“The citadel, ma’am,” Vegard said. “We have a situation there.”
I felt a little sicker than I already was. “The Saghred?”
“The rock’s still where it’s supposed to be, but we have a thief in the house. The boss is trying to find him before he makes a try for it.”
“That thief’s a master glamourer.”
“He knows.”
I blinked. “How did—”
Vegard cleared his throat awkwardly. “He got a message from . . . uh, a mutual acquaintance of yours.”
Rache Kai.
First he killed Balmorlan’s mages, and then he warned Mychael about the goblin thief. If he thought that meant we owed him, he had another thing . . .
I stopped and smiled. Yeah, we did owe him. I was sure Rache had a reason for doing what he did, and there was even a remote possibility that reason didn’t have anything to do with Rache. He could have merely been thinking about someone else besides himself for a change. Yeah, and he probably had some mountain property to sell me in the Daith Swamp. I chuckled, and instantly three pairs of eyes were on me. Worried eyes.
I held up my hands. “I just thought of something funny; I haven’t gone over the edge.”
Markus stepped in close and kept his face neutral. Vegard was right behind him. “You don’t look well,” Markus murmured without moving his lips.
“Flirt,” I told him.
“Raine.”
Nothing like a joke you didn’t feel like making falling flat. “I . . . ate a mage.”
Markus didn’t so much as bat an eye. “I see.”
A master of understatement, my erstwhile employer. Truth was, if I let myself so much as think about what did happen and what nearly had happened, I’d want a cozy padded room all my own that I could curl up in the corner of.
“You might say I have a bit of indigestion right now that I’m trying really hard not to dwell on.”
“Understood.”
I was also trying really hard not to look at Vegard. I knew I’d see every flavor of pain and guilt in my big Guardian’s big blues. If I saw that, I just might lose what little grip I had. I think he knew.
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice tight. “This wouldn’t have happened if I—”
I raised my hand to stop him from finishing. If he finished, my grip on sanity might be the same. “Nothing you could have done. Shit happens.”
“Not to you and not on my watch,” Vegard growled. He paused uncomfortably. “Are you . . .”
Vegard wanted to know, but didn’t want to ask. Was I still in my right mind? Considering everything that’d happened since the Saghred had latched on to me like a soul-sucking leach, sanity was relative.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m still sane, whatever that means. And if I don’t think about the alternative, I won’t go skipping down that path.”
“In that case, you didn’t hear me ask.”
I gave him a curt nod. Denial has always worked great for me. It’d never made a problem go away, but I was in denial about that, too.
“You saved me the exertion of looking for you,” Markus said. “Though I confess I was rather looking forward to releasing these gentlemen to find you by any means possible.”
The men behind him didn’t look gentle in the least. They looked a bit disappointed, too.
“They can go collect Taltek Balmorlan, if they’d like,” I said. “That way their trip won’t be a complete waste.”
Markus’s dark eyes gleamed. “And where is my wayward and also soon-to-be-ex employee?”
Phaelan spoke up. “Special-built cell, Level Twelve wards, chained to the wall in magic-sapping manacles.” He glanced at me. “Did I get it right, cousin?”
“Perfectly.” I handed the satchel full of documents to Markus.
“What is—”
“Documents I found in Balmorlan’s office,” I told him. “Protect-with-your-life kind of documents. Promissory notes, deeds to property—I think I even saw a will—all signed by Taltek Balmorlan. He’s collecting money and anything else of value to fund his own war against the goblins and anyone else who gets in his way. I couldn’t take the time to go through the lot of them, but a couple of the documents I saw were witnessed by Carnades.”
For the first time in my life, I heard Markus Sevelien whistle.
Giles Keril picked that moment to faint.
Phaelan stepped aside to avoid Keril’s head hitting his boots. “Looks like he’s impressed, too.”
Markus raised his voice so that the entire embassy staff could hear. “Sir Vegard, I would like to formally request that your knights remain here to ensure a smooth and uneventful transition of power.”
The big Guardian grinned. “We’re here to serve, Your Grace.”
“And if you would be so kind as to select a few of your men to escort—or carry, as the case may be—ex-Ambassador Keril to a maximum security cell and see to it that he and ex-Inquisitor Balmorlan are not allowed to communicate in any way.”
Vegard inclined his head. “On behalf of the paladin and archmagus, the Conclave Guardians are honored to render any assistance we can to ensure the security of this island and the protection of its law-abiding citizens.” At the last part, he shot a dark look down at the sprawled Giles Keril.
“Nice,” I murmured.
Vegard flashed a grin. “Sounded good to me, too.”
Markus’s sharp black eyes scanned the room like he was memorizing every guilty face, at least half of which were trying to be casual while noting the nearest exits. “Raine, my apologies, but I need to remain here. I’ve found through unfortunate experience that after a person of power is removed from their post, the underlings have an annoying habit of vanishing along with evidence that may connect them to crimes their superiors may have committed.”
“There looked to be plenty of vacancies in the dungeon,” Phaelan suggested brightly.
Markus smiled. “That was to be my next request to Sir Vegard.”
The big Guardian’s eyes fell like a slab of granite on the nearest pack of bureaucrats who suddenly found the floor beneath their boots simply fascinating. “I’d recommend starting with the senior embassy staff and working our way down until we run out of cells.”
Markus nodded in approval. “Eminently practical.”
Vegard smiled in a quick flash of teeth. “I think you’ll be pleased with how many lackeys my men can fit in a cell.”
“Just leave me enough people to operate the embassy.”
“How many is that exactly?”
“More than myself.”
“Done.”
Vegard issued orders and the Guardians started herding bureaucrats in silly pseudo-military uniforms down the same stairs that Phaelan and I had sneaked up.
“There’s still a price on my head?” I asked Markus.
“Oh, yes. But I don’t believe any man who saw you right now would be foolish enough to attempt to collect.”
I snorted. “The citadel’s packed with fools.”
“You’re referring to Carnades?”
“The very one at the top of the Seat-of-Twelve heap.”
“Then you’ll want to know that when I left the citadel to come here, Carnades was being escorted to the archmagus’s office for questioning.”
“Questioning?”
Markus’s dark eyes glittered and he lowered his voice. “A result of your other cousin’s activities, I believe. Tell Mago that should he ever wish to change careers, I would gladly offer him a position in intelligence.”
As a testament to Phaelan’s determination to stick to me like glue, he did something even more terrifying than fight a werecrab.
He rode a sky dragon.
Speed was critical. Going by ground, even on the fastest horses, was out of the question. Less than five minutes versus half an hour or more equals no contest. I was on the second saddle behind Vegard, and Phaelan had a white-knuckled grip on the horn of his saddle behind a Guardian dragon pilot. My cousin sat rigidly upright, staring straight ahead, unblinking, unmoving, either from terror he was having now, or the fear of the terror he would have if he looked down. Phaelan had sailed into the teeth of the Straits of Mourning with half a crew and storm-ripped sails, but apparently taking him off the ground took away every bit of daredevil he had.