ADAMO

Leaving a man to stew with his own thoughts and no one else to talk to was a common tactic in prisons everywhere. Troius probably thought he’d invented it, and wherever he was—having tea parties with his big metal dollies, no doubt—he was probably congratulating himself for a job well done.

What he didn’t bank on was the cut on the back of my neck, the scab just now congealing, and my conversational partner in one of the cells a ways down from mine. All that was proving to be a real good distraction.

 … blood … again … Antoinette’s voice whispered, faint as the wind howling outside a window, only the ghostly noise was right between my ears.

It took me a moment to realize what she wanted, but less time to do her bidding. When someone knew what they were talking about, you didn’t stop to ask them stupid questions.

That’s better, Antoinette said, once there was blood all over my neck again. You’re much cleverer than Royston would have had me believe.

He likes to talk me down, I explained. Doesn’t want to raise anyone’s expectations.

Enough small talk, Antoinette replied. I’ve done my best to bring a rescue party. Is there anything in your cell you might use as a weapon?

I glanced around but without high hopes. Troius respected me—though his respect wasn’t worth the dirt on the back of a ha’penny—too much to leave me with anything I could use as tool for my own escape. But he’d given me that little chair to sit on. While I wouldn’t be able to break any doors down with it, I could sure as shit get a few good blows before the wood splintered.

Not ideal, but I’ve got something, I told her.

I have a chair as well, Antoinette said. How inglorious this will be.

Ain’t about the glory, I said, recalling just how often I’d given that same speech to my boys, and a couple of the less practical ones in particular.

How true, Antoinette said. Something about her voice gave me the idea that she might’ve been smiling. There is very little glory in being taken captive by someone you once considered an ally. Even worse when it’s a friend.

I sure would’ve liked to ask her more about that one, maybe ascertain whether all that shit Royston’d told me about Antoinette and th’Esar was really true. I wasn’t exactly one for gossip, but if she’d been his lover before, something told me that relationship was about to get colder than the Cobalts’ highest peak. There weren’t enough flowers and chocolates and even fine jewelry to make a woman forgive you after this kind of betrayal. But before I could get another thought-word in, I heard footsteps approaching down the hall.

Someone’s coming, I told her. Think that might be your rescue party?

No, Antoinette said. It isn’t them. All I can sense is the stink of that woman’s magic.

I stilled, waiting for Troius to present himself—maybe with his dragon, this time, just to impress upon me one more time who was who in these negotiations. He was probably coming back to see if I’d made my choice yet, thinking he could lean on me a little bit. As if there was any real choice to make. A man needed to be decisive in order to be a good soldier, but that didn’t mean his decisions didn’t trouble him at all.

I was so focused on Troius and how much I disliked him—and whether or not I could get away with clanging him on the head with my chair straightaway—that I didn’t realize until the last second that it wasn’t Troius coming for me.

Instead, it was some kid I didn’t recognize, closer to Laure’s age than Troius’s. He was tall and a little vacant-looking—and there was just something familiar about his face that I couldn’t quite peg down. It niggled at me, the way so many things were doing lately, distracting me.

They had the boy dressed all in green like the rest of these Dragon Guard piss-buckets, and I figured maybe that was what was messing with my perception, since the uniform didn’t suit him at all.

“Professor Adamo?” he whispered.

All at once, it hit me like shrapnel kicked up during one of Ghislain’s crusher-runs. This was one of my kids—maybe even the one Laure’d told me was missing. So I’d been wrong about them being shirkers—they hadn’t been going out with the fever at all. They’d been “disappearing” and landing in prison, same as I had.

I stood up, getting as close to the cell door as I could without leaving my shackled leg behind.

“Don’t suppose you could come in here?” I asked. “Might be more comfortable for the two of us.”

“They don’t give the likes of us keys to important things,” the boy said, shaking his straw-colored head. When he turned back to me a funny light passed over his eyes, too quick for me to study. “I … Well, to be blunt, Professor Adamo, I’ve gotta admit that I came to you for help. My name’s Gaeth. Don’t know if you remember me, but I sat in on some of your classes—at least, before I got the fever. They were my favorite, on account of how there wasn’t any reading or writing involved.”

