“You know nothing,” the man said.
“I know some things. One of the things I know is no leader pulls a stunt like that when there’s a chance he might be captured—oh, like you were! So I ask again, whose idea was this?”
The Ascendant was silent. “Would you like me to ask that question with steel, Lady North?” Soltighan said.
“Not yet.” Her bones were humming with tension. If she’d been slower… “What have you done to Lord Frazier?” More silence. What would Rufus do in a situation like this? Find out what the man feared, of course. Not death, because this had been a suicide mission. Not their weapons, because he hadn’t flinched when Soltighan offered to torture him. But something had sent him down this path…
“I need a couple of volunteers to take him back to Magrette,” she said, crouching beside him. The Ascendant’s dark face paled, and he swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob painfully sharp against his throat. “He’ll want to tell his master how he failed.”
“No—” The word escaped his lips before he could close his mouth on it.
“No? Are you saying your master might be displeased with you? You were meant not to walk away from this, after all. Your master’s going to think you told us everything you know…and you know what kind of punishment traitors receive. Yes, I think you ought to be returned to Magrette.”
His lips compressed further, his eyes were white and wild with fear. “Or we could let you go,” Willow said in a low voice, leaning far over to whisper in his ear. “Tell us what we want to know, and I’ll release you. You can run—you might even escape. But you have to talk.”
The Ascendant’s breathing was ragged and terrified, and Willow briefly wondered who could engender so much fear. “Gillian Kent,” he whispered. “There are five of us, including me. The King sent us to keep Lord Frazier from siding with the Prince. She’ll kill me when she knows I talked.”
“We plan to make it impossible for her to do so,” Willow said. “What did you do to Lord Frazier?”
“Took his wife and children hostage. He’d do anything for them. That’s all I know, I swear. Just…let me go.”
Willow cut the bonds tying the man’s feet and hauled him up, thrusting him at Soltighan. “Find out if he knows anything else, then take his weapons, if he has any—” I want even that little knife in his boot gone—“and send him on his way.”
“Is that wise?” Kerish said.
“He won’t be using magic for a while, and I guarantee he’s more afraid of this Gillian Kent than he has desire to see Felix dead.” And I don’t want to start a collection of Ascendants. One is bad enough. She reminded herself to look in on Lady Godfrey before nightfall.
She looked down to find Felix close beside her. “Why did he try to kill me?” He sounded more curious than afraid, and something broke free inside her, making her tremble uncontrollably. She knelt next to Felix and put her arms around him.
“We were alert, and everything is fine,” she said. It was amazing what pure terror could do for your reflexes.
“All right. Are we going to make camp here?”
“I don’t—I suppose we might as well.” They were only a handful of miles from Magrette, and Willow decided she wanted plenty of warning if that Kent woman tried anything else. It had been clever, and Willow shuddered to think of what more a clever Ascendant might be capable of.
She left their servants and Kerish erecting their tent and made her way through the procession to the rear, where more tents were going up. Lady Godfrey sat with her legs dangling over the back of the ale-wagon, watching the activity with mild interest. Her two guards kept their eyes on her, their hands casually resting on the hilts of their curved swords, but she behaved as if they weren’t there. “Lady North,” she said as Willow approached. “Come to give me another treatment?”
“Come to ask questions,” Willow said, but she drew her wand and pointed it at the woman. The faintest green light tinged the silver disc. If she had time, which she didn’t, she might calculate the rate at which Lady Godfrey passively absorbed source. “Mind if I sit?”
“You don’t need my permission,” Lady Godfrey said. “What questions?”
“Do you know an Ascendant named Gillian Kent?”
Lady Godfrey’s hands clenched. “Gillian’s not here, is she?” She laughed, a nervous, brittle sound. “Of course not. You wouldn’t be asking me about her so calmly if she were.”
“So she’s as terrifying as I suspect.”
“Gillian is as heartlessly amoral a person as you will ever find. She delights in causing others pain. Where did you hear her name?”
“She sent someone to try to assassinate Felix. He confessed her name when he thought we might send him back to her, shrouded in failure.”
Lady Godfrey laughed. “Oh, that is a dire threat indeed. Who was the unlucky soul?”
“I didn’t ask his name. We promised to let him go if he talked.”
“So where is Gillian, if I may ask?”
“In Magrette. I want you to tell me everything you know about her.”
“That could take a while.”
“So start with the basics. I need to know her weaknesses. She’s holding the Frazier family hostage to prevent Lord Frazier from supporting Felix.”
Lady Godfrey bit her lip in thought. “I don’t know if she has any weaknesses—no. That’s not true. She depends utterly on her magic and would find it impossible to believe it could fail her.”
Willow fingered her wand. “Which it can. But I doubt she’d be helpless even without her magic.”
“True. She knows how to compel the loyalty of her servants. If she has a detachment of soldiers, they’ll be in fear of her and will act accordingly.”
“I don’t know if she has soldiers. She has three other Ascendants.”
“Hmm. That could be to your advantage. No one likes Gillian, and most people fear her. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m one of them. But that means if the other Ascendants can be convinced betraying her will be successful, they might fight on your side. Temporarily.”
