inspection.
“What is it?” Steele growled.
“Something inflexible, Master Steele,” she said, inscribing a circle in the air with the small iron nail she held. At the word “inflexible” the tip of the iron bar sparked and the nail vanished.
Steel tensed to lunge, but he was transfixed by the mage’s spell. He stood as still as a statue with his one hand reaching for the magically expired nail, the other still holding the knife. Cat pulled away carefully from the Wyvernspur’s blade. Steel remained immobile. Hastily the mage gathered up the scrolls she’d dropped and stuffed them into a sack. She wiped the broken potion vial glass and liquid as thoroughly as she could from the cover of Gaylyn’s catalog and left the book on Drone’s desk.
Snatching up her fur muff, Cat backed toward the outer stair’s door. “Apparently that’s one trick you didn’t learn from your uncle, hmmm, Master Steele? Mages call it ‘hold person,’ spell component, a small piece of straight iron.”
Cat laughed and was turning toward the door when something heavy cracked across her temple. The blow felt as if a fireball had exploded in her skull and left a fire raging there.
Cat collapsed to her knees as a woman’s voice said, “We know the trick ‘hold mage,’ though. Spell component, a stout stick.”