I’d relied too much on my magical perceptions, allowed myself to get distracted and lazy, and almost killed someone. Again.
My legs trembled beneath me, threatening to dump me on the floor.
The woman smoothed the confusion from her face and dipped a quick bow. “Yes. I’m Kessa, with the troupe of traveling players who arrived this morning. The Foxglove Theater Company; finest in Vaskandar, if I do say so myself. I was trying to bring these from the kitchens for the other players”—she made a grand, tragic gesture toward the fallen meat pies—“and, well, it’s easy to get lost in this place.”
“I’m so sorry I almost ran into you,” I said, which seemed like an appalling understatement given what had nearly happened. “You should stick close to the vines with the purple flowers when you’re walking around Gloamingard.”
“Yes, someone mentioned that. They were terribly dramatic about it, in fact, but I thought—” Her bright brown eyes came into sharper focus on mine then, and she broke off. I knew what she was seeing: lightning-blue rings around my pupils. Realization broke over her face like a cold wave. Who knew what rumors she’d heard—and if she miraculously hadn’t heard any, the staff would have been eager to warn her the moment she crossed the threshold.
Whatever you do, don’t go near the Warden. If you touch her, you’ll die.
She killed a man when she was four years old. They say she’s cursed.
Just last summer a stable boy bumped into her, and his heart stopped for half a minute. He didn’t wake up for days, and he may never be the same.
“Oh!” Kessa’s eyes widened. I braced myself for the inevitable flick of fingers out from her chest in the warding sign.
But it didn’t come. Instead, she dropped to her knees in one fluid movement, head bowed. “Forgive me, Exalted Atheling. I didn’t notice your mage mark.”
My fingertips flew up self-consciously toward my eyes. “You don’t need to kneel. We don’t do that here.”
Kessa rose, dusting her skirts off, and flashed me a smile. “Better safe than sorry, Exalted. We travel all over Vaskandar, and every domain is different. We just came from Alevar, and if I didn’t kneel to a marked mage there, they might have decorated a tree with my head.”
“This isn’t Alevar.” Now that I knew she was safe, I was eager for her to get out of my path so I could head to the Birch Gate. “Please be careful. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but my magic is flawed. If I touch you, you’ll die.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “I heard that, but I thought they were exaggerating,” she admitted. “That’s got to be awkward. And the gloves don’t help?” She nodded toward my hands.
Sympathetic curiosity wasn’t the response I was used to. The only other people outside my family who’d reacted to my power without fear or aversion were a Raverran boy I knew and Rillim, the girl I’d once had mad dreams of courting. A flush crept up my cheeks, and I found myself inexplicably staring at the way dark strands of Kessa’s hair lay against her neck as she tilted her head, waiting.
I couldn’t get distracted; I had too much to do.
“Through the gloves, a quick touch might not kill you outright,” I said. “Skin to skin, it’s instant. Now, if you’ll excuse me… Wait a minute.” A few things fitted belatedly together in my mind, and I frowned. “We’re not anywhere near the kitchens or the Old Great Hall where the players are rehearsing. You’re more than a little lost.”
She let out a rich, warm laugh, but something flickered in her eyes. “More lost than I thought, apparently, and I ruined the meat pies. My friends will never let me hear the end of it.”
“There’s nothing in this part of Gloamingard but the old stone keep.” And the Door, with all its compelling mystery and power. “You said you came from Alevar. Did you have any dealings with the Shrike Lord, perchance?”
“No, Exalted.” She gave a convincing little shudder. “I’ve heard he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor—a rather grave character failing, and one often coupled with a lack of appreciation for theater.”
I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my mouth. I wanted to like her—she had lovely sparkling eyes to match her wit, and an easy grin that welcomed me in on the joke. But she’d been too quick with her explanation for being here, as if she’d prepared it in advance. Not to mention that much as I appreciated her relaxed and friendly manner, it didn’t fit for a commoner used to domains where you had to kneel to avoid a mage’s ire.
If she’d been poking around near the Black Tower, it didn’t matter whether I liked her. The Gloaming Lore was quite clear on our duty: Guard the tower, ward the stone. The magical protections on the Door were powerful, but that only made tampering with it all the more dangerous.
“Did you see anything interesting, while you were wandering lost?” I asked, deliberately casual.
Kessa hesitated only a fraction of a second. “With respect, Exalted, every inch of this place ranges from interesting to outright bizarre.”
A new voice spoke, low and rough as the rumble of an approaching avalanche:
“She’s asking because she thinks you’re a spy.”
My grandmother rounded the corner, her power gathered palpably around her like a cloak of thunder.
It was always her eyes that caught me first. Blazing orange rings circled each pupil, her mage mark standing out fierce and wild from her dark irises. Everything else fell into place around them: her white crest of hair, her strong jaw and hollow cheeks, the dagger-thin length of her body honed sharp as a weapon. A pale mantle of rust-barred owl feathers cascaded in layers from her shoulders, coming to a point at the small of her back like folded wings. She was ageless and ancient, a hundred and seventy years not so much weighing on her lightly as burned to fuel some secret inner fire. The sheer force of her power made the air around her tremble.
Kessa paled and stepped back, nearly slipping on a meat pie.
“Ryx,” my grandmother greeted me, “I must commend you. Your instinct for finding trouble remains flawless.”
“Better to find it by spotting it than by stepping in it.” I didn’t add For a change, but it hung unspoken between us nonetheless. “Grandmother, this is Kessa. She claims she’s one of the traveling players visiting the castle.”
“Is she, now.” My grandmother paced toward Kessa with the deadly prowl of a predator, the sheer force of her presence oppressive in the narrow corridor. “You were clever, slipping into my castle while I was distracted by another visitor. But nothing escapes an owl’s notice.”
She swept past me like a cold winter wind. Kessa held her ground, still and silent—though by the strain in her eyes and the trembling in the hands she laced together behind her back, she knew very well the danger she was in.
My grandmother stopped in front of her, her voice nonetheless powerful as she dropped it to a whisper. “Nothing. Not even a rook.”
The full implication of what she’d said sank in. “You’re not spying for Alevar,” I breathed. “You’re spying for the Rookery.”
I didn’t know much about the Rookery, only a tangle of stories and rumors probably no more accurate than the ones about me. A mysterious group with the backing of both Vaskandar and the Serene Empire, they dealt with strange and dangerous magic when it became a problem others couldn’t handle. Which was all well and good, but our strange and dangerous magic was private.