Author: Leah Cypess

She meant to explain how she knew, but Sorin just nodded. He must assume she had sensed Karyn’s power.

And why hadn’t she, back at their first meeting? She should have. Even with barely any power of her own, she should have recognized the feel of magic. Ileni frowned, suddenly less sure.

But Sorin was looking at her like she was someone to reckon with, not just a source of guilt and shame. He drew another dagger from the rack and ran his finger along its edge. “Why would Karyn be killing Renegai sorcerers?”

“Because you’ve been going after their sorcerers,” Ileni said. “The emperor must think the Renegai tutors are helping you do it. So of course he wants to remove us.”

Sorin’s fingers clenched around the knife hilt. “Then why didn’t Karyn kill you when she had the chance?”

“I don’t know.” Or had she tried? Maybe Karyn’s offer of escape would have ended with Ileni’s corpse floating down the river.

Like Absalm’s corpse. Had Karyn made him the same offer? Had Absalm been trying to go home?

Sorin threw the knife into the air and caught it by the blade. “So the Empire attacked the day after their sorceress escaped? That can’t be coincidence. She must have used magic to send them a message. This was revenge.”

“No,” Ileni said. “An attack like that couldn’t be prepared in a day. They must have had it waiting. It was their backup plan.” She stopped, thinking hard. Sorin flipped the knife again, this time to hold it by the hilt. “Whatever Karyn was doing, that was their first plan. She must have communicated to them, somehow, that it hadn’t worked, so they tried the attack.”

“Which failed,” Sorin pointed out, a bit smugly. “So Karyn will come back and try to finish whatever she was here to do.”

She’s not an assassin. She’s allowed to give up. But remembering Karyn’s steadiness as she dumped her friend’s body into the river, Ileni didn’t believe it. A chill ran through her. Karyn would be back. An imperial sorceress could easily float a canoe upriver.

And what she was here to do was kill Renegai.

“We have to find her,” Ileni said.

Sorin lowered the knife, his arm tightly knotted. “Why would we do that? To make it easier for her?”

“No, but . . .” Ileni resisted the urge to reach for a knife of her own. “All this time, I’ve known someone was going to kill me, and there was nothing I could do about it. Now I know who it is. I don’t have to wait for the knife in my back. If we find her, take her by surprise—”

Sorin shook his head. “It’s a stupid idea. We can take precautions—”

“And wait to find out how they’re going to fail?” Ileni dug her nails into the sides of her legs. “She’s an imperial sorceress. You can’t possibly defend me against her. And I can’t do this anymore, Sorin. I can’t wait to die, not knowing when, or why, or how. I have to face it. I need to know the truth about what’s going on.”

“And I need you to be safe.”

His voice broke, just for a moment. Ileni remembered the tightness of his arms around her, the plea in his eyes when he asked her why she wasn’t dead.

She softened her voice. “Please, Sorin. I can’t do it without your help.”

“Good,” he said flatly.

She brushed his fingers with hers, watching his cheeks turn faintly red. “I’m going to try anyhow. If you help, you can keep me safe.”

“Don’t.” He jerked his fingers away and stepped back. “You’re not very good at this.”

Ileni felt blood rush to her own face, and she turned around so he wouldn’t see. He was right, she wasn’t. She wished that she had more practice in working her wiles. Or even that she knew what, exactly, those were. She had never needed to be cajoling or coy with Tellis. This thing with Sorin was something entirely different. It made her feel like she was walking on a knife’s edge, like her breath was permanently stuck in her throat.

Tellis had made her feel safe. Sorin made her feel like being inches away from death was worth it.

“So you won’t help me.” She didn’t bother to hide her anger. Anger felt a lot better than guilt or shame.

“I am helping you.”

“Are you? Remind me to thank you later.” She started toward the door.

“Ileni—”

“Don’t follow me,” she said fiercely, without turning back, and told herself she wasn’t disappointed when he obeyed.

The next morning, after class, Ileni gathered her courage and approached Bazel. She had been avoiding him until then, trying not to address him unless she had to. Every time she accidentally met his eyes, she sensed a banked hatred in them, a sullen viciousness more disconcerting than Irun’s openly threatening glare. But that didn’t matter anymore. If Sorin wasn’t going to help her, she needed somebody who would.

She felt Sorin’s eyes on her as she walked over to Bazel’s mat. But she didn’t falter, and Sorin filed out of class along with the others.

“We should,” she said, “resume your lessons.”

Bazel looked at her across his mat, and she realized her mistake: she should have summoned him to her, demanded obedience, rather than going to him like a supplicant. His hatred was no longer banked. He looked at her like she was a worm that had slimed its way up his leg.

Luckily, the training cavern had emptied. She forced her shoulders straight. “You blame me for what happened, don’t you?”

His mouth formed a straight, ugly line before he turned his back on her. “Can you think of someone else I should blame?”

“What if you could see Karyn again?”

Bazel whirled, with a controlled grace that made her tense for an attack. But he merely shook his head. “You expect me to help you draw her back? So you can capture and torture her?”