“I’m not going to count on the goodwill of Ascendants, thanks.”
“We’re still human, Lady North. We have the same desires and fears you do. Enlist those other Ascendants, use that wand of yours, and Gillian can be defeated.”
“What’s in this for you?”
“Excuse me?”
Willow leaned back to encompass more of the Ascendant in her gaze. “You’re far too cooperative for someone in your position. What do you hope to gain by telling me all this?”
“Your trust, of course. I’m as tired of being constantly watched as anyone would be. I intend to prove to you that I’m loyal to the young King, even if you never let me use my magic again.”
She sounded sincere, but Willow hadn’t lived as long as she had by trusting people just because they sounded sincere. “I haven’t killed you yet. That ought to tell you something.”
“What would it take to prove myself to you, Lady North?”
Willow was caught with her mouth open, wordless. “I…don’t know. Maybe there’s nothing you can do. I’m suspicious by nature and by training, and his Majesty’s safety is in my hands. I don’t take unnecessary risks.”
Lady Godfrey shrugged. “Then I’ll have to keep trying. But, please…kill Gillian, if you can. The world will be a better place without her in it.”
Willow reflected on this all the way back to her tent. Of course the world was better off without Ascendants, but how awful a person did you have to be for your fellow Ascendants to be terrified of you? And Lord Frazier’s family was at her mercy. It surprised Willow to discover a growing determination to eliminate this Gillian Kent, and not just because she was a threat to Felix. She took pleasure in other people’s pain, did she? Well, Willow would be happy to put a stop to that.
***
“We watched the Ascendant’s retreat, to ensure he would not return to Magrette,” Soltighan said. “It is possible he took
the long way around, but the rapidity of his escape tells me he does intend to put as much distance between himself and his fellow Ascendants as possible.”
“I’m not worried about him. Well, except that it reduces the number of Ascendants we might have to fight.” Willow leaned against one of the folding chairs and flexed her fingers. “What did he tell you before you cut him loose?”
“Little more, I fear. He and four others, led by this Gillian Kent—”
“Why not Lady Kent, I wonder,” Kerish said. “Sorry to interrupt, but in my experience all Ascendants have noble titles.”
Soltighan shrugged, one of his expressive gestures that said I can’t think of everything. “He did not say. I do not know enough of Tremontanan nobility to determine how relevant that is.”
“Never mind that for now,” Willow said. “What else?”
“He was extremely forthcoming about the abilities of his fellows. Two others, Lord Faraday and Lady Briarwood, have elemental magic as he does. Gillian Kent has the power to manipulate the world around her. And the last, a Lord Smythe, has sensory magic. He assured me that their magics were all quite powerful, as though they would withstand our Devices better than he had. I chose not to disabuse him of that notion.”
“And the Fraziers?”
“They separated Lady Frazier and her two children from Lord Frazier and have locked them in a storage room. They are being guarded by members of the military force Terence Valant sent with Gillian Kent to enforce his decree.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” Willow said.
“It keeps Donald from doing anything but what Lord Valant orders,” Lord Heath said.
“Yes, but it’s stupid. Say we go away because Lord Frazier says he won’t support Felix. What’s to keep him from sending messengers after us once Kent and her cronies are gone? I think the Fraziers are in a great deal more danger than it seems.”
“You think Kent would kill them?” Lord Heath said. “Surely…” His voice trailed off.
“If Kent is half the bitch we’re told she is, I think it’s possible.”
“But—Willow, Terence is many things, but he can’t afford to kill a ruling lord. That would erode his support immediately,” Kerish said.
“That assumes Terence knows what’s going on. If all he did was send Kent to make sure Lord Frazier didn’t support us, the implementation of the plan would be all hers.” Willow thrust away from the chair, making it rock once. “I know it’s not much more than a guess. But I’m not willing to risk the Fraziers’ safety on the possibility I’m wrong.”
“So what do we do now?” Kerish asked.
“Not we. Me.”
“Willow—”
“We don’t have anyone else with my particular skill set.”
“And what skill set is that, may I ask?” Lord Heath said.
She’d forgotten he was there. Mentally, she cursed. “I,” she began, searching for a convenient lie, then gave up. “I’m good at moving silently and climbing walls. I can get into the Fraziers’ manor and assess the situation, then return with information that will let us make a plan.”
Lord Heath continued to look at her, a calculating expression on his face. “Moving silently?”
“I’m not going to explain myself to you, Lord Heath.”
“As you wish.” He nodded at Willow, but the calculating expression never left his eyes.
“You can help, Lord Heath. I assume you’ve been to the Fraziers’ manor?”
“Many times. I can sketch you a map, if that will help.”
“It will, thanks. Especially if you can indicate where the entrances are.”
“I can do that.”
He looked like he wanted to ask more questions, so Willow turned her back on him and quickly said, “Giles, I’ll want some of your people to go into the city this afternoon, to see what kind of guards they have posted.”
“Easy enough,” Rafferty said. “And I’ll go with them. Selina and I are tired of not having anything to contribute.”
“That’s fine, just…be careful. Lord Heath, I have paper and pen here. I need to speak to Kerish alone, but I’ll be back shortly to look at your map.”