This time, I didn’t have to dig deep into the dried-up, near-senile grounds of my poor mind to place a memory to the name. It was the one Laure’d given me, what felt like ages ago now, when we’d met in my office and she’d trusted me to help her. Since I hadn’t seen any of my boys around the place, I had to hope I hadn’t sent her straight from one trap into another.

Still, now that I knew they were poaching country folk brought to the city under false pretenses, it was anyone’s guess what th’Esar would stoop to.

“Sure, I remember you,” I said, which wasn’t exactly true. I remembered Laure talking about him, which was different. But it didn’t matter, since it was what he wanted to hear, and if I was judging him right, he looked comforted. I just had to hope that this wasn’t a trap, but that didn’t seem like Troius’s style at all. If he was gonna use subterfuge, then he’d want to be the one to do it, for the bragging rights—and he’d never send this kid from the country, reminding me in his quiet way of Balfour, though not nearly as well spoken. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed—and I’m sorry to be the one telling you this—but I’m not in much of a position to be helping anyone at the minute.”

“I know,” Gaeth said, concern flashing over his simple features. “It’s awful rude of me—my mam always said you shouldn’t ask no one for nothing, ‘specially if he’s worse off than you, and I’ve tried to abide by it, even here in the city. But I heard that man talking about how they had you here and I had to come and see you.”

“And now you see me,” I said, wishing I had higher hopes of being able to help him. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“It ain’t that,” Gaeth said. “They’ve had me here for ages. I went to see the doctor and must’ve fallen asleep, ’cause when I woke up, there I was in that big room that looks like a smithy! Couldn’t find out where I was, nor if my mam was worried for me. Not to mention … well, best not to speak of the beastie.”

“Beastie?” I asked, latching onto that last bit. I was getting real predictable in my old age; I just had to hope Gaeth wouldn’t hold it against me.

He paled; then his cheeks flooded with color, like he was embarrassed.

“The … the dragons,” he said, leaning close and whispering nervously, like he was afraid they’d hear him—wherever they were. “They told me I was very lucky—a ‘prime candidate,’ they said—and they wouldn’t let me leave no matter how many times I told ’em I had reading to learn and my mam to write to. Then they locked me in a room with a … well, I thought she were a monster at first, but I guess I can’t call her that anymore, since in none of the tales can the monsters talk so right. She’s all over silver and blue, and real gentle, but only once you get to know her. She wanted me to name her so I did—a good name, Cornflower—though the man in charge didn’t seem to like that very much, but I suspect he’s got feelings about simple country folk. But she reminded me of my prize milk cow—a real beauty. I do miss home.”

Gaeth added this last bit with a deep sigh, and I didn’t blame him in the slightest. Arresting a full-grown man like me—or a scrapper like Antoinette, who could clearly take care of herself—was one thing. Not that we’d deserved it, but we knew the city, and to some extent we understood its pitfalls and dangers, so that even when th’Esar went off his rocker and came flying at us sideways, we weren’t too surprised. But this poor bastard was still a kid, not to mention simple as sweet cream. He had no way of knowing Thremedon’s politics—presumably that’s what he’d come to the city to study in the first place—or what it meant that th’Esar’d decided to re-create his own miniature army, violating a pretty important treaty alongside our trust. Far as I could tell, he just wanted to go home. And I didn’t blame him. Hell, I wanted that, too, and I was a seasoned veteran.

“Where’s your dragon now?” I asked.

“I told her to stay put,” Gaeth said, peering over his shoulder. He looked nervous, and I couldn’t say I blamed him for that, either. Dragon Corps had been staffed mostly by volunteers—the problem had been too many people wanting to join, not too few. I couldn’t imagine what it’d feel like to black out and wake up in a stable, with some mean weasel-faced bastard telling me that I’d been picked to ride one of th’Esar’s finest, without actually having volunteered. “She doesn’t always listen, though. Just like my old Cornflower.”

