“A little over two weeks.”

I chuckled. “Damn, but you’re a quick study.” I turned to Sora. “You didn’t hear any of this.”

“Any of what?” she asked innocently.

“Thank you.” And I meant it. There were too few people I could trust on Mid, and I really wanted Sora Niabi to be one of them.

There was actually paper and pens on Laurian Berel’s desk. I scribbled a quick message and folded it tight. Then I pressed my thumb to the fold and muttered a sealing spell. No one could open that note except for its intended recipient. The thing would go up in flames if anyone else tried to take a peek.

“Do you have a student you can trust and spare to deliver a message?” I asked Sora.

“I do.”

“Do you have a student who can go to the gangplank of the Fortune, ask for Captain Benares, give this to him, and not crap their pants?”

Sora chuckled. “I train demonologists, Raine. They’re up to it.”

“Good.” I pointed at the Scythe’s box, still on the floor. “May we borrow that?”

“You can have it.”

Vegard looked baffled.

“It still has the Scythe’s residuals on it,” I said to his unspoken question. “If I knew for a fact that the thing was in Carnades’s town house in a display case, I could find it myself. I know what it looks like, so I wouldn’t need to drag Piaras into this with me. However…”

“The Scythe probably won’t be out in the open,” Vegard said.

I nodded. “That’s the thing. We don’t know. So Piaras can probably use that box the same way I use an object for seeking. I can’t touch that box again, and I know the Saghred’s not going to help me find that dagger.”

“So we still need a virgin.”

“Unfortunately.”

“What if Carnades is wearing it again today?” Vegard asked quietly.

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” I told him.

Or tackle that mage.

Piaras’s class would be over in another ten minutes, so Vegard and I waited around the corner from his classroom. Waiting for Piaras also gave me more time to think. I couldn’t exactly walk up to Carnades’s front door, knock, and ask nicely. But at the same time, Vegard was right. I didn’t need the real crime of breaking and entering added to the list of imagined crimes on Carnades’s arrest warrant. The little Benares voice in my head whispered that breaking and entering could only be added to the list if I got caught. I told the little voice to hold that thought while I tried to come up with something less risky. Problem was I was having absolutely no luck. Perhaps my family urges were too strong for my law-abiding efforts.

“And this is Starke Hall, home to the college’s demonology department,” said a familiar voice.

Vegard and I looked at each other in utter shock. His eyes went wide; my mouth dropped open.

Carnades Silvanus.

What the hell was the acting archmagus doing playing tour guide?

“I promise not to linger for long, Magus Silvanus,” said a melodious voice, smooth and seductively beautiful. “It would be unspeakably rude to be late for my own reception luncheon.”

I sucked in my breath and held it. I didn’t mean to hold it, but at the sound of that voice, my mind forgot to tell my lungs to breathe. It had other things to do. Like panic.

I didn’t have to look to see who it was. I knew who it was.

Rudra Muralin.

Chapter 23

My mind raced, logic and reasoning struggling to keep up and failing miserably. What I was hearing was impossible. Rudra Muralin was under the island somewhere opening a Hellgate, or in hiding. And if he wasn’t in hiding, he sure as hell wouldn’t be touring the campus with Carnades. I peeked quickly around the corner, Vegard’s head doing the same thing above mine.

It was Rudra Muralin, all right-young and perfect like fine sculpture, and just as ageless. His beauty was no glamour, no spell to trick the eye; it was all him. The goblin’s waist-length hair was so black it shone almost blue, and his black eyes were bright with entirely too much intelligence.

And he was evil incarnate, responsible for the enslavement of thousands of elves and the sacrifice to the Saghred of thousands more. He’d done it before and he couldn’t wait to do it all again. He was standing not twenty feet away from me with at least six black-robed Khrynsani shamans and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

Vegard pulled me back into the side hallway.

“Professor Niabi,” Carnades was saying. “Ambassador Mal’Salin would like to meet you.”

I sucked in air between my teeth in a stunned hiss.

Ambassador Mal’Salin? What the hell?

“I have looked forward to it.” I could hear the smile in Rudra Muralin’s words.

Sora saw us as she walked past, but gave no outward sign that we were there. The goblin bastard could probably smell fear, so I made myself stop feeling it. Easier said than done, but I did it.

“My condolences on the loss of Chairman Berel,” Rudra Muralin murmured smoothly.

“On behalf of our department, I thank you,” Sora said, her voice formal and frosty.

I smiled. Sora was a demonologist; she knew evil when she met it.

“I have come to offer my assistance,” Muralin said. “I have mages who have come with me from Regor who are highly experienced in demon containment.”

I bit back a snort. Yeah, Khrynsani shamans would know all about demons, especially conjuring. Either some did survive the cave in, or Muralin imported more. Probably both.

“I assure you, Ambassador Mal’Salin, that we have the situation in hand,” Sora said. “But your gracious and generous offer is much appreciated, and I will keep it in mind.”

“As you wish. When I have the means to help, I cannot stand by and not act.”

I didn’t know how Rudra Muralin had managed to become an ambassador and a member of the goblin royal family in the few days since he tried to kill me, and right now, it didn’t matter.

Carnades had been turned away from me. I couldn’t see if he had the Scythe of Nen on him or not. My little Benares voice told me that it wouldn’t do any good to ransack his house if a mugging was needed instead.

If he was wearing it, I had to get it. If he wasn’t wearing it, I had to get out of here.

Then I remembered that I couldn’t go anywhere. Any moment now the classroom door not five feet down the hall from where Carnades and Muralin were standing was going to open and Piaras, Talon, and their combined eight bodyguards were coming out. As acting archmagus, Carnades could order those Guardians back to their regular duty, and probably find some reason to have Talon’s dark mages arrested.

And do the same thing to Piaras and Talon.

The boys could get away if someone kept Carnades’s and Muralin’s attention.

I was someone. And I knew I’d grab their attention, to say the least.

I stepped out into the corridor before Vegard could get his hands on me, a smile on my face and concern in my eyes. Rudra Muralin wasn’t the only one who could act.

“Magus Silvanus, I’m glad to see that you’re unharmed from yesterday. I heard about that demon escaping and feared the worst.”

I got an all-too-brief moment to enjoy the sight of Carnades Silvanus’s highbred mouth hanging wide open. I saw something else that I liked even more-Carnades was wearing a dagger in his sash, but it wasn’t the Scythe of Nen. Ransacking a house was a lot less risky than mugging a mage, especially that mage.

Rudra Muralin looked like he’d just gotten the best gift of his life, grinning until his fangs showed. I felt Vegard step up behind me. I didn’t turn around, I knew the expression he’d chosen for the occasion-touch her and die. My smile rivaled Muralin’s.

The goblin’s smile went from delighted to confident. He knew I couldn’t touch a hair on his head. I knew he wouldn’t kill me in public.