The Adversary

Chapter Eight

19 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) Somewhere North of Waterdeep

Farideh leaned over the strange waters of the so-called fabled Fountains of Memory. A spark of magic arced through the air and popped against her fingertips. She clutched her hand and stepped back. “That’s not a fable I’m familiar with,” she said.

“Would you like to give them a try?” Rhand asked. He laid one hand lightly against the small of her back and pressed her forward. Farideh edged nearer, if only to step out of his reach.

Her reflection looked back, rippled by the magical current stirring the waters. The air around the vessel chilled noticeably and her breath made faint clouds as she looked down into the thick, dark water, waiting for something to happen.

“There’s a trick to it-be specific enough to see what you want, but vague enough to find what you don’t know you’re going to miss.” Rhand reached around her and tossed a scattering of dried blue petals into the water. “Show us when this dear lady’s patron first took notice.”

The waters’ swirl changed direction, the ripples widening as the center of the basin seemed to pull the water inward. Farideh’s reflection broke into a hundred smaller patches of color and light. .

That reformed, bled together. . and reflected back not Farideh but an open room, the ground floor of an old stone barn that had been converted before she was born into a home for an outcast dragonborn, come to the hidden village of Arush Vayem. Below Mehen’s lofted room was a circle of chalked runes, and in the center of that circle was Lorcan.

Farideh’s breath caught. She knew enough now to see the frank appraisal in his gaze as he spoke to Havilar, standing in front of him-assessing the tiefling, looking for a warlock to complete his set. Havilar settled herself on the floor, utterly unconcerned with the devil she’d caught instead of an imp or the strength of the binding circle she’d only mimicked.

Farideh watched Lorcan, her heart aching.

He looked up, past Havilar, and something in his demeanor changed, relaxed, as Farideh came into the room. He smiled, showing the faint points of his canines, and Farideh remembered how undone she’d been to see that smile the first time.

She watched as Havilar left, after convincing her nothing would happen if she stayed with the devil in the binding circle. “You’re not like her,” he said, his voice tinny and strange. “Like night and day. Like sweet and sour. Like the ocean and the desert. It’s astonishing.” She watched herself try and fail to ignore Lorcan, falling into the bickering conversation that would change her life, Havilar’s, Mehen’s, and countless others along the way.

“Who could blame you?” he said. “Who wants to be held responsible for something they can’t control? Turned away because of something their foremothers and forefathers did to gain a little power?” She shut her eyes wishing the waters would cut off her protest, but it came anyway: it might have been anything that led her ancestors to mingle with fiends. It might have been love.

And Lorcan laughed. “My darling, let me tell you a secret: devils don’t love.”

She watched herself try to leave, watched Lorcan stop her with all the right words and warnings. “You’ll live in this village for all of your life,” Lorcan said, keeping pace with her along the border of the circle. “You’ll spend every day, trying your hardest to be what they want, and you’ll never meet their expectations, because you were not made for this. .” She watched him list all the ways she was trapped already, all the ways she couldn’t save herself- couldn’t save reckless Havilar. At least not alone. Watched herself curl into her chest, covering her face, as if she could hide from what was coming.

As much as she regretted the pact in that moment, Farideh felt only pity for her past self. She would have done the same thing over again, she knew, as Lorcan crossed the faulty line of runes to hold her near, whispering promises and coaxing her toward the agreement that would catch her in a pact. She would have taken the magic no matter what-because every word he said was true. She was trapped. She was powerless. She was so afraid. She watched herself look up, horrified, as she realized what she’d done and at the same time, her chest ached. She wished Lorcan were here, were offering her a way to save herself again.

The image vanished in a wall of flames.

“Interesting,” Rhand said, snapping her back to the present. Farideh straightened, wiped her face and realized she’d been crying. Missing Lorcan, but missing, too, the girl in the reflection. She would never be so innocent again. Rhand gave her another unpleasant smile.