“Troius told me these dragons always listen to orders,” I said.

“Well, sometimes,” Gaeth said. “But sometimes Cornflower has a few words to say about orders. And sometimes she don’t follow them at all.”

“Interesting,” I said, wondering if the reason for the discrepancy was Troius lying to me or Gaeth having a weaker will. Chances were it was the former—and it made sense Troius’d want to believe everything with the new dragons was working out peachy, since no one wanted to be the first to tell th’Esar that things weren’t running according to plan. Used to be my job. Not anymore. I just hoped Troius would be able to have some real good fun with it.

“I thought maybe I’d try to run away,” Gaeth added. “Not that I’m a runner—my da always said, ‘Face facts, boy’—but if my mam was worrying about not hearing from me, I figured that was more important than honoring my da’s memory. But then I thought, I just don’t know what I’ll do with Cornflower at the farm. She might set fire to the barn, and then Mam’ll have to take her down to the river.”

“Don’t think they’re gonna let you pack up and take her home,” I told him before he could get too carried away.

“But I have to go home,” Gaeth said, concern giving way to plain distress. “I done what they wanted … and I miss the sunlight. Without good exercise, I can’t even sleep proper. You don’t think they mean to keep me here forever, do you?”

“That’s exactly what I think,” I said, wavering for only a moment before I told him the truth. Why sugarcoat it? Because he was poor and from the country? Because I felt sorry for him? Nah. That kind of shit never flew with me. I’d only had one way of talking to my boys, and this Gaeth had a dragon now, which made him one of my boys just by default. If I didn’t toughen him up a little, there was a chance no one would, and he’d end up in pieces somewhere, his fate weighing heavy on my conscience.

Anyway, he took it well, so I knew my instincts hadn’t been all off about him. He just stared at me, breathing in deep before he nodded.

“I guessed it,” he said.

“Wish I didn’t have to confirm your suspicions,” I said, starting to lose feeling in my shackled-up leg.

“But will you help me?” Gaeth asked.

“Don’t know how much I can do from inside here,” I reminded him, clanking the chain a bit for emphasis.

“You could pretend to do what they want, couldn’t you?” Gaeth asked. “That’s what I did—what I’m doing—not that it’s done me much good. But if there’s two of us … And my Cornflower; not forgetting her. One dragon against the other two—there’d be three, but they’re having trouble with her. So I’m thinking we’d have better odds. Some even say there’s magicians in here now, and I know they’re smarter than me—and I’m smart enough to know being locked up ain’t good … Maybe they’d join us.”

Well? Antoinette asked, and I was real proud of myself for not jumping when her voice suddenly invaded my head. Are you being carted off or not?

Hang on, I told her. It’s a kid. They’ve got kids down here. Th’Esar’s pairing kids up with new dragons and Regina only knows what horseshit plan he’s following.

Silence, from inside my head and outside, too, as Gaeth waited for my answer, all white around the mouth the way Balfour used to get before a raid.

When I’m finished with that man, even the worms will not want to eat him, Antoinette said finally.

Good plan, I replied. Why poison the worms?

“Listen, Gaeth,” I said, lowering my voice as best I could, so that he’d have to lean in. “Someone’s coming to break us out. Friends of mine, I think. If we’re lucky—and I’m not saying we will be—can you stick around here to wait for them?”

“I could,” Gaeth admitted, looking up and down the hall again. “But my Cornflower …”

The reluctance in his voice sent a pang through me. If he thought it was bad being nagged by her now, try after they’d been together for years, and she knew him well enough to outsmart him all the time.

“Where are they keeping the other dragons?” I asked. Not because I was fool enough to think we could go after them but because it seemed like good information to have—for later, maybe, so we didn’t stumble into a damn nest.

“There’s another building,” Gaeth whispered. “Across a bridge—I’m always worried I’ll take a tumble straight off the thing. I can swim, but the water’s so dark, it ain’t natural. No one’s fallen in yet, but it makes me sick to look down.”

“I’ve been there,” I told him, remembering the metal key in Troius’s palm and Ironjaw’s claws tearing up the floor.

