Then Safi’s frantic gaze landed on a wrinkled face and stout body that she vaguely remembered from her childhood: Domna fon Brusk. The woman’s hairy chin moved like a cow chewing cud, and she bobbed a curt, reassuring nod at Safi.
As the twenty-fourth chimes began to ring and the applause subsided, Domna fon Brusk navigated toward Safi. Her eyes never left Safi’s face, her pace never slowed. Four steps in time to each tolling bell.
Then the final chime rang out. It reverberated through the room.
Every flame in the ballroom, in the gardens, and on the harbor hissed out. The party descended into black.
*
Aeduan was still in the wall when the lights went out.
He had slunk along from spy hole to spy hole, never losing sight of the Truthwitch—or her blood-scent—since she’d followed the summons of Emperor Henrick.
The girl clearly hadn’t known what was coming. Never had Aeduan seen the blood drain from a person’s face so quickly—and for the briefest fraction of a moment, Aeduan had felt pity.
Yet as Aeduan watched the girl tumble toward Emperor Henrick, the hairs on his arms pricked up. Then the hairs on the back of his neck.
He had just enough time to think, Magic—and then feel his power specify, Firewitch—before every flame wuffed out.
In two lung-stretching inhales, Aeduan’s Bloodwitchery roared to the height of its power—and he made a blood-recognition for every shrieking person in the ballroom—and every guard in the walls, the ceilings. It was just a cursory recording of different scents so he could move without sight.
And so he could follow who else moved without sight.
For someone had just orchestrated this blackout, and Aeduan knew immediately that it was linked to the girl, Safiya—because her scent was leaving.
As was a second someone with the acrid scent of battlefields and burning bodies. And a third someone who smelled of mountain peaks … and vengeance.
Aeduan set off toward the nearest of two wall exits when the lamps flared back to life in a second rush of hair-raising magic. Relieved whimpers and sighs drifted through the walls—and pinpricks of yellow light shot through spy holes.
Aeduan darted for the nearest, and his gaze flew to where his Bloodwitchery told him the girl would be …
The space was empty. Completely empty. Where the girl had been standing … she still stood. Somehow, she had not moved from Henrick’s side. Aeduan honed in on her scent.
It was not the scent of the girl named Safiya. This was someone else entirely. Someone with an older blood—much older, in fact.
Aetherwitch, he thought. Then he specified it to Glamourwitch.
Aeduan scanned the limited field of people he could see, could smell. But there was no sign of someone working powerful magic. Yet Aeduan had no doubt a Glamourwitch was in that room, manipulating what people saw.
Aeduan also had no doubt he was the only person anywhere in this building—possibly the entire Witchlands—who could wade through what was going on. It was not arrogance that made him think so but simple truth.
A truth that kept him well paid, and that might, after this evening, lead to employers of greater wealth than Guildmaster Yotiluzzi. This girl was a Truthwitch and the future bride of the Cartorran emperor. Someone would want to know who had taken her—and that someone would no doubt pay very well.
Aeduan launched into a quick, light-footed stride once more. The girl was reaching the edge of his range. Though he could track her over long distances, it was easier work if he kept her within a hundred paces.
Yet as he ran, the person with acrid battlefield blood stepped into his path, and with the man came the smoking stench of actual flames.
The Firewitch was burning the entrance to the walls.
Aeduan allowed just the slightest fear to spike through him. Flames … bothered him.
But then he pushed aside the instinct to stop, to descend into that place, and with a great mental wrench, he brought his mind back to the forefront and shoved more power into his lungs.
He also made sure to snap his cloak’s fire-flap across his nose. The saying that a Carawen monk was prepared for everything was not an understatement—and Aeduan took that phrase to a completely different level. His white Carawen cloak was made of salamander fibers, so no fire could burn it. Though the flap would block his ability to track blood-scents, he only needed to wear it long enough to get through these flames.
Aeduan reached the exit, dropped directly into the fire, and dispatched his first knife. Then, as he rolled through the flames and flipped back to his feet, he dispatched a second.
The Firewitch dove aside, ducking behind a potted plant in the long entrance hall of the palace. The second knife cracked into the clay, shook the azalea bush within.
Aeduan yanked down his fire-flap, and the smell of blood rushed over him. His first knife must have hit the Firewitch. Good. Aeduan threw his gaze down the hall. He saw nothing, yet he sensed the girl was almost to the large doors at the end.
The Firewitch spun around the other side of the pot. Flames roared from his mouth, his eyes—even as blood gushed from a knife in his knee.