“Fascinating things,” he said. “Before the Spellplague, the water formed a number of pools in a cavern here-at least, that is what the deep gnomes say. If pressed. They kept the location a secret, as much as one can keep such a thing secret.” He chuckled. “Harder to hide when the mountaintop was torn off and floated away. The cavern went with the peak-off drifting somewhere over the North, I suspect-but the springs that fed the pools remain. They muddle with the ordinary springs now, so the waters aren’t as powerful if you come upon them naturally.” He dipped a hand in and stirred the waters. “But with a little ingenuity, a little careful magic, a little discipline. . they can do miraculous things. Even better than before.”

“Indeed,” Farideh said, still rattled. “What do you use them for?”

Rhand sighed. “Originally, I had hoped to use them for their other abilities. Legends hold that the Fountains of Memory would spontaneously open portals to the locations they showed-past and present. You can imagine how useful such a thing would be. I wouldn’t have to identify anything-only send back some eager guards to stop any manifestation before it took hold.”

“Yes,” Farideh said, wishing she’d heard his earlier explanations. Manifestations of what? Devils? Gods? Something worse? She thought back to all the things she had heard, searching for a clue.

But too many of her thoughts were stuck, clinging to the phrase portals to the locations they showed-past and present.

“Alas, I haven’t managed to unlock that particular secret. Portals to elsewhere, yes. But not the past.”

“Do you think you will?” Farideh asked. If Sairché couldn’t undo the past, could he? She met his piercing blue gaze.

“I never pursue things I don’t think I can achieve.”

Farideh didn’t dare look away. “What would it take?”

“If I knew that,” Rhand said irritably, “it would be done. Nevertheless,” he went on, “the Fountains are still useful enough-ask the right questions and it will show where the likeliest candidates are to be found. Set a body before it and ask when their patron took notice, and you can weed out many of the accidental choices. Slow, and not as accurate as I would like. But four in ten is better than two in ten.”

Patron, as in Lorcan, as in pact holder. But patrons might mean devils, Farideh thought. Might mean demons. Might mean gods. Might mean just people. And still, she had no idea what Sairché meant for her to do, or who the common enemy was. The waters shimmered, showing no sign of the scene they’d just reflected.

“At any rate,” Rhand went on, “I hope this becomes merely my own amusement. Lady Sairché has assured me you are capable of vastly improving my rate of success.” With his hand again at the small of her back, he steered her to the open windows.

Beyond the jagged turrets of the fortress, beyond the castle wall, lay scores and scores of square huts with reed roofs leaking smoke from cookfires, aligned on a tidy grid of roads dotted with people. From so high, Farideh could see that the fortress and all the buildings around it sat in an enormous crater-the remains of the sundered peak Rhand had mentioned. On the far end of the village, a large lake lapped a pebble-crusted shore, and over its edge was the peak of another mountain.

“You can just see,” Rhand said, pointing across to the edge of the crater, “in this light, the traces of the Wall.” The low sunlight sparkled nearly seventy feet from the ground, as if catching on the edge of something invisible. “It’s quite impressive,” he said. “Completely impregnable and hides everything within. Keeps everything quite tidy.” He gave her another unwelcome smile. “Nothing gets in or out unless I let it.”

Including Dahl. Ghosts and shadar-kai, Rhand and Sairché and her guilty conscience-she wouldn’t have thought there was anything else that could happen to top those. But if Dahl was trapped inside the magical wall as well, he was in grave danger. She watched the people flowing up and down the narrow streets and wondered if he was among them. “You’ve never had an escape?”

His smile thinned, and he held her gaze a bit too long for comfort. “Never.” He leaned out over the sill, looking down at the ground below. “Ah-it looks as if they’re ready. Come,” he said, taking her arm again. “Let’s see what you’re capable of.”

Through the winding passages of the fortress, Farideh scrambled to pull together the details of Rhand’s experiment she’d managed to hear. Patrons, manifestations, ordinary somethings masquerading as extraordinary somethings? And she could help.

No killing, she told herself. No stealing souls. Rhand led her out onto a balcony with no balustrade, the guards fanning out around them. As they neared the edge, Farideh could see the enclosed courtyard nearly twenty feet below and the dozen people standing in it, staring up at her.

She took an involuntary step back.

Rhand chuckled and urged her forward. “Go ahead.”

