I cheered silently as Red Dal’s throat bobbed in a hard swallow. He edged his feet away from the smoking remains of his cup.
“Believe me, I’d love to do a deal, but it really is impossible.” Real fear lay in his eyes, and I frowned. Something wasn’t right, here.
“Explain,” Lena commanded him.
“The girl is already promised to another mage. A blood mage.” Red Dal spoke in an urgent, pleading rush. “Surely you can see my position. I signed a sigil-sealed contract with the girl’s blood on it as surety—the deal’s been made, and I can’t go back on it, not for any price you offer. Look, I’ve even got a message from him—just got it this evening, says I should show it to anyone who disputes his claim…” He dug in a pocket.
My first crazy thought when he said “blood mage” was that somehow Kiran had gotten his memory back. But Red Dal’s fear was all too damn familiar. Horror seeped through me.
“This blood mage,” I said tightly. “Was he a tall, broad-shouldered man with long red-brown hair and a strange accent? Ruslan, by name?”
“He didn’t give a name. But yes, that’s him.” Red Dal sounded surprised. “You know him?”
I shut my eyes, fighting the urge to scream, or stab someone. Ruslan! How the fuck had he found her? Kiran’s memories were gone, and I hadn’t once let Ruslan touch me. He had Melly’s blood…shit,
shit!
Even if I snatched her away, it wouldn’t matter how far we ran. With a blood sample to target his spells, Ruslan could kill her as easy as crushing an ant, whenever he chose.
“Oh yes,” Lena told Red Dal grimly. “He is known to me. Show me his message.”
Red Dal handed her a paper with a single red sigil on it. Lena frowned and traced a finger over the sigil. Nothing happened. She looked all the more grim, and held the paper out to me. “Take this, but don’t touch the sigil.”
I tweezed the paper between wary fingers. The sigil promptly flared and spread into a line of dark, spiky writing.
One word to him of his past, and I’ll make the girl-child eat her own flesh.
The paper dropped from my nerveless fingers. “You said you got this tonight. When did you sign the contract?”
“Yesterday.” Red Dal shifted in his chair, his eyes darting between us. “Heard two days ago a stranger had been asking after me, but nobody would say who, or what he looked like. Next thing I know, a blood mage stalks in through my door.”
Yesterday. Ruslan must have started looking for Red Dal right after I’d spoken to Kiran the first time. Kiran and Marten had both thought Ruslan too dismissive of the untalented to treat me as an enemy—and even today, when I realized they were wrong, I’d thought he go after me directly. That with Kiran’s memories wiped away, Ruslan would have no insight into my past.
What a fool I’d been! He must’ve interrogated Kiran about me before he blotted out Kiran’s memories. Kiran wouldn’t have told him of Melly willingly. Nausea twisted my gut as I imagined Kiran screaming like Torain had. What else had Kiran told him? Oh shit, I had to assume he knew about Cara. I had to warn her, tell her to run. Ruslan meant to use Melly as hostage to keep me clear of Kiran, but he wouldn’t stop there. Not after today. I thought of Kiran’s shadowed eyes and screaming nightmares, and my chest constricted like I’d fallen into an ice-melt lake.
“The child is still in your possession?” Lena asked Red Dal.
He nodded, watching her warily. “The blood mage said I could use her while her Taint holds, though she’s his by contract. Said if she’s handed off to another’s care, though, he’ll know, and would take it, ah…badly.”
So not only was Ruslan ready to savage her in an eyeblink, she’d still be going out on jobs that could get her snatched by the mystery assassin. Sick, desperate fear weakened my knees. Ruslan could do whatever he wanted to Melly and I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t—
Wait. The embassy’s wards were among the strongest I’d ever seen. If I could get Melly there before Ruslan realized it, maybe the Alathians could stop him casting against her.
I clamped Lena’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, “I want her out of there. Make him give her to you, hurt him if you have to, I don’t care what it takes—”
Lena gripped my wrist and my voice locked. Furious, I jerked against her hold, even as she ordered Red Dal, “Leave this room, but do not wander far. I shall call you back momentarily, and if you are nowhere to be found, I will be the one to take it badly.”
He nodded, his face gone sallow, and darted out the door as fast as if a direwolf chased him.
Lena raised her free hand and chanted a quick phrase. She held the pose a moment longer, then nodded in satisfaction.
The block on my voice released. “Why the fuck did you let him leave?” I snarled, tearing free of her grip.