She drew Kerish out of the tent and off to one side. “All right, I’m listening,” she said.
“To what? I don’t have anything to say.”
“That face tells me otherwise.”
“Willow…” Kerish blew out a deep breath. “This is incredibly dangerous.”
“It is. But who else can I send?”
“There has to be some other way to approach it. We could storm the gates—there’s no way they outnumber us—”
“And have them kill the Fraziers before we unloose our first round of bolts?”
“Killing them would make no sense.”
“Except that this Gillian Kent apparently enjoys hurting people. She might do it for that reason alone. Kerish, this is how it has to be.”
He looked into the distance, over her left shoulder. “Be careful.”
Willow put her arms around his shoulders and felt him circle her waist with his arms. “I always am.”
Chapter Eight
The midnight streets of Magrette smelled of animal waste and wet stone. New construction, those buildings made of small red bricks, fitted into the spaces between old wattle-and-daub houses whose white limewash gleamed pale blue even in the half-moon’s dim light. Willow rubbed the tips of her fingers together, assessing the possibilities. Those rough bricks might offer easy purchase for her gloved hands, or they might be too sheer for climbing. On the other hand, the black beams that divided the plastered walls into squares and triangles were as good as a ladder—if they weren’t slippery from the soft rain that had fallen earlier that evening. She rubbed her fingertips again. All she needed was a way up to the roofs, and then—
Footsteps sounded at the end of the alley. She flattened herself into the doorway that gave scant concealment and hoped her dark clothing would do the rest. Whoever it was wore only a short belt knife, no sword, and had a scattering of brass buttons and a clump of mixed coin in a belt pouch. Not a guard, then, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be careful. Even an ordinary citizen might raise an outcry upon seeing her, clearly dressed for midnighting. She turned her face away so its lightness wouldn’t betray her and watched the man or woman’s metal cross the alley and continue on its way.
Breathing out a shallow sigh of relief, she examined the wall again. There was a rusted drainpipe clinging to one of the brick houses opposite. It might support her weight long enough for her to reach the eaves, and from there she could pull herself up. Willow crossed the street, keeping a careful eye out for nighttime strollers, and pulled on the pipe, testing it. It gave only a fraction of an inch, but groaned like an old man woken from a nightmare. Swiftly Willow pulled herself up, hand over hand, blocking out the horrific squeals the drainpipe made under her weight. She got her hands on the eaves, let go of the drainpipe, and hauled herself up and over.
Without pausing for breath, she scurried up the gentle slope of the roof to the chimney and leaned against it. Now she could rest. She closed her eyes and let her senses build up a picture of the world around her. Hundreds of icy iron nails in the rooms below her, a couple of brass doorknobs, the dull ache of a pewter candlestick. There might be people sleeping there, but sleeping people rarely wore metal, so there was no way to tell. More importantly, there was no one wandering the streets nearby. No one to see what she was about to do next.
She straightened and walked along the roof beam to the next house and looked out across the sleeping city. The roofs were a sea of frozen waves, some more peaked than others, all surfaced with those slate tiles that in a couple of months would be slick with frozen rain or snow. At the moment, her specially made shoes with the roughened soles gripped them firmly.
In the distance, maybe half a mile away, the Baron’s manor hunkered in the center of the city like a slumbering bear, its roofs curved and angled against the skyl
ine. The glow of burning flambeaux illuminated the front of the manor faintly, but the rest of it lay dimly lit by the half-moon riding low in the sky. Willow mentally reviewed the map Lord Heath had drawn for her. It was well out of scale and probably missing pieces, but it was better than nothing.
She’d ended up accompanying Rafferty and his wife on their excursion into Magrette. Kerish had offered to come, but she’d pointed out the color of his skin and he’d subsided. She’d spent about an hour there that afternoon, strolling around the manor and making careful observations. It was surrounded by a few acres of parkland that was open to the public and was astonishingly clean, astonishing, that is, until you saw how many guards patrolled the area to keep it that way. It struck Willow as a waste of manpower, but Rafferty, on the way back to camp, had pointed out that most of those guards were in Valant black and red and were likely attached to the Ascendants rather than permanent fixtures.
There was no wall surrounding the manor, just a couple of low hedges defining the separation between the park and the manor grounds. Willow had counted five entrances besides the main one, which was no doubt where the flambeaux burned now. The most likely way in was through an age-blackened door at the base of a tower that looked decades older than the rest of the manor. Lord Heath had said it was in disrepair and rarely used. Willow cared only that it was little guarded. She scanned the distant roofs once more, tugged on her gloves in a nervous little ritual, and took off running.
It had been a while since she’d run the roofs of Aurilien, but she knew them well. Magrette was a foreign city to her, and she had to slow once or twice to map out a route for herself. But it was old, and its streets were narrow enough to be easily leaped. Once her foot came down on a loose tile, and she had to fling herself forward, rolling out her momentum until she fetched up against a chimney and clung to it, her heart hammering. That was close. She made herself stand, shook out her legs and hands, and took a running leap to the next roof. You had to keep moving, in this game, or you’d miss your step and make a personal acquaintance with the cobbles.
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