The villagers stared up at her, puzzled and maybe repulsed. They all wore the same faded garb, tunics and breeches and skirts. It was like being faced down by an army. Her stomach tightened.

“What is it you’re looking for?” Farideh said. The wizard considered her a moment, and there was no missing his displeasure.

“Your mistress assured me,” Rhand said, “that she could get me someone to assist my efforts. That she would bring me someone who could read their little souls and tell me which of them were. . special.”

Farideh looked up at him, but he seemed no madder than before. “Special how?”

Rhand spread his hands wide. “You’ll have to tell me.” His piercing gaze speared her in place. “If you can.”

Farideh made herself look down at the crowd of people, her nerves rattling and shadowy smoke seeping off her skin as her pact drew up the powers of the Hells. They were all staring at her, all waiting for something. Good or bad. Someone who could read their souls.

The lights. Farideh caught her breath-the flickering colors and shadows that had come out of nowhere, the strange magic Sairché had infected her with. The lights were souls.

She shut her eyes. The magic was lurking in her somewhere, crouched in the recesses of her mind and waiting to spring forward. She’d been angry the last two times, she thought. The other came when the protection spell had been overstretched.

She drew up the powers of her pact, while thinking of punching Sairché in the mouth for good measure. Again, the pain in the back of her head started to bloom, and then her throat began to itch.

And there in the middle of her thoughts, was a sensation like a dangling thread, waiting to be pulled. She focused on it, opening her eyes.

The lights exploded over her field of vision, crackling across the staring crowd. They lingered on the people, little spots of brightness and color radiating strands of gray and gold and red and more. As she watched, the lights intensified-and around three of the people, the colors coalesced into the blurry shapes of strange runes. A tall man who shone with vibrant green and yellow, a brand of darker emerald thrumming at the core of his chest. A woman whose lights left streamers of violet-red drifting around her, curling at her heart into a sharper glyph. Another woman, much older, whose lights seemed to overtake the whole of her body, shining bright as one of Selûne’s tears come to earth-the symbol there was hard to spot, only a shade lighter than the silver around it.

They were beautiful.

“Nirka,” Rhand said mildly. “Hold. Give her a chance.”

Farideh looked over her shoulder at the shadar-kai guard, her hands on her knives, her cold black eyes on Farideh. Farideh looked back down at the crowd-she stood at the edge of a twenty-foot drop onto paving stones, surrounded by shadar-kai ready to kill her. And Rhand, ready to give that order.

Sairché promised you wouldn’t be killing anyone, she told herself. Wouldn’t be taking their souls. Promised this would turn against a common enemy.

“The tall man in the back,” she said. “The Turami woman on the far right. The old woman in green at the front.”

Rhand smiled. “Well done.” He gestured to the guards below, who seized those three and ushered them through one of the doors. The rest of the people were herded back out the larger gate. An uneasy feeling built in the small of Farideh’s back, and her tail flicked nervously.

“What happens to them?” she asked, watching the old woman hobble after the guard holding tight to her arm.

Rhand did not speak for long moments, until Farideh looked back up at him. He smiled, as if she’d given something away with that question. “Nothing much. I’m merely going to see if you’re right.”

“How will you do that?”

Rhand shrugged and took her arm again. “These things show themselves eventually. Close attention and study. Time. A little carefully applied pressure. If you’re right, though-and I do hope you are-we should be completely certain in a day or so at most. Come,” he said, leading her back into the building, “let me show you the rest of the castle.”

There was little Lorcan hated as much as the feeling of not having any kind of a plan. Even when the world was trying to leap out from under his feet, usually, Lorcan had some scheme, some strategy, some charm in his back pocket that would help him land safe.

But riding ahead of Havilar, now nearly a day out of Waterdeep, Lorcan could hardly form even the most basic plan aside from getting away from Mehen and the Harpers and heading north. Every time he tried his thoughts scattered, driven like sheep before the wolves of his anger at Sairché, at Glasya, at Farideh.

Give me some gods-be-damned space to figure it out, because if you make me choose right here, right now, I choose to be done. He should have expected it. He should have been prepared, not counting on Farideh like some fool mortal would.

