The boy’s terrified cries for mercy. The guilty peach forgotten on the ground, smeared in blood and dirt.
I’d known what would happen when I grabbed that man’s arm to stop him from hitting my friend again—Hells, I couldn’t even remember the boy’s name. Afterward, my father told everyone that I didn’t understand; I was only four years old.
I knew. In that moment, I didn’t care. I was too angry, too desperate.
The terrible feeling of life turning to death under my hand, of flesh hardening and something precious departing. The dull glassy stare of eyes with no soul left in them. The ponderous, ground-shaking thud of his empty shell falling to the hard earth.
That was when people stopped looking at me. Instead of waving hello, they made the warding sign, fingers flicking out from their chests: avert.
My father had explained, the grass-green rings of his mage mark glistening with tears, that I’d have to go foster with my grandmother. She was a Witch Lord, stronger than the mountain, more cunning than the river, ancient as a tree. She could handle me. She would keep me safe, and keep me out of trouble.
And she had, more or less. For seventeen years, I’d barely left the castle, washing down my yearning to visit other places with a bitter draft of It’s safer for everyone this way.
After all that caution, trouble had come here to find me, wearing flowers and silver-ringed eyes.
My head jerked up from the cool wooden boards of the floor, and I blinked grit from my eyes. I had to stay awake. Lamiel hadn’t arrived here a day early just to sit in her room; it was only a matter of time until she made her move.
A voice spoke behind me, soft as silk sliding across my palm.
“It’ll be easier to kill her if you leave the door ajar.”
I barely stopped myself from leaping up and screaming. Instead I made a muffled choking noise and twisted around to face the lean, elegant creature who sat in the window, tail curled around his paws, backlit by the moon behind him.
“Hello, Whisper,” I said. “Thank you for your rather morbid advice, but I’m not currently planning on killing anyone.”
“Suit yourself.” His tone suggested that I was being foolish, but he was too polite to point it out. “How will you stop her if she tries to enter the Black Tower?”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than sneak up behind people and ask them ominous questions?”
“No.” He leaped down and prowled closer on silent paws. “And that’s not an answer.”
Whisper was a chimera, created by one of my Witch Lord ancestors long ago. He had the splendid tail and pointed face of a fox, the nimble grace and sharp hidden claws of a cat, and the sinuous lethality of a weasel. His fur was so black he seemed to vanish into two dimensions, a slip of mislaid shadow, except for the burning yellow glare of his eyes.
No one knew who had created him or what centuries-old purpose he served. He’d already been slinking about the rooftops and windowsills when my grandmother was a girl, making short work of any small, sly creatures other mages might send to spy on the castle. He obeyed no one’s orders, kept his motives secret, and followed his own rules. The rest of my family treated him like something between an ill-omened haunt and a household pest.
He was one of the only friends I had.
“If words aren’t enough, I don’t know how I’ll stop her,” I admitted. “Grandmother’s hunch aside, I don’t have much reason to think she’ll try to open the Door. I’m more worried about her stirring up political trouble.”
“Then your priorities are wrong.” Whisper slipped past me, his fur brushing my arm, soft as a night breeze. I flinched instinctively, despite knowing that whatever magic extended his life also fortified it enough that my touch didn’t harm him.
“Is what’s in the Black Tower so dangerous?” I asked. I had no doubt it was—I only had to walk past it to know that—but I’d take any chance to tease out more of a glimpse into Whisper’s own secret priorities.
“Dangerous enough.” Whisper’s bushy tail flicked, like a knife cut across the air. “Dangerous for you. Stay away from it, Ryx.”
“I know the Gloaming Lore.” I paused, eyeing him. “You’ve lived here longer than anyone. Do you know what’s in there?”
He settled on his haunches, fixing his gleaming yellow eyes on me for a long moment in silence.
“Something best forgotten,” he said at last, his voice soft as falling snow.
Well, that was unsettling. “Care to explain?”
“No.” He lifted his head, and his ears pricked and swiveled toward the door.
On the far side came a creak of hinges. Quiet footfalls sounded in the hallway.
“You’d better see to that,” Whisper said.
I muttered a curse and pulled on my gloves. Lamiel was on the move.
Gloamingard lay dark and empty, with nothing else awake but shadows and moonlight. Lamiel crept through the castle with guilty care; I watched her from crawl spaces and balconies, behind curtains and fantastical sculptures, trailing her or guessing her route and scampering ahead. The latter was made more difficult by Lamiel’s lack of knowledge of Gloamingard’s twisting halls; more than once she peered out a window, muttered a soft curse, and doubled back the way she came.
I’d known she was up to no good. The only question that remained to be seen was precisely what kind of mayhem she was planning.
She passed into the Green Palace, and I had to stop, watching her shining pale hair disappear behind a curtain of swaying moon-silvered fronds. It was a section of Gloamingard hollowed by magic from the hearts of massive living trees, carpeted with moss and flowers—all grown and sculpted five hundred years ago by the Sycamore Lord himself, one of the Eldest, the first Witch Lord in our family line. I’d never set foot in there; I might kill the trees and bring whole sections of the castle tumbling down.
I didn’t need to follow Lamiel to know where she was going now. On the far side of the Green Palace lay nothing but the old stone keep, the looming spire of the Black Tower, and the Door.
I hesitated for one frozen second, dozens of thoughts flashing through my mind in the space between heartbeats. I could run around the long way to meet her at the Door and confront her, or I could go get reinforcements—wake Odan or call for the battle chimeras. But if I went for help, Lamiel would get to the Door first and have at least several minutes with it completely undisturbed. The tower wards should keep her out, but they also might seriously injure her if she trifled with them, and that was the last thing I needed. Besides, only a fool believed any ward to be impenetrable.
If I were a proper mage, I could touch the tree tower and seal her inside it, or send one of the birds or mice who nested around the castle as a messenger to fetch help. All I had was my own voice and legs and hands, curse it, and I could only be in one place at a time.
I couldn’t risk it.
I swerved down a side corridor; if I hurried, I might be able to beat her there. I couldn’t quite bring myself to sprint through the Bone Palace—not after I’d almost killed Kessa earlier today—but I walked as swiftly as I dared through its stark bone-lined chambers, past friezes formed from magically twisted ribs and scapulae, and through the Hall of Chimes. I all but leaped through the window into the old stone keep, bursting into a run at last as I breathed in the musty scent of its abandoned halls.