“If you’d just told his grace I was here, I wouldn’t have ‘worrited’ anyone, would I?” inquired Wulfric Snaptrap, coming in on the girls heels. “I told you I needed his grace and my lady right away.” His sharp eyes swept the room and returned to Lark. “Though actually I wouldn’t mind getting Dedicate Lark’s opinion, either. It’s news that should go back to the temple in any case.”

Yazmín got to her feet. “Perhaps I should go,” she said politely. “My lady, you and your boy can stop by my school whenever you like.”

“I see no reason for you to leave, if we may be assured of your discretion,”

said the duke. “Unless you have pressing errands elsewhere?”

Yazmín resumed her seat. “None, your grace. You have my word that nothing said here will ever be repeated by me,” She touched an index finger to her lips and kissed it in promise of silence. The duke smiled.

Sandry raised her eyebrows. Was Yazmín flirting? She glanced at Lark, who winked at her. Now, here’s an idea, Sandry thought as Wulfric pulled up a chair and the maid left them. Uncle needs someone who can make him laugh. Maybe a romance would do him good. It’s been years since his wife died. I know he’s lonely.

You aren’t even sure Yazmín is interested, she told herself.

“Is anyone eating these?” asked Wulfric, eyeing the pastries. The duke told him to help himself and he did.

Soon the maid had returned with another tray and a glass for the provost’s mage.

Once she was gone, Wulfric looked at the duke and said, “I experimented with the magic Lady Sandrilene took off your Guardsmen. We’ve a problem and a half. The half is dragonsalt. The mage who cast that dark magic is an addict.”

“How do you know that?” Sandry asked, fascinated.

Wulfric smiled. “At Lightsbridge, where harrier-mages train, they teach all manner of spells to detect things. I’ve only performed the dragonsalt cantrip twice before, but I’d a hunch it might work.”

“Wulfric,” the duke said, quietly amused, “if we may continue with your report?

You and my niece may talk of magical practice another time.”

“My report. Oh, right.” Wulfric buttered a scone. “Well, if our mage is a dragonsalt addict, it could be his supplier is in Summersea. My lady provost has the street Guards looking for a ‘salt peddler. My guess is, whoever brought the mage brought the drug. The locals won’t sell it, not with your grace’s penalties.”

“Dragonsalt is the most vile drug brewed. I won’t have it here,” the duke said firmly. “You claim a problem and a half, Wulfric. If dragonsalt is the half, what is the whole?”

“We’ve a mage who deals in—,” Wulfric hesitated. “Unmagic’ is the best term.

Its—nothingness.”

“The absence of all else—of light, magic, existence,” Lark said, her eyes troubled. “You’re certain, Master Snap trap?”

I’ve been at this for thirty years, Dedicate,” Wulfric informed her tardy. “I’m not likely to mistake something that marked.”

“My apologies,” replied Lark. “It’s just so rare

“

“You never mentioned it,” remarked Sandry, puzzled. “None of you mentioned it to us.” She meant herself and her three friends.

“There was no reason to,” Lark replied. “None of you showed the least aptitude for it, Mila and Green Man be praised. Unmagic is so rare we never thought you’d encounter it.”

“It’s a blight as much as magic,” Wulfric muttered.

“What can you do with it?” Sandry asked.

“Murder people in plain view, it would seem,” remarked the duke, grim-faced.

“Walk past human guards and protective spells with no one to suspect you’re there.”

“People also use it to collapse distances and walk between places, if they can bear it,” Lark added. “One man who jumped from Lightsbridge to Nidra through unmagic lay in a fever for a year, raving. Later he wrote that his senses all went dead; he was trapped inside his own mind.”

“Can you find who’s using it, now that you know what it is?’ inquired Yazmín.

“If no one minds my asking,” she added when they all looked at her.

“It’s not that simple,” Wulfric replied.

Lark nodded. “It’s an absence more than anything. It’s hard to track nothing down. I’ll bring it before our mage council, but I don’t believe there’s any way to pick it out, because it isn’t really here.”

Yazmín shivered, “It sounds like you’d have to be crazy to use: it.”

“That’s the one thing we can be sure of,” replied Wulfric. “The poor bleater that’s using it is going mad. That’s the nature of it, don’t you see. When you have magic, you have life itself. That’s what it’s made of But this nothingness, it’s the absence of life, isn’t it?’”

“The absence of hope, feeling,” continued Lark, “The more it’s used, the greater its hold, on, the mage. And if he’s taking dragonsalt to manage it, that just makes it worse. The’ gods help anyone who gets close. His mad-ness will spread, infecting those around him.”

‘“Me, I handle it with gloves and glass instruments,” said Wulfric, his eyes bleak. “‘I don’t want it getting under my skin.”