“What are you going to name your horse?” Havilar called up to him. Lorcan drew a slow breath and steeled himself. If someone had told him a few hours ago that he would wish she were grousing and moaning about her aching head and upset stomach, he would never have believed it.

“It doesn’t need a name,” he said.

“Of course she does-how else will you call her?” she said. “I’m going to name mine Cinnamon. Or maybe Alusair.”

Lorcan glanced back over his shoulder, at the tiefling astride a placid bay. “That’s a gelding.”

Havilar made a face at him. “Fine. I’ll call him Alusair.”

Lorcan turned back to the road, to the marshy ground surrounding it, and swallowed his speculation about how impressed Brin would be about Havilar naming her gelding after his fabled great-grandaunt. It was too simple a barb, and if Lorcan had made it this far without prodding her unnecessarily, he could certainly hold out until the pact was done. He hoped.

“Are you truly more concerned about your horse than your sister?” Lorcan asked.

“I can care about her and name a horse. I’m not simple. Besides,” she added, “I’m riding out sick as a hound. With you. I think it’s pretty karshoji obvious I do care.”

“Not sick,” Lorcan reminded her. “Hungover. And your sister may be in mortal peril.”

“Fine,” Havilar spat. “She wins. I never said she wasn’t worse off. I said I don’t feel well and it doesn’t mean anything if I want to name a stupid horse. Stop trying to turn everything around.” She hesitated before he heard her add, “Sorry, Alusair. You aren’t stupid. You’re just a horse.”

“You misunderstand,” Lorcan said silkily. “She’s trapped and in danger. You’ve managed nothing more than some drink-sickness-and you’re awfully calm about the whole matter. I suppose,” he added, trying to sound reluctant, “I underestimated you.” He let the silence stretch before glancing back at Havilar. She watched him with narrow eyes.

“Probably,” she said, just as reluctant.

“I sometimes wonder,” he said, turning back to the road ahead, “if I made the right decision. Giving Farideh the pact. It seems to only cause her trouble.”

“Do you think she’s all right?” Havilar asked, after a few moments.

Of course she is, Lorcan thought viciously. Sairché had made it clear how she intended to reward Farideh’s shift of loyalty. He knew better than to believe what Sairché said without question-the idea that Farideh had sought his sister out and asked for her patronage was, on the face of it, madness.

But the hurt and the fury and the desperation in Farideh’s expression-the last thing he’d seen before Sairché brought him around again in the Hells- made it all the easier for Sairché’s version of events to burrow into his brain and make itself at home.

“What did you tell her?” he had asked Sairché.

“What goes on between a girl and her patroness is private,” Sairché said. “Isn’t that right?”

“I’m not a fool,” Lorcan said. “She didn’t call you down. You used Temerity.”

“To find you,” Sairché said, standing a careful twenty-five steps from Farideh’s unconscious body. “But I didn’t need Temerity to convince Farideh to come around. You tricked her, after all-did you really think you were the only one who could manage that?”

“Of course not,” Lorcan said, a heartbeat too slow. He’d tricked her, true, but then he’d let himself get pulled into an argument that he hadn’t shut down as quickly as possible. He’d left Farideh ready to jump into another devil’s pact. He’d practically handed her to Sairché.

No, he told himself. She wouldn’t leave.

Sairché chuckled. “Oh. You thought she was different. How funny.”

“They’re all the same,” Lorcan said off-handedly, furious that his heart was racing. “That said, they’re all a fair bit cleverer than you give them credit for, little eavesdropper. Why should I believe anything you tell me?”

Sairché had shrugged. “Well, what you believe or don’t believe is immaterial. She turned on you-that much is plain. She didn’t trust you. She hasn’t trusted you for a long time. The magic circles, the dealings with priests, going to the wizard. Does that suggest a long-term plan for the pact in your mind?”

“Lords, Sairché, you can surely spin something together without making up players. Point out the paladin. Point out all the books of lore and legend. Hells, tell me her sister was the key. But there’s never been a wizard.”

Sairché’s grin was a terrifying thing, brimming with glee and giddy surprise, and Lorcan knew in that instant he’d miscounted. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my dear brother. She never mentioned an Adolican Rhand?” Sairché giggled. “Oh, Lords of the Nine-truly? Where did you think she got her ritual book?”