Just then I heard more footsteps—several pairs this time and all at once, like a team of guards heading toward my cell.

“Is that for you, or me?” I asked, hoping Gaeth wouldn’t spook.

“Might be they learned I was coming,” Gaeth whispered, holding very still. That might’ve helped him while dealing with bears in the countryside, but it wouldn’t do much good with a trained guard. “I know my Cornflower didn’t betray me, though. She doesn’t like Troius, and she hates Ironjaw.”

Hush the boy, Antoinette said.

Are they friend or foe? I asked.

I’m a mind reader, Antoinette replied, not an oracle.

Either way, we’d know soon enough. I tried to indicate to Gaeth that he should hightail it out of there. If he was caught consorting with the enemy, I didn’t know how far his precious rare connection to a dragon would go to protect him, and I didn’t want him getting hurt on my account.

“It’s a big man,” Gaeth whispered, eyes fixed not on me, but staring off somewhere down the hall. “Very big man.”

I could see now why Troius wanted to recruit someone like me to the cause—someone who knew a little something about actual training.

Then, an arm—a very big arm—reached out to grab Gaeth by the shoulder, managing to lift him clear of the ground.

There was only one person I knew in all of Thremedon who could do that, and I was relieved for a moment to realize my rescue party had come at last. But I didn’t want Gaeth panicking and calling his girl to attack. That’d be a surefire way to let everyone know what was happening.

“Put ’im down, Ghislain,” I said.

Slowly, Gaeth was lowered to the floor. A moment after that, Ghislain’s head loomed into view. “This one’s not bothering you?” he asked.

I could hear the jingling of keys, which at least meant that while we were shooting the shit, just casually catching up, somebody was trying to bust me out.

“Not any more than young folk usually do,” I replied. “And I think he’s on our side. Though we’ve got someone a few cells down who’ll be able to tell for certain. In the meantime, Gaeth, this is Ghislain. Make your acquaintance on your own time. You don’t want to get on Ghislain’s bad side, now do you, Gaeth?”

“No, Professor Adamo,” Gaeth said, not so much wide-eyed as he was well mannered. I was even starting to like him, so it’d really chafe my chaps if he turned out to be pulling a fast one on me.

“Good,” I said. “What in bastion’s name is taking so long with the keys out there?”

“Keys’re getting stuck to Balfour’s hands,” Ghislain explained.

And, crazy as it might’ve sounded to anyone else, it made perfect sense to me. Which just went to show how upside down my world had become.

“Gaeth?” I heard a familiar voice ask, a little too loud for my liking, from somewhere outside my cell. It belonged to that skinny cricket—the one engaged to Laure—though it seemed I’d forgotten his name outta pure spite.

“You’re the one who locked him up?” another voice demanded. It was the one I’d been hoping not to hear, truth be told, because it only meant that the girl’d gone and put herself in harm’s way—when I’d been trying to put her right out of it.

But I guessed it was exactly what I would’ve done, so I couldn’t fault her for it. Still, I certainly wished I’d been less complacent, so I wouldn’t look like the biggest fool this side of the Cobalts when Balfour finally got the cell door open.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” Gaeth protested. “Professor Adamo’s a hero. He doesn’t belong down here.”

Your little party could stand to be a little less boisterous, Antoinette suggested. And she was right, of course. I cleared my throat, which Ghislain and Balfour would recognize as a sign for everyone to shut the fuck up. It might’ve been a while since we’d all fought together, but some cues triggered instincts you just never forgot.

Ghislain lifted his hand—I couldn’t see his face anymore, since the opening in my cell door was set too low, but I could only assume he’d brought his fingers to his lips—and said, only once but very convincing, “Shh.”

Everybody quieted, so all we could hear was the jingling of the keys, and—finally—the sound of the right one sliding deep into the lock, turning with a click that was music to my ears.

I couldn’t celebrate just yet, but it was step one completed. The door swung open and I saw Ghislain—or the lower half of his body, most of his head cut off by the top of the door—and Balfour crouched beside him. There was Laure, too, standing with her hands on her hips like she needed to be sure I was really in the cell, taking in the details like a natural. Next to her was her fiancé, wringing his hands together, and Gaeth, scratching at the back of his head.

