But Arlen looked back at her, and he laughed. Not the polite barks he might give at a jest, or a cruel sound meant to hurt, but a full laugh that shook his body so much he needed to put a hand on Twilight Dancer to steady himself. She felt her lungs ease as the sound denied her fear. Something in her gave way, and she found herself laughing along as he roared at the joke, hugging her sides and kicking her feet. It went on a good while, and the tension between them had vanished when they finally slowed to sporadic giggles, and then fell silent.

Renna got to her feet and put a hand on Arlen’s arm. “If there’s something I don’t know, then tell me.”

Arlen looked at her and nodded. Again he pulled from her grasp, walking a few feet away, his eyes on the ground.

“Here,” he said after a moment, kicking the dirt. “There’s a path to the Core right here.”

She came over, looking with her warded eyes. Indeed, the glowing mist eddying about their feet was flowing from the spot like smoke from a pipe.

“I can feel it,” Arlen said, “stretching all the way to the Core. It’s calling to me, Ren. Like my mam at suppertime, it’s calling me, and if I wanted to…” He began to fade away, as if he were a ghost…or a coreling.

“No!” Renna shouted, grabbing at him, but her hands passed right through. “You tell it to throw its call down the well!”

Arlen solidified after a moment, and she breathed a sigh of relief, though his eyes were still sad. “The paint ent why I can’t live a normal life, Ren. This is where drawing too much magic leads. I’m more demon than man now, and honest word, each dawn I wonder if today’s the day the sun’s gonna burn me away for good.”

Renna shook her head. “You ent no demon. Demon wouldn’t be worried about Deliverer’s Hollow, or Tibbet’s Brook. Demon wouldn’t care if some girl he knew got cored, or put his life aside for months to try’n help her.”

“Maybe,” Arlen said. “But only a demon’d ask that girl to become one herself.”

“You din’t ask me nothing,” Renna said. “I make my own choices now.”

“Then take time and make it with care,” Arlen said, “ ’cause it ent one you can take back.”

CHAPTER 31

JOYOUS BATTLE

333 AR SUMMER

ROJER TOLD EVERYONE HE practiced his fiddle by the great stairwell of the manse rather than in his own wing because that precise spot would let the sound echo throughout the building. It was true enough, but the real reason he had chosen the spot was that it afforded a perfect view of the door to Amanvah and Sikvah’s chambers. For three days, he’d seen no sign of the girls.

He didn’t know why he cared. What had he been thinking, standing up for Sikvah when he had the perfect excuse to refuse them both? Or letting them stay after they had tried to kill Leesha? Was he actually considering becoming son-in-law to the demon of the desert? The thought of marriage had always terrified Rojer. He had left hamlets half a dozen times in the last few years to avoid that noose.

Marriage is professional death, Arrick had always said. Women are eager to bed Jongleurs, so we oblige them. But once you’re promised, suddenly all those things that drew her to you in the first place need sorting. They don’t want you traveling anymore. Then they don’t want you performing every night. Or at odd hours. Then they want to know why you always choose the sunny girl to throw knives at. Before you know it, you’re working as a corespawned carpenter and lucky to sing on Seventh day. Sleep in any woman’s bed you like, but keep a packed bag next to it, and leave the first time you hear the word promise.

Yet he had leapt to Sikvah’s rescue without a thought, and even now, the beautiful harmony of their voices resounded in his head. Rojer ached to join that harmony, and when he thought of how their robes had fallen to the floor, it brought another kind of ache, one he hadn’t felt for any other woman since he met Leesha.

But Leesha didn’t want him, and Arrick had died drunk and friendless.

Abban’s women appeared now and again to bring food and remove commode pots, but the door to the girls’ chambers never opened more than a crack, and always slammed shut before he could so much as peek inside.

That night at alagai’sharak, Rojer kept a nervous eye on Jardir. Kaval had Gared and Wonda fighting with spear and shield alongside the other dal’Sharum, and they acquitted themselves well. Gared might be too clumsy for sharusahk, but in a shield-press, there was no one stronger, no one who could reach his spear farther from the warded shield wall.

But Rojer felt his absence acutely as he, Leesha, and Jardir followed the press with several Spears of the Deliverer, even though Rojer kept them bathed in his music and the demons did not approach. Sooner or later, Jardir would ask Rojer’s intentions toward his daughter and niece, and if his answer was not satisfactory, violence and death might quickly occur. His.

But thus far, Jardir only had eyes for Leesha, doting on her like a man truly in love. Of course, that made spending time around him no easier, especially when Rojer caught Leesha returning the gazes. He wasn’t a fool. He knew what that meant even if she didn’t.

Rojer breathed a sigh of relief when the sweep ended and they were dismissed into the city. He was thoroughly miserable, his fingers numb from playing and every muscle in his body aching. He was bathed in sweat and coated in a greasy layer of soot from burning demons.

It didn’t help that Gared and Wonda, flushed with demon magic, looked as if they had just hopped out of bed instead of heading back to it. Rojer had never tasted the magic. After seeing the Painted Man dissipate and talk of slipping into the Core, it terrified him. Better to keep the demons at a distance with music and throwing knives.

But after close to a year in Deliverer’s Hollow, the effects of the magic on those who regularly partook were obvious. They were stronger. Faster. Never sick, never tired. The young ones aged faster, and the old ones aged slower, or in reverse. Rojer, on the other hand, felt like he was going to collapse.

He stumbled to his bedchamber, thinking to fall into oblivion for a few hours, but the sweet-smelling Krasian oil lamps in his room were lit, which was odd, since it had still been light out when he left. A pitcher of cool water was on his nightstand, along with a loaf of bread that was still warm to the touch.

“I have had Sikvah prepare you a bath as well, intended,” a voice said behind Rojer. He shouted in fright and spun around, throwing knives coming into his hands, but it was only Amanvah, with Sikvah kneeling behind her beside a great steaming tub.

“What are you doing in my room?” Rojer asked. He told his hands to put the blades away, but they stubbornly refused.

Amanvah knelt smoothly, ritually, touching her forehead to the floor. “Forgive me, intended. I have been…indisposed of late and depended overmuch on Sikvah in my recovery. My heart aches that we have not been able to attend you.”

“It’s…ah, all right,” Rojer said, making the knives vanish. “I don’t need anything.”

Amanvah sniffed the air. “Your pardon, intended, but you do need a bath. Tomorrow begins the Waning, and you must be prepared.”

“The Waning?” Rojer asked.

“Dark moon,” Amanvah said, “when Alagai Ka the demon prince is said to roam. A man must have bright Waning days to hold him steady in darkest night.”