Lorcan scrambled-from Dahl, that scowly fallen paladin, though clearly that wasn’t the answer. “A ritual book she needed to rescue me,” he scoffed. “Terribly clever of her to do that instead of taking the opportunity you presented her with and running off to learn spells.”

Sairché had shrugged. “Mortals are complicated. Maybe you’re right. But it makes me wonder”-and she’d smiled at Lorcan, as if she’d already won-”why she decided not to buy a book from any of the myriad sellers in the City of Splendors, and instead accept the gift of a wealthy, fine-looking wizard who was very clearly taken with her? And why she never spoke a word of him to you?”

“There’s no telling,” Lorcan said, finally answering Havilar’s question, “until we find her. She might be at the mercy of untold enemies. She might be curled up with that wizard.” He spat the word as if he could rid himself of the notion entirely. Godsdamned Sairché. The wizard didn’t matter.

“What wizard?” Havilar asked. After a moment without an answer, she asked, “That creepy Netherese fellow? The one from Waterdeep?”

“As I said, there’s no telling, is there?” Lorcan asked.

“He was shady,” Havilar said. “Even if his revel was nice. Until the poison and the assassins and things.” She paused. “I suppose the fight was sort of a thrill, too, although I wouldn’t call it nice. Anyway, she’s not curled up with him, whatever that means. I mean she might put up with you, but there’s shady and then there’s shady.”

Lorcan gritted his teeth. “We’ll have to see.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Havilar asked. “You have no idea where we’re going. I could have gone off on my own and found her quicker than this.”

Lorcan had left the ruby necklace in Havilar’s care, certain even without examining it that his prison was only one element of Sairché’s gift. The other gems wouldn’t be ordinary. One would surely be a beacon for Sairché to trace Farideh by. A few days, a tenday, a month-however long it took, eventually Sairché would check in on Farideh. Eventually she’d have to. And then Lorcan would strike.

In the meantime, he had a replacement heir to pact.

An heir that a part of him was rapidly reconsidering how dearly he wanted. He tried to ignore it, but every time Havilar piped up with some new nonsense, with some new insult that had no spark to it, with some new sigh or whine or sadness, Lorcan missed Farideh. He missed arguing with her. He missed the nuances of steering her. He missed the furtive way she looked at him and perhaps the less furtive way he looked at her. He even missed the constant pull of that damned protection spell. Farideh might have always been a difficult warlock, but Lorcan had to admit that she was interesting.

“If you’d gone off on your own,” Lorcan said, biting back his irritation, “you’d find yourself walking straight into Sairché’s hands.”

“Why should she care about me? I’m not a warlock.”

Lorcan smirked to himself. Not yet. “To begin with, you decided to push yourself far beyond your limits and then pour a bottle of wine down your throat.”

“Half a bottle,” Havilar protested.

“Does that change anything? Don’t tell me you don’t know better,” he said. “If those aren’t the actions of someone ready for easy answers, I don’t know what are.”

“I think I deserve some easy answers at this point.”

He clucked his tongue. “Easy answers lead to a perilous road. Though,” Lorcan added, “if you’re as eager to divest yourself of a troublesome sister as I am, no one would blame you.”

Havilar made a face at him. “First, everyone would blame me. Second, I don’t want her to die.” She rubbed her arm, a strange, subconscious mockery of her twin’s familiar gesture. “And anyway, it’s your stupid sister who messed things up, isn’t it?”

That wasn’t what Lorcan had been expecting her to say, and he cursed his clumsy maneuvering. She should be turning on her sister, eager for Lorcan’s approval. He reined his horse in and turned to consider her. “Your sister’s the one who made the deal. You don’t need to defend her. Not to me.”

“Right, but. . she didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Not that I think she should have gotten into that position in the first place. You don’t have to be a master strategist to see making a karshoji pact means eventually a devil’s going to make you do something dumb because you have to.”

Lorcan weighed this, shifted his tack. “There are always possibilities. If you’re clever enough. If you’re determined enough.”