But that wasn’t all, I realized, feeling a little overwhelmed. Luvander’d come along, too, and next to him was somebody my eyes wouldn’t believe I was seeing.

“We brought a surprise,” that someone said, lifting his hand in a wave. “Can you imagine? It’s me!”

“Now, Raphael,” Luvander cautioned, “Owen Adamo has had a very long day. Let’s try not to be unnecessarily wearing.”

I had a lot of things to say, but I had to lick my lips a few times and force myself to be their Chief Sergeant, thereby not actually saying any of ’em. “Where’s Royston?” I asked finally. “He didn’t do anything stupid, did he?”

“That remains to be seen,” Balfour said, coming inside the cell and searching for a key to unlock the cuff around my ankle. “He provided the distraction. We don’t have much time.”

“Then toss Ghislain some keys and get the magicians out,” I told him.

“It’ll take a minute,” Balfour said, trying another key. “I just need to be sure I have the right … Ah, there we go.”

The manacle opened and I was free. Fortunately it hadn’t been on me long enough to do any real damage; though the skin was sensitive, it wasn’t yet raw.

Without waiting any longer—so, without wasting any more time—Balfour tossed his keys up to Ghislain.

“There were two in cells that I saw,” I told him. “Doesn’t mean there aren’t more around, so check all of ’em.”

“There are more now,” Laure said, seeming unsure of herself when everyone looked around toward her, then soldiering on. “Margrave Royston said they were making arrests at the Basquiat right after you were taken. Stands to reason they’d be here, too, doesn’t it?”

“Let’s hope,” I muttered. If they were anywhere else, chances were they wouldn’t be doing so well. It seemed to me that being where I was was actually being lucky, ’cause at least it meant nobody was dead. Then again, being dead didn’t seem to carry the same finality it used to. What was the world coming to?

“I’ll find them,” Ghislain said, ducking under the low door of my cell and heading back out into the hall.

With him gone, there wasn’t anything standing between me and Raphael anymore. I stared at him, and he stared at me. If we stood around in the cell any longer, I really was gonna start spewing all sorts of horseshit—and maybe give him an earful about idiots whose brains went lame in the war and didn’t have enough sense in their heads to come home after it’d ended, like everybody else.

“Good to see you,” I said finally.

“It’s good to be seen,” Raphael said. “I’ll go into detail later, but suffice it to say that I was living on the Seon border, being worshipped as a good-luck charm because of the size of my—”

Am I to assume this very large and handsome man is part of your rescue party? Antoinette asked me suddenly.

Yeah, I told her. That’d be Ghislain.

It seems my luck has turned around, Antoinette said. He looks quite … useful. I see that he has Ginette and Wildgrave Ozanne with him.

Already? I asked.

He moves quickly, and so should you, Chief Sergeant, Antoinette said. I don’t know what sort of distraction Royston cooked up, but I imagine time is not necessarily on our side. Let us value his assistance.

Got it, I said, drawing myself up to my full height. With Ghislain out of the picture, it’d actually seem impressive.

Luvander and Balfour were both staring at me like they were afraid the sudden shock of seeing Raphael again might’ve harmed my brain. They were used to me operating faster than this, but I had to take stock of my resources before I could decide where to begin.

In the corner of my cell, Gaeth and that skinny cricket were having a whispered conversation that seemed placid on one side—that was Gaeth—and all kinds of frenzied on the other. I heard the cricket demand, in a stage whisper, where in Regina’s name Gaeth had been all this time and something about mother’s gloves—probably just some of today’s slang I wasn’t up on—as Gaeth tried to explain he’d been here the whole time. Meanwhile, the cricket was trying to clean something off his shoulder, using a glove as a kerchief.

Then there was Laure, who didn’t look worried, just mad and red in the face, like she was aching to get started. I knew what she was thinking—she didn’t know why we were waiting around in a prison for our captors to come back, making rounding us up again real easy—and I wished I had an answer for her, to put her worries to rest.