“You and I need to talk. I cast a silencing spell so we can speak freely.” Lena stood, casting her chair aside in one sharp movement. “I will
not
hurt him to get Melly for you. Ruslan is the problem now, not Red Dal. We must tell Marten—”
“No more waiting! Get her to the embassy. Halassian said your wards were strong enough to hold off Ruslan, right? If Marten doesn’t like it, tough. Every damn lead you’ve had in this has come from streetside. You tell him he won’t get a single thing more unless I see Melly safe.” Even if safe meant Marten’s hostage. Gods all damn me! I’d been so sure I could navigate a middle course, avoid handing her to him entirely. But now, if ever, I had to choke down hatred, for all it helped me ignore the black weight of self-recrimination. Marten would use Melly to keep me leashed, yeah, but he wouldn’t skin her alive.
Lena said, urgent and frustrated, “No. Think. This is why Ruslan left her with Red Dal. He wants you to panic and run off with her to the embassy. Then he can go to Sechaveh and complain we’ve stolen his property, claim we are hindering his investigation, and insist that Sechaveh revoke our sanction.”
I turned aside to brace my hands on the wall, breathing hard. Damn it! I could see Ruslan trying something like that. And Marten would hand Melly and me both over to Ruslan in an eyeblink before he’d risk getting evicted from the city.
How I wished Ruslan would find a way to hurt Marten, too; that I wouldn’t be the only one to feel this agony of helplessness. I struggled to think past fear and fury.
“Does Marten have a way to stop Ruslan using the blood-mark? Some ward to protect Melly, or charm she could wear?”
Lena said reluctantly, “I’m not certain. The amulet Kiran wore would have been sufficient, but…”
The amulet Kiran had destroyed today to spare Jylla’s life. Pain clawed at me. “Can you make another one?”
Lena shook her head. “Stevan modified an existing artifact to create that amulet. We have nothing of the kind here in Ninavel to work with.”
“Gods all damn it!” I slammed a hand against the wall.
Anxiety tightened Lena’s face. “It doesn’t mean we can’t help Melly. If there’s a way to protect her, Stevan can find it. Truly, Dev, there’s no man alive who’s more skilled with defensive magic.”
I knew a charm that might be powerful enough to protect Melly. The one I’d asked Avakra-dan to find, in hopes it could save Kiran. The Alathians had one, back in Tamanath—but even if Marten requested the Council send it, it’d take too long to reach Ninavel by courier, and the Council would never agree to release the border wards and cast another translocation spell for my sake.
I’d have to go to Avakra-dan again. Check on her progress, and offer her more coin—offer the moon, if necessary!—to get another one of those charms. In the meantime…
I said to Lena, “Go tell Marten, and be sure he’s clear on this: either he gets Melly safe, or I’m done helping him. But first, call Red Dal back. Tell him you mean to bargain with Ruslan for the use of Melly in your research, and until then, you want to be sure she stays undamaged. No more jobs for her or you’ll fry his ass. Give me that comfort, at least.”
“You should return to the embassy with me and speak with Marten yourself.” Lena’s brows were drawn, her arms folded.
“I need to go warn Cara, and I’m not waiting one more instant to do it.” I headed for the door, reaching for the copper band of the twin-seek charm on my bicep.
Lena blocked my path. “If Ruslan is moving against you, you shouldn’t go alone.”
I gave an acid laugh. “He’s not moving against me, is he? Just my friends. I know Ruslan’s kind. He’ll want to see me suffer. No fun in torturing a dead man.”
“Ruslan is not the only enemy we have to fear,” Lena said.
“You mean the killer? Seems to me that if two blood mages got their asses kicked fighting him, you wouldn’t fare much better. Hell, I’m probably safer solo than with one of you by my side. The bastard could’ve killed me easy as breathing in Naidar’s house, but it was Kiran and Mikail he went for.”
Her worried frown didn’t change. I said, “Look. You’ve still got to question Red Dal about what he knows of missing Tainters. But this blood-mark is bad enough. If Ruslan finds Cara before I do, I’ll—I’ll—” The very thought was enough to stop my tongue, another wave of panic rolling over me.
Lena reached as if to offer comfort, her eyes soft with sympathy. I backed, and she dropped her hand, her fingers clenching. “All right. But don’t wait to spark your signaling charm, should you notice anything odd. The last time you left to walk the streets alone, we found you in a bloodsoaked, ruined workroom about to attack a blood mage with your bare hands. I’d greatly prefer to avoid a repeat performance.”
“Me too.” Though in honesty I’d embrace any risk, no matter how insane, if it meant I could get Cara and Melly safe.
