At that moment, a goblin sentry came around the corner of the house and plowed into Piaras. It was one of the guards who had pulled him off of Prince Chigaru. Unfortunately, he remembered us, too. So much for quiet.

“You!” he roared, and lunged for Piaras.

Piaras jumped back with a startled yelp. He didn’t think, he just reacted—with a solid right hook to the goblin’s temple. The guard dropped like a rock, a surprised look frozen on his face. I was surprised, too, but for different reasons entirely.

Piaras stood over the sprawled form, stunned by his own handiwork. “That’s for calling me bait,” he finally managed.

Someone had been teaching Piaras bite to go with his bark. “Where’d you learn that?”

Piaras winced and shook his fist against the sting. “Phaelan thought it was something I needed to know.”

I might have known. “What else has he been teaching you?”

Piaras flashed a sheepish grin. “You really want to know?”

“Probably not.” I peered out into the gloom. It looked as clear as it was probably going to get, but not nearly clear enough. There were things out there. And considering the hour, chances were better than average that we were going to be meeting some of them. I stripped the goblin of his weapons and handed Piaras a long dagger.

“Phaelan teach you to use one of these?”

He looked uncertainly at the blued-steel blade in his hand. “We’re working on it.”

“Hopefully you won’t get a chance to practice tonight.”

I took a curved sword and a pair of throwing knives. The guard probably had more on him, but I didn’t want to take the time for a more thorough search.

We ran across the lawn and into the cover of the trees. They were low and dark and more than adequate to hide us. After we had gone about fifty yards, I stopped and listened. No one was following. But that didn’t mean something wasn’t following. I was quite sure something was, and I didn’t need the beacon humming against the center of my chest to tell me about it. The hair on the back of my neck was doing a fine job.

I took us in a direct line away from the estate. Distance was more important than direction right now. We were in The Ruins, so I could safely assume that anything following us wanted to kill and eat us, and probably not in that order. When I no longer felt anything breathing down my neck, I’d stop and get my bearings. Our pace was even faster than the goblin guards had set bringing us into The Ruins. Survival was a powerful motivator.

After my last trip to The Ruins, I had asked Janek Tawl for a map and committed it to memory. I had sworn I would never get lost here again. With the amount of criminal activity in The Ruins, the city watch had commissioned the best maps money could buy. Hopefully I would live long enough to tell Janek it was a good investment.

The ground sloped upwards, and we followed it. There were only two areas of The Ruins that could be called high ground. We were fortunate to have found one of them. It wasn’t the way out, but it would go a long way toward helping me find one. At the top, there was a low grouping of stones surrounding a rock slab where the ground leveled off. I knew exactly where we were. That slab had seen various uses over the years, none of them good.

Piaras stopped beside me. “Where are we?”

That wasn’t a question I wanted to answer. “It doesn’t have an official name.”

“What’s the unofficial name?”

“The Butcher Block.”

He looked at the slab. “Because of the rock?” he asked uneasily.

“Yeah, because of the rock.”

The spellsinger stepped in for a closer look. I didn’t stop him. There was enough light to see where dark stains had seeped into the stone, becoming a permanent part of it. Piaras didn’t need to be told what those stains were.

He quickly returned to my side.

The lower Ruins spread out below us. In the distance, I could see the lights from the Sorcerers District and the harbor. So close, yet so far. Unseen from the forest floor, the tops of the trees twinkled with light when seen from above. In the canopy, pale lights of blue and white glowed, died, then reappeared farther away, until the forest was alive with fairy light. I had to admit it was possibly the most beautiful, and surprisingly peaceful, sight I had ever seen. And I didn’t let myself believe it for one second.

“How do we get out?” Piaras asked.

“The closest exit is a little over two miles that way.” I indicated the mostly overgrown path to our left, and the lights in the all-too-far distance. “That’ll put us out at the south end of the Sorcerers District.”

“That’s a long two miles.”

Two tiny pinpoints of light appeared through the trees. I thought they were eyes, until they separated. In the next few seconds, more delicate pink lights appeared, singly and in groups of two or three. They darted around us on translucent wings. The illumination seemed to come from the creatures themselves.

Piaras turned slowly, following their flight. “Are they moths?”

I tried to see one clearly as it dove in front of my face and then away. I caught the briefest glimpse of miniature arms, legs, torso and head—all no larger than my thumb, and all without a shred of clothing. There were both males and females.

“They look like some type of sprite or fairy,” I said.

Tonight was full of firsts. Possibly not everything living in The Ruins wanted us for a late supper. If it were true, it would be a welcome change.

One of the fairies darted on hummingbird wings around Piaras’s upheld hand. She was definitely female. She lightly brushed the spellsinger’s hand with her feet. Once. Twice. Piaras remained perfectly still and waited with breathless anticipation. The fairy landed.

More fairies appeared. Their glow was brighter than before, the colors deeper, more of a rosy orange than pink. I noticed a slight cut on Piaras’s wrist where the bindings must have broken the skin. The fairy had noticed, too.

“Piaras,” I warned.

“But they’re beautiful,” he protested, enthralled with the ethereal form perched coyly in the palm of his hand. His face was illuminated by her pale pink glow. She looked rather taken with him, too.

“Yes, they’re very pretty. Now, say goodbye to the nice, naked lady and let’s get out of here.”

The naked lady smiled, and suddenly she wasn’t so nice anymore. Razor-sharp teeth glittered in a tidy row a split second before she hissed and sank them into Piaras’s wrist. With a gasp, Piaras jumped back and swatted at her. Her pink glow flared to red as she and the others dove at us.

I’d seen enough. “Run!”

Piaras didn’t have to be told twice.

Run we could do, but escape was not happening. The forest had upright trees, fallen trees, rocks, brambles, and vines. The blood-sucking fire pixies just darted over or around anything in their path, flames spreading out behind them like the tails of tiny comets. The ground grew soggy, then wet beneath our feet. If memory served me, there was a shallow pond just ahead. Nothing like a little water to dampen fire pixie ardor. At least that was what I was hoping. It was the best I could come up with on no notice.

We burst into the clearing and were instantly knee-deep in pond water.

I quickly waded toward the center, and told myself that being drained dry by fire pixies was a worse death than drowning. I didn’t buy it for a minute, but for Piaras’s sake, I’d at least try not to think about it.

“Get a deep breath and stay under for as long as you can,” I called over my shoulder.

The pixies could just hover above the surface until we were forced to come up for air, but I’d deal with that stumbling block when I came to it. One problem at a time.

The center of the pond was chin deep on me, chest deep on Piaras. I took all the air my lungs would hold and went under. Piaras followed and did the same.