There were a few magicians I didn’t know, though I’d heard gossip about them from Royston, even if I couldn’t keep all that horseshit straight in my head for more than two minutes. Antoinette would be a powerful enough ally, and I’d take her word on the rest of the troops.

And then there were my boys. Ghislain would be good for anything; Balfour looked shell-shocked; Luvander could talk any enemy to death; and Raphael looked like you could bowl him over if you tapped him with a stick.

These were the soldiers I had to work with—three of them too young, and totally untrained, to boot. They were students, and even if one of them had a dragon, I knew better than anyone that having a dragon didn’t all of a sudden transform you into a seasoned warrior. I couldn’t compare them to the boys I’d had before—wouldn’t be fair to anyone since there was no replacing that crowd—but maybe the idea of something new wasn’t completely off base. The way th’Esar’d gone about assembling it was all cockeyed, and if I was the first one to see him, Antoinette was gonna have to fight me for the honor of breaking his nose.

I was just gonna have to hope that I could still lead—that after all this time, I hadn’t run out of juice.

“All right, men,” I said, and Laure cleared her throat. “Troops,” I amended, “we’ve got a bad situation here. Once we get the others rescued, we’re gonna convene and see if we can’t come to some kind of agreement on what to do next. If Ghislain runs into any trouble, we don’t want him to be out there on his own, do we? When a man’s flying solo, we’ve got his back. Ain’t that right?”

“Yes, sir,” Balfour and Luvander chorused.

Raphael, Gaeth, the cricket, and Laure all stared at them.

“What?” Luvander said, shrugging his shoulders in Raphael’s direction. “It isn’t my fault living among the Ke-Han has destroyed your discipline.”

“Let’s go,” I said, taking point. Just once, Balfour could hang back while I took over position of lead scout.

Someone shoved into place right next to me—a small someone, but looking pretty fierce.

“You’re all right, aren’t you?” Laure demanded, studying the hall real carefully and not looking at me. If she wanted to ascertain the information for herself, an inspection would’ve been the smartest choice, but none of us was operating on all burners. “I mean, that Germaine—she didn’t do anything to you, did she?”

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. Her hair was in her eyes, so I reached over and tucked a piece back behind her left ear. No good setting out on a mission with your visibility compromised. “Guess I’m just not important enough.”

“That’s not funny,” Laure said, then smacked me one on the shoulder. I didn’t know who looked more shocked afterward that she’d done it—me or her.

“I’ll make it up to you,” I said, not bothering to rub my shoulder on account of how we both would’ve known it was horseshit. “Maybe we can get hot chocolate in one of them real places, not a booth where they’re just as liable to sell you sweet brown water.”

“Or dinner,” Laure suggested, innocent as the country lamb she wasn’t. “Since I’m missing mine to do this.”

“If no one’s injured, we move on,” Luvander reminded us. I could’ve hit him myself. Only trouble was, he was completely right.

It wasn’t exactly hard to follow Ghislain’s trail. Just had to follow the open cell doors, down the simple corridor with its flickering light. To the credit of my new recruits, none of ’em was whispering or muttering anything or—like one poor bastard I’d known—giggling nonsensically every chance he got at things that weren’t funny anyway.

We were gonna have to do all this quick, before anyone came to check up on us and realized right away shit wasn’t right.

I rounded the first corner, followed by Laure, and nearly ran straight into Antoinette. At least I could be thankful it wasn’t Ghislain. I had a hard head, but if anything could crack it, that would’ve been it.

“I was wondering what was taking you so long,” Antoinette said. Her voice sounded a little different now that I was hearing it from outside rather than in. It made me feel like I had water caught in my ears, and I shook my head to wring ’em out.

“Had to wrangle the troops,” I said, gesturing around behind me. It was gonna be like herding kittens; a couple of them actually were kittens, in my professional opinion.

“That one is wearing the uniform of the men who arrested me,” Antoinette said, glaring around at Gaeth.