Havilar snorted. “What should she have done then?”

Lorcan didn’t have an answer for that that he wanted to give. Not started that ridiculous argument about Temerity. Not doubted his protection. Not tossed him aside. “What would you have done?” he said.

“Chopped your sister with my glaive,” Havilar answered. “But I’m not Farideh. She would have been more careful-I don’t care if I hit you too.”

Lorcan kept his thoughts to himself.

“Why are you doing this?” Havilar asked. “Going after her. I mean. . I have a guess, but. . well, devils shouldn’t care.”

“She’s my warlock,” Lorcan said simply.

“And?”

“And it’s part of having a pact,” Lorcan said. “Besides I need to pay Sairché back for her little stunt. As you said-it’s her fault.” Hers and Farideh’s, he reminded himself.

“So you’re dragging me across the world to make Sairché mad?” Havilar said skeptically. Lorcan didn’t answer, he just kept staring ahead at the road-let her learn that foolish questions got no answers.

But Havilar wasn’t silenced. “Are you in love with my sister?”

Lorcan yanked the reins and pulled the horse around to block Havilar’s path, studying the tiefling for long, painful moments-long enough she should have time to consider for herself what a foolish question it was. She stared right back, unblinking.

“You shouldn’t assume,” Lorcan said, “that I think anything like you do. That any of us do. Devils aren’t mortals. That’s another way Sairché can claim you.”

“But we think the same when it comes to sisters?” Havilar demanded. “You can’t have it both ways.”

Lorcan laughed. “My sisters have spent my entire life tormenting me, trying to end my life or use me against some other devil. They have beaten me until I could see the swirling mists of oblivion closing in on me. They have thrown me to the mercy of archdevils. To them, I am only half a proper being, hardly worthy of concern.” He gave her a nasty smile. “So to say we would both be better without siblings, I’ll admit, takes some liberties with the details.”

“You’re a devil, you’re not a devil. We’re alike, we’re nothing alike. It can’t be all of those things.”

Lorcan kept smiling at her. “Then you have a very poor imagination.”

Havilar glared at him. “You never answer questions, do you?” she said.

“Not the foolish ones.”

“She doesn’t love you,” she blurted.

Pathetic, Lorcan thought, his patience with Havilar evaporating. She doesn’t listen and she doesn’t learn. “Would she tell you?” he said nastily. “Last I recall you were too busy finding the edges of the lordling’s mouth to have much of a conversation.”

Havilar flushed deeply. “She thought you were dead,” she shot back. “That you were gone and never coming back. And she was glad. We were all glad.”

Did she think that? Had she been glad? It doesn’t matter, Lorcan reminded himself. She betrayed you as soon as she listened to Sairché. “That’s interesting,” Lorcan said. “Since I’m the only one who apparently gives two coppers that she’s in trouble. Go back and sulk over your broken heart if you can’t think past it. I’m sure the lordling will find that more interesting than whatever princess he’s gotten up the skirts of.”

She startled as if he’d punched her, right in the base of the lungs. Lorcan gave her a wicked grin in return and urged his horse down the road once more. He’d pay for that-he’d have to be careful with her and redirect her attention to other matters, which were clearly more important than how much she hated Lorcan or why he was doing what he did. What he thought about her sister.

Havilar’s horse gave a sharp whinny, and suddenly she was pounding past. Lorcan’s horse shied and laid its ears flat as her bay blocked its path, too close for comfort.

“Don’t youever say a word about me and Brin again,” she shouted, her voice shaking. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just being cruel.”

Lorcan held her furious gaze. “And what are you doing?”

Havilar looked away, off at the forest encroaching on the landscape to the west. Leave her, a part of him said. This is never going to suit. He ignored it.

“Shall we stop trying to wound each other?” he asked. “I think even in your sorry state you can see what a poor course of action it will be. Whether you hate me or not, I am your best option at the moment for finding your sister. Truce?”

Havilar watched him as if she’d rather put that battered glaive right through his skull. “You promise,” she said, still raw and angry-sounding. “You promise, right now, you will never say another word about Brin and me. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care how much you hate him or you hate me. I don’t care if you think I’m an idiot or hopeless or what. You don’t say a word about it.”

