“Are any of your people still in here?” I asked Markus. “Alive?”
“Any elves in this house aren’t mine.”
I jerked my head toward the door the goblins were burning their way through. “Where does that go?”
“Servants’ quarters.” Markus’s smile was chilling. “It’s a maze back there.”
Just what I wanted to hear.
I felt a whoosh of outside air behind us and Mychael kicked a Level Twelve ward’s ass and blew through the door in one fell swoop.
Janos Ghalfari gave a shout as their escape door disintegrated in a cloud of charred wood and ash. The Reapers turned and rushed toward us.
I hurled the grenade into the room and into the Reapers.
Mychael grabbed my arm and all but threw me through the door.
I didn’t know if Reapers could be blown up, but when you’re scared shitless, desperate, and fresh out of nonsuicidal ideas, you’d try anything. If I couldn’t take out the goblins, I’d take out the house they were running through.
We ran like hell and then some.
Until I saw the eight-foot-high stone wall and massive iron gate, both crackling with protective wards. They were meant to keep intruders out, now they were keeping escaping elves in.
Mychael kept running and held his hand back to me. “Grenade!”
I gave it to him.
We had to be at least thirty yards from the gate when Mychael growled a spell and with a dead-on throw sent the grenade smashing into the gate’s massive latch. He jerked me and Markus behind the trunk of what had to be the biggest oak I’d ever seen. We were about to have chunks of a house blown at us from one direction and an iron gate from the other, and Mychael wanted us to hide behind a tree. I didn’t care how big it was; the house was bigger.
Time slowed to that speed that meant you were about to die and the powers that be were giving your mind one last chance to figure out how to survive. My body just told me to run faster. Mychael’s iron grip ordered me to stay put. He got an arm around me, and his shields formed around all three of us.
I heard odd popping sounds coming from the house and Mychael pulled us to the ground. There were four explosions, each bigger and louder than the one before. The house and everything in it exploded in what I could only compare to broadsides from an entire fleet of ships. A smoke- filled breath later, a fifth blast came from our other side as the gate blew.
Bricks and flaming debris slammed into the wall around the house. The wards on top of the wall did what they were made to do and vaporized anything that touched them, sending blue sparks drizzling down to pop and sizzle against Mychael’s shields.
His shields buckled with each blast, but they held. Call it a miracle or preternatural strength and skill. Whatever it was, we’d thumbed our noses at Death again. If the Reapers didn’t get blown up, at least they got blown back to where they came from.
Mychael released his shields and us. “Move!” he screamed. “Through the gate, now!”
I was hacking and coughing smoke and soot. It had cleared enough to let me see the gate, or rather where the gate used to be. That little grenade had more than done its job. The gate’s metal bars looked like a massive fist had just punched its way through. Best of all, no more elf-frying blue wards.
Markus pulled me to the right. “Down the street is an alley that empties on Hawkins Court. It should be deserted.”
“That’s away from the elven embassy,” I said.
“The embassy is the last place I want to go.”
Now I wasn’t just pissed at Markus; I was confused.
I had to consider the possibility that Markus wasn’t the power behind everything bad that had happened to me or any future plots against me, but I’d always felt a deep and abiding satisfaction with anything that went boom. Pretty flames were an added bonus.
Markus glanced back. “You blew up my house.”
“Consider us even.”
Markus flashed a quick smile. “Consider yourself thanked.”
I blinked. “What?”
“If all goes well, everyone will think I’m dead.”
Maybe a flying chunk of brick had hit him in the head.
The street was still empty, but it wouldn’t be for long. After those explosions, we were about to have a lot of company. Embassy guards, goblins, take your pick. I didn’t want to stay around to run into any of them.
“We go the way he wants?” I asked Mychael in mindspeak.
“It’s the best way out.”
I didn’t want to do anything that Markus suggested, but Mychael knew what he was doing.
We were a couple of houses away from the alley when I heard the hooves.
Crap it.
A squad of elven embassy guards on horseback came around the corner of Ambassador Row headed straight for us. The smoke was thick, hiding the three of us as we dived behind a thick hedge growing at the base of the wall surrounding another house. Fortunately this one wasn’t crackling with wards. The horses galloped by on the street just beyond where we were hiding. The lead horseman was Taltek Balmorlan. For a few seconds, I didn’t move or breathe. With all the smoke, if I took a decent breath, I’d probably start coughing. As the shouting and galloping passed us, I let out my breath and slowly took in another, muffling a cough.