“I never arrested nobody,” Gaeth insisted, eyes wide as the sky. “I was raised better than that by a long shot. That’s the Provost’s job, and no one else’s.”

“I don’t suppose I can argue with that,” Antoinette said, sharp, scarlet nails drawing a stray piece of hair away from her face.

“He says he’s with us,” I told her quickly. “He might not be in a cell, but he’s a captive. I was hoping you could tell us whether or not he’s lying.”

Gaeth looked at Antoinette nervously. He had good instincts—sharp enough to tell he was supposed to be afraid of her. “How’s that done?” he asked.

“Just a little scratch,” Antoinette said, though it was particularly gentle. “You’ll barely notice it.”

“If you draw blood, Cornflower’s bound to come,” Gaeth warned. “It’s happened before, and it’s never been pretty.”

“ ‘Cornflower’?” Antoinette repeated. “Does this boy think his prize cow is going to protect him?”

Stranger things had happened before, I thought, but it was time for me to intervene. “She’s his dragon,” I explained. “I guess we’re just gonna have to take his word for it that he’s gonna help us get out of here. You wouldn’t go back on your word, now, would you, Gaeth?”

“No, sir,” Gaeth said. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Just don’t be rash,” the cricket hissed. “First Laure, now you … I’m surrounded by foolhardy lunatics!”

“Is that Balfour?” asked another woman, standing just behind Antoinette. It was the one I’d seen in her cell earlier—Margrave Ginette. Under the bright lights she looked sickly, too pale. But then again, by my count, she’d been down there far longer than any of the rest of us. “I’m sorry I missed our appointment. I hope it didn’t prove too detrimental. How are you feeling?”

“I should ask you the same question,” Balfour said, under his breath, like he knew Antoinette and I weren’t gonna approve of small talk.

Heavy footsteps sounded along the hall, and I turned around to see Ghislain and three others making their way toward us. One of them was the Wildgrave Ozanne, and one the Margrave Cirse, who I recognized from a few parties Royston had thrown over the years. The third, of course, was the notorious Margrave Holt, who enjoyed breeding greyhounds—some said he enjoyed breeding them a little too much—but he looked normal enough.

Guess it was the normal-looking ones that always got you. Troius himself looked real respectable, right up until the minute he opened his fat yap and started blithering about his ambitions and dreams and sitting next to th’Esar on his throne so the two of them could play dragons all day long with their thumbs up their asses.

I was gonna enjoy spiking those plans, sure enough.

“Getting to be a regular army,” Ghislain said, sliding the key rings onto his belt. “That’s all of ’em. Where to next?”

“I need to speak with the Esarina,” Antoinette said, once the newly freed captives had all come within earshot. “I’m told that Nico’s scholarship students were a ruse, and that in reality, he’s been using them to re-create his lost army of dragons. I’m not sure how he got the idea—someone must have given it to him; it’s hardly his style to be so clever on his own—but he’s violated the provisions that allowed him to build the dragons in the first place.”

“You can’t be serious,” Wildgrave Ozanne said. “Surely he knows the Basquiat would never agree to such measures—and we have treaties in place with the Ke-Han, not to mention! Treaties we went to great pains to hammer out. If they learn we’ve done this behind their backs … Well, I’m not going back there for a second round!”

“We’ve seen the dragons,” Luvander said. “Well, pieces of them, anyway. They’re in a workroom upstairs, all laid out like clockwork.”

“I’ve seen one completed,” I told them. “And I was told there were three more finished up. Might as well get that detail out of the way first. They’re little bigger than one of your hounds, Margrave Holt, and smaller than a full-grown man like Ghislain—but I’d say they’re real enough. Although I haven’t heard ’em talking out loud, and it seems like they’ve been bound to individuals somehow. That kind of magic’s out of my league for explaining. I only know what I saw.”

“There’s Cornflower—she’s mine,” Gaeth said, sounding troubled. “And Ironjaw, who belongs to Troius. And then there are two more, but they haven’t found masters yet. I heard from Cornflower that there’s been trouble with the fourth. She picked someone, but they’re trying to rewire her so she chooses somebody else. It ain’t going so well, from the sounds of it.”