“I don’t care about her,” Ileni said. “I just want to find out why Absalm brought imperial spies into these caves.”

Bazel adjusted his stance, wary. “You assume he knew what they were.”

“He must have guessed, eventually.” Because anyone would have. “And she is more than a spy.”

Bazel’s fingers twitched.

“But you know that, don’t you? You knew Karyn was a sorceress. You lied to Sorin about who created that rope, and you did it to protect her.”

A flash of fear. “Did you tell him—”

“No,” Ileni lied, ignoring a twinge of guilt. “It doesn’t matter to me. Whatever she and Absalm were up to, it got him killed. Karyn might be able to tell me why he died. That’s all I care about.”

Bazel let out a breath. “You want to use my stone to try summoning her.”

“Yes.”

“You expect me to hand it over to you?”

“No.” That would have been absolutely useless to her. Even with the aid of those stones, communication spells required huge amounts of power. She tried to sound desperate, which wasn’t difficult. “You can be there. You can even work the spell—I’ll show you how—and contact her yourself.”

Bazel’s face was carefully blank. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

Her heart thumped in her chest with sudden, paralyzing terror.

“I know she doesn’t care about me.” Bazel scuffed the edge of his mat with his foot. “I know I’m just a tool to her.”

Ileni’s relief was so vast she spoke without thinking. “Nobody in these caves is anything but a tool.”

Bazel blinked twice, and then—to her astonishment—he grinned. “Right. It’s nice to be a useful tool instead of a despised one.”

Ileni thought about smiling back, but it seemed too risky. Instead she nodded. “I can see that.”

Bazel’s smile twisted, but it didn’t vanish. Before she could say anything else, the students for her next class began filing in, and he made his way into the training area.

“What are you up to?” Sorin demanded as soon as they reached her room after the midday meal.

Ileni, who was already halfway across the room, turned and crossed her arms over her chest. She was the one who had chosen to head to her room instead of the knife-training cavern, and she was surprised that Sorin had followed her. To hide her gratification, she scowled at him.

Sorin leaned against the doorpost, scowling back. “Don’t underestimate Bazel. Even the least of us is dangerous. Whatever you’re planning, I should be with you. To protect you.”

And to wonder why she wasn’t working the spell on her own? Ileni sat on her bed and lifted her chin. “To stop me, you mean? No, thank you. I believe we’ve already had this discussion.”

“Please?”

She straightened in shock. His eyes were unwavering on hers, deep black against his faintly flushed skin. Ileni suddenly wondered if he would dare close the door behind him. Her skin tingled. That would hardly be safe, though, so he probably wouldn’t.

Sorin’s voice was tight. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

She flushed too. “Nothing will.”

“How can you be so sure?” He stepped into her room. If she’d had power to spare, she might have swung the door shut behind him. “You’ve been here for weeks. Haven’t you realized, yet, how close death is to life? How fragile our bodies are? It takes just a second—” He broke off. “Do you still not care whether you live or die?”

“I—” She dug her fingers into her blanket. “What makes you think I ever didn’t care?”

“You told me. Several times, if I recall correctly.”

She hadn’t realized he believed her.

“And even before that, it was the first thing I noticed about you. You weren’t frightened of me—not as frightened as you should have been. I could have killed you so easily. And I wouldn’t have cared.”

He didn’t sound regretful; he sounded wistful. Like he wished he still didn’t care.

“I wasn’t quite that dumb,” Ileni said coldly. “I warded myself against you.”

He blinked, the certainty disappearing from his face. Ileni reached under her bed and pulled out her bag. The flat black stones spilled onto the floor.

“Warding stones,” she said. “Extremely powerful ones. I set the ward the day I arrived. So you couldn’t have touched me, no matter how much you didn’t care.”

Sorin’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you Renagai weren’t permitted to take your magical devices out of the village.”

“We weren’t. Aren’t.”

“Then how—you stole them?” He seemed genuinely shocked, but when she glared up at him, his tone turned mocking. “You, the paragon of Renegai virtue?”

“No,” Ileni snapped. “They were given to me.” She hesitated, then added, “By Tellis.”

Sorin’s grin didn’t fade, but suddenly it had a different slant. “I see. Not quite as righteous as you, is that it? Or did he abandon his principles out of love?”

“I don’t want to talk about Tellis.”

“Good. Neither do I.” He looked at the warding stones. Hurt thrummed in his voice, layered far below his outwardly level tone. “So that first day, when you plucked one of my hairs . . . .”

She blinked. “You remember?”

He gave her a sideways glance. “I remember every move you made since the moment you walked into these caves.”

Ileni felt suddenly breathless again. Don’t be stupid, she told herself, and said archly, “The advantage of an assassin’s training, I suppose.”

His shoulders hunched slightly. There was something vulnerable in his stance, and Ileni’s heart twisted unexpectedly. She hadn’t realized she had the power to hurt him. “If you’re warded against me, how was I able to teach you to fight? Or are the wards so sensitive they can distinguish between true and false threats?”