“Did you see Balmorlan?” I asked Mychael in mindspeak.
“I saw.”
“Where do you propose we take Markus?”
“My safe house is too far, and the quicker we get him off the streets, the better.”
“And I’m an accused accomplice to murder in possession of Nukpana’s next victim.”
But this accused accomplice wanted to have a long talk with the almost victim. And the safest place would also be the last place anyone on the island would think to look for Duke Markus Sevelien.
“I know just the place.”
“Nebian grenades,” I told my cousin.
Phaelan whistled.
“Eight crates of them.”
“Damn. Full crates?”
I nodded. “That’s my guess. Took out the entire house, most of the wall, and punched a hole the size of a mountain troll through an iron gate.”
“Eight crates would do that. I hate that I missed it.” Phaelan flashed a grin. “Got to hear it, though. Hell, the whole damned island did. Beautiful work, cousin.”
Not unless it took out Sarad Nukpana and Janos Ghalfari. Though I wasn’t holding my breath.
Phaelan had come with me to Mid to protect me; Uncle Ryn followed the two of us to Mid to eliminate the need for protection. My uncle, who was Phaelan’s father, had dropped anchor in the harbor to motivate the Conclave’s mages to find a way to separate me from the Saghred. He said his anchors were going to stay right where they were and grow barnacles until that happened.
We were on the Red Hawk, Uncle Ryn’s flagship. Mychael and Markus were with Uncle Ryn in his cabin. I’d join them in a few minutes, but there was something I needed to do first.
Calm down.
The trip from the hole in the ground that used to be Markus’s house to the Red Hawk had been quiet, not only because we didn’t want anyone out and about at four bells to see or hear us, but because I didn’t trust myself within choking distance of Markus Sevelien quite yet. After a slight detour to collect the goblin gold, we headed straight for the harbor. Mychael was a wise man; he’d kept himself between me and Markus the entire way here. I was exhausted, I was scared, and I was pissed at more people than I had names for. But most of all, I was confused. Too much had happened and I hadn’t had enough time to sort through any of it. That was bad enough, but I knew it was going to get worse before it got any better. That was if I lived long enough to see it get better. Anything Markus Sevelien was involved in was guaranteed to be intricate, not like a seaman’s knot, but brilliantly intricate, like a finely woven web—and just as dangerous. I’d played chess with Markus on occasion. I’d always lost. Though I’d never stood a chance of beating a man who could think at least ten moves in advance.
If I was in the middle of whatever game Markus was playing now, losing would cost me more than my life. It could cost the lives of my family and friends, and probably anyone who just had the piss-poor luck of knowing me.
I gave Phaelan the condensed version of my evening.
“So let me get this straight,” he said once I’d finished. “Carnades and Balmorlan framed Tam for that elf general’s murder and got him locked up. Two weeks ago he had Piaras kidnapped, and he’s been trying to get his hands on you since the day you got here. And you and Mychael just saved this bastard’s boss? I’m not sure which is worse, saving him or bringing him here.”
“I want answers from him, Phaelan. What better place to bring him?”
Phaelan pursed his lips as he considered the implications. “Some of Dad’s crew are rather gifted when it comes to convincing people they want to talk. And if Markus’s people think he’s dead anyway . . .”
“That’s not what I want.”
“But that’s what might be necessary. If he’s the one that’s been pulling Balmorlan’s strings, the only way he’s leaving this ship is over the side hugging a rock.”
“It would hardly be the first time an underling didn’t tell his boss what he was up to,” I heard myself say. I couldn’t believe I was defending him. I guess doubt would do that to you.
“You said Markus knows what all of his people are up to.”
“Yes.”
“Considering how high the stakes are here, I hardly think Markus picked now to stick his head in the sand.”
I blew out my breath. “And even if he was acting under orders from his superiors, he still acted.”
Phaelan nodded. “He takes orders and obeys them, just the same as every man who has to answer to another man. And if they’re using him, maybe it’s because he’s letting them. How well do you really know him?”
“I thought well enough.”
Phaelan was silent as he looked out through the porthole. The water in the harbor was that glassy calm that came only with the predawn. Phaelan keeping his mouth shut meant he was about to open it and say something he knew I didn’t want to hear.