* * *
I’d never had a more welcome sight than Cara hurrying toward me through a group of drunken miners staggering between taverns on Vasalis Street. The miners whistled as she dodged past. Some turned to watch with sloppy, appreciative grins, but none accosted her, warned by her scuffed outrider leathers and the charms glinting on her lean, muscled forearms that she was no easy slip. The crimson light from the taverns’ burning firestone charms gave her pale hair a bloody cast. Her jaw was set, her face shadowed, yet she looked as beautiful to me as a mountain morning.
I caught her up in a hug, an avalanche of relief burying all else. “Cara, thank Khalmet. You’ve got to leave the city, right away. You’ve got to run—”
“Wait, what?” Cara twisted free of my grip. Her eyes widened, searching my face. “Oh, fuck. What’s gone wrong now?”
I poured out the latest litany of disaster in a low-voiced rush, even as I drew her onward. I didn’t mean to stop until we reached the stableyards just inside the city’s sandstorm wall. This late at night, most would be barred and warded until the hour before dawn, but I knew a few whose owners would rouse readily enough for a bit of extra pay. I wanted Cara on a horse galloping out the Whitefire Gate as soon as we could arrange it. But it near killed me to see the depth of horror in her eyes when I explained what Ruslan had done, and why.
“It’s my fault, I know it.” I side-stepped around a charmseller’s cart. Old childhood habit had me checking blurred, dim images of the market crowd behind us in the polished metal of dangling amulets. “I should’ve gotten Melly clear before I said one word to Kiran. He and Marten were so damn sure Ruslan wouldn’t think me a threat, but I should’ve known better. I’ll fix this—I’ll get Melly safe if I have to sign my soul over to Marten to do it!—but you need to run for Alathia.” Ruslan didn’t have Cara’s blood, and Kiran had once told me untalented souls were so dim they were nearly impossible for a mage to distinguish without something to key on. If she rode hard, she’d have a good chance of crossing Alathia’s wards before Ruslan could find her.
A bare-chested Sulanian teenager with beaded braids hanging to his waist slid up to us. “You two look in need of relaxation. Bad times like these, you want Tanit’s pleasure house! Jennies for a bargain price, trained in all the arts of love, glad to teach a lovely pair like you a few new tricks—”
Cara turned a glare on him that set him scampering backward. “Dev, I can’t just run for Alathia! Bad enough to abandon you with Melly in such danger. But I’ve been working on finding passage for Gevia’s cousin Keni, and Brant’s widow Salvys with her twins, and Jasso—you didn’t hear, but he broke a leg a month back climbing for carcabon stones—hell, all our friends who haven’t the coin right now to leave the city. If I run, they’ll be stuck here. Water rations went up to fifty kenets a liter today, did you know? People say there was a near riot at the Gitailan cistern. A bunch of streetsiders too poor to pay tried to force their way past the guardsmen at the cisternhouse gate. The guardsmen triggered the defensive wards, and thirty people died. Things’ll only get worse, and you know it.”
I’d heard the dark edge to the crowd’s mutter, the absence of laughter. People stood in tight clumps, their eyes wary and their hands clutching charms. “If you stay and Ruslan slices you into screaming ribbons, that doesn’t help them either.” I angled for another look at the shifting eddies of people behind us, this time in the murky glass of an ironmonger’s shop.
Cara pinched the bridge of her nose. “What if I go to the embassy? You said their wards are strong. Hell, you said Jylla’s hiding out there. If I stay there, not only could I still help Keni and the rest, but I can keep an eye on that backstabbing bitch for you in the bargain.” I opened my mouth, and she held up a hand. “Don’t give me shit about Marten. He’s already got enough to leash you ten times over. One more hostage won’t matter.”
I slowed. “Fine, the embassy. Run to the Dawnfire Tower, fast as you can. Go by the roofs, not the streets.”
“You’re not coming with me?” Cara stopped dead.
“Keep walking,” I said, in a sharp whisper. “No, I’m not. We’ve got a shadow man trailing us, and he matches the description Jylla gave. I’m going to draw him off while you run.” It’d taken me longer than it should have to notice, between talking to Cara and the dim light of firestone charms and shop lanterns, but now I was certain. A man whose night-dark skin spoke of Sulanian blood, who had muscular arms, a topknot of tightly curled hair, and a narrow, cleft-chinned face…he wore the copper-stained coveralls of a miner and moved casually, sometimes appearing to stop and talk, other times ducking into market stalls as if making purchases. But he’d stayed with us the whole length of the street, and as Jylla had said, his eyes were quick.