Lorcan regarded her a long moment. “Fair enough.” He urged the horse forward again.

“You’re not going to ask me the same about you and Farideh?”

“Why would I do that?” he asked, without turning. Let her wonder. Let her be stuck on that nonsense notion. Better than trying to unravel his motives. Better than questioning his dedication. Better than realizing he’d not answered any of her questions.

Lorcan eased his horse to the side of the road as the hoofbeats of a distant rider coming up behind them became distinct. He hoped-for both of their sakes-that it was an overeager highwayman, set on overtaking them. They’d both be more inclined to civility if they could vent their anger on some unfortunate villain.

As the hoofbeats neared, they slowed, as if some wicked god had heard Lorcan’s prayers. And then a voice shouted out, reminding Lorcan why he never prayed.

“Havilar!”

Lorcan looked back, at Havilar, at the rider on a sleek dun mare, prancing to a stop: Brin. “Havi,” he said. “Thank the gods, there you are.”

Havilar had frozen, like a rabbit trying to hide from a hawk. “Yes,” she said after a moment. Lorcan cursed to himself-this would not help things.

“What in the Hells are you doing?” Brin demanded, ignoring Lorcan. “Mehen’s in pieces. You have to come back.”

She’ll agree, Lorcan thought. She’ll do anything he asks. She’s too angry. He scrambled to form a new plan, some way to make her side with him once more, to forgive Farideh a little and get back to following him.

But then Havilar shook her head. “I have to save Farideh.”

Brin stared at her, as if she were a little mad. Lorcan reconsidered. He might be able to use this.

“What do you think you’re going to do?” Brin asked. “Leave the Harpers to it. They know what they’re doing. You’ve been through a lot. Rest for this one-the world won’t end.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Do you think I’m going to sit on my hands while bad things happen to Farideh?”

She would have, Lorcan thought, smiling to himself, if he hadn’t been there to prod her into action. And she knew that.

Havilar looked over and glared at him, as if she knew his thoughts.

Brin followed her gaze. “This is your idea, isn’t it? You convinced her.”

“Well met to you, too. And there was little to convince her of.” He looked at Havilar, who was watching Brin uncertainly. “She’s loyal even when others are. . less so.”

Brin bristled. “The Harpers are leaving the moment they get better direction. They’re better equipped than you two. Or did you tell her you have some magic tool to help you get lost faster?”

Lorcan nearly laughed-for once, things seemed to be turning his way. The little lordling had no idea what damage he was doing. If Lorcan was out of practice, Brin had gone to seed.

“Havilar?” Lorcan said. She looked up at him. “What would you like to do? I’m hardly going to ‘drag you across the countryside’ if you’d rather go back to the Harpers’ hospitality. But I hope,” he added more seriously, “that I don’t end up needing a quick blade at my side if you do. As I said before, there’s no telling what we’re dealing with.”

“Shade,” Brin said hotly, “isn’t going to be brought down by a blade and a stlarning half-devil.”

Lorcan held Brin’s gaze and wondered if perhaps someone was listening to his prayers after all-Havilar was more of a certainty than ever. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll leave Shade to the Harpers and worry about our own plans.”

“We’re not going back,” Havilar adjusted her haversack. “Be angry if you have to. But I’m doing this.”

“And what about Mehen?” Brin asked.

“Mehen. .” She looked at Lorcan again. “Will keep. And he should know I’m not going to wait when I can do something.”

Brin sighed and threw his head back to stare at the cloudy sky. “Fine,” he said after a moment. He wrapped the horse’s reins once around his wrist. “Then I’m coming with you.”

Havilar’s eyes widened. “Oh. Are you?”

Lorcan cursed to himself. Bad, bad, bad. “Don’t your Harpers need you? Doesn’t Mehen? You are the best equipped to ferry a message back, after all.”

Brin scowled at him. “I’ll send a message from the caravansary. There’s a waystation outside the Goldenfields, a few hours down the road. Then we’ll get a reply-maybe they’ve worked out more details by now.”

Lorcan calculated, considered, and cursed to himself again. This could be fixed. “Wonderful,” he said. “Lead on, then.”