“Cornflower,” Luvander murmured. “How times have changed.”

“It will hardly fit into rousing song,” Raphael agreed.

“Hush,” Antoinette told them. And, bless her, they actually listened.

“They approached me to help them,” Ginette admitted. “I couldn’t, in all good conscience—which is how I ended up here. They wouldn’t tell me enough of their plan for me to be of any use, I’m afraid.”

“It seems simple enough,” Ozanne said. “Gather a private force, strike when the Basquiat’s weak. There were so few magicians left after the plague, and many of them with useless Talents, for gardening and the like. Without adequate warning, I can only assume he’d have us cornered in no time.”

“Which is why I think our best chance would be to speak with Esarina Anastasia,” Antoinette repeated, folding her hands in front of her. “She’s a sensible woman, and I believe she will listen if we plead our case. If the Esar’s plan is truly that far along, then our options are few. And I, for one, do not want to see a bloody civil war in the streets over this, which will most certainly be what erupts if we are not extremely careful when we act. At the same time, we must act quickly, before the element of surprise is lost. We have to step lightly here, boys—and that means you especially,” she added, with a glance in Ghislain’s direction.

“That’ll be easy,” Ghislain said dryly. “No one’ll even notice when we walk up to the palace and knock kindly on the front door.”

“Permission to speak,” Balfour said.

“Granted,” I replied, knowing at least he wasn’t one to waste precious time just to hear the sound of his own voice.

“I have reason to believe the workroom is connected to the palace,” Balfour continued; he sounded slightly breathless, like he really hated talking in front of so many people, but he was gonna do it anyway. Good old Balfour. He really did have Steelballs—and while I wasn’t the kind of man who took the credit for another man’s developments, I did hope I was part of the reason for helping ’em grow. “I’m not certain what kind of opposition we’ll face, or whether the passage will be guarded, but it seemed quite abandoned when I … It’s what Margrave Germaine used to escort me from the palace to work on my hands. Margrave Germaine gave me something, and it made my head unclear, but I don’t believe she counted on my expertise when it comes to memorizing the lay of the land. I passed through this very hall to get to the workroom up above; I’m sure of it.”

“Ah, Germaine,” Antoinette said, drawing out the syllables in a way that made me real glad I wasn’t the woman in question, or even a distant relative, for that matter. “We’ll want to deal with her as well, I imagine. Since she was so eager to take the title of Margrave, then the Basquiat will try her as one. We should call a meeting.”

“Then it seems pretty clear, doesn’t it?” Laure asked. “Who’s going where?”

“I think some of us should be going home,” the cricket muttered, but he didn’t sound like he had hopes of it.

“Let the girl speak,” Antoinette said sharply.

Laure coughed but looked pleased. “Thanks,” she said, straightening out her shoulders. “The way I see it is this: Magicians go to the Basquiat to call that meeting, and the rest of us take a delegation to the palace to speak with th’Esarina. I’m assuming that’d be you,” she added, nodding at Antoinette, “since you’re the only one here who knows her by her first name.”

Antoinette smiled, clapping Laure on the shoulder the same way I would’ve done for one of my boys, coming back from a successful raid. “It gives me hope to meet someone like you,” she said. Then, in clearer tones, she delineated the plan, instructing her fellow magicians to head to the Basquiat at once. If they ran into any trouble, she was clear enough about what they were to do—just obliterate it by any means and worry about being called to task for it later. None of them seemed ready to disagree with her, though Wildgrave Ozanne took a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing the hair at his temples, where sweat had begun to bead.

“I really do wish I could stop being arrested for no reason,” he said.

Splitting up into two groups made me uncomfortable, but it was a necessary measure. And knowing that the Basquiat was being gathered was a nice piece of backup. We just had to buy them some time—and since Roy’d done that for me, I figured I could do the same for him.

“Then we’re ready,” Antoinette said, as the other magicians slipped like shadows down the hall. “Balfour, lead the way.”

“He always does,” I replied.