Brin turned to Havilar once more. “You’re right,” he said, and he smiled. “I should know you’d never sit on your hands.”

Havilar gave a nervous laugh as Brin nudged his horse into motion and rode to the head of the group. Havilar watched him go, then gave Lorcan a dark look as if daring him to say something.

But Lorcan only turned his horse to follow Brin. After all, he kept his promises.

The waters of the Fountains of Memory well up from the center and pour down the sides as if a spring beneath refreshes them, although not a drop enters or leaves the basin. Farideh has stood here for over an hour, watching scene after scene after scene. Meanwhile the apprentices come and go-never leaving her alone, never speaking above a whisper-trading scrolls and worried expressions. She gets the impression that somewhere in the fortress, Rhand is unhappy, and the implications clench around her stomach. She wonders if he’s discovered the Harper in his camp.

“Show me where Dahl was. .” Farideh catches herself. The wizards aren’t watching her, but they’re not as dedicated to their tasks as they’ d be if they weren’t listening at all. She lets the rest of her question-“an hour ago”-disappear. She isn’t such a fool as to think they won’t report every single thing she tells the waters to show. If Dahl’s still trapped behind the wall, it might mean his doom. The waters turn, waiting for the rest, waiting for something they can use.

“Three midwinters ago,” she blurts-long enough that it shouldn’t matter one bit what Dahl was doing. She shouldn’t watch, but if she doesn’t, the wizards will notice that too.

The waters spit back a street scene-Proskur, Farideh realizes, surprised-and Dahl coming out of a dark doorway into an alley. A fine snow falls, trimming the dirty ice of the streets like lace. Dahl wraps his cloak close and hurries down the road toward the market.

Farideh’s fingers itch to touch the surface of the waters-the frustration and anger that seem to vibrate Dahl’s frame might make the waters shiver too. He is turned inward, scowling, his mouth twitching as if he were trying not to argue aloud with someone who wasn’t there. She sighs despite herself-that was more Dahl than a doppelganger could make.

He winds through the crowded market of stalls and carts and other bundledup people. The light is fading and lamplighters thread through the crowd. Past an unlit corner, Dahl eases around a pair of arguing merchants, cutting into a bookseller’s shop to do so. He is watching the fight when he crashes into the third man, hidden in the shadows. Farideh watches as Dahl is thrown off, as if pushed away, and falls into a stack of books. They tumble, some falling open, their pages rapidly speckled with melting snowflakes.

“Gods stlarning hrast it!” Dahl shouts. “Watch yourself!” The man just chuckles. The lamplighter brings her torch up to the streetlamp, and the flame reflects off plate armor, elegantly wrought and inlaid with gold and copper.

“It’s you that’s turned the wrong way, my good man,” the man says, and his voice sends an eerie, slow shiver down Farideh’s back. It’s like a song. It’s like a prayer. Dahl freezes. The man keeps walking, looking over his shoulder to call back. “Surely you can figure that out.”

Dahl sits, stunned, amid the fallen books, staring after the man as if he’s seen a ghost. He looks as if he’s frozen to the cobblestones, as if he’ll never move. .

“Wait!” he shouts, leaping to his feet like the ground beneath him has exploded. But the ice is slick and kicks his feet out from under him as he stands. He falls onto the scatter of books again, catching himself inches from an open page. The red-inked print of an angel with a herald’s horn and a flaming sword standing before an elf hero stripped of his weapons, and leaning on a crutch. The line of text beneath it: You believed yourself unmatched, good Fflar, honest and wise beyond all measure. But you never set yourself to find the whole truth, and that was your undoing.

Dahl lets out a breath as if he’s been punched. The bookseller is shaking the Harper’s shoulder, demanding to know who will pay for the ruined books. But when Dahl sits up, his gray eyes are locked on the crowded street, where the strange man with the elegant armor and the song for a voice has disappeared. A smile eases over Dahl’s face, as if someone has snatched away a heavy burden. He starts to laugh.

The vision disappears, leaving Farideh to wonder what happened between then and now, what took away that moment of lightness. And what exactly caused it.