The risk wasn’t worth the toss, eavesdropping on a conversation he couldn’t understand. What mattered was that when the right moment came, he was ready and had a way out!

He crept back to his room, locked the door, and hid the picks inside the mattress again with the rest of the spoon bits. As he lay back on the bed with his head on his arms, trying to calm his racing pulse, he wondered again about the rhekaro. He hadn’t heard it making any noise. Perhaps Yhakobin would leave it alone now, having gotten whatever it was he was after from it.

Ahmol shook him awake sometime later, and the guards hustled him upstairs, where Yhakobin was waiting. Morning light streamed in through the skylights, and he could hear a mockingbird trilling somewhere nearby and the laughter of the children at play.

The slate table was bare, and scrubbed clean.

“Where is it, Ilban?” he asked without thinking.

The alchemist nodded toward a small tub by the door. It was covered with a cloth, and a single hank of silvery white hair hung out from beneath its edge.

“Oh, Illior. You killed it,” Alec gasped. One of his handlers cuffed the back of his head for such insolence, but Alec hardly felt it. He felt numb, gaze still locked on that pitiful lock of hair, remembering the pleading look he’d seen in its eyes when he’d healed it.

“It was never alive to begin with,” Yhakobin told him impatiently. “It was ill made, besides. Quite useless. We shall have to try again. Give me your hand.”

Alec tucked both under his armpits. “Why? So you can torture another one?”

Yhakobin struck him across the face, sending him sprawling. The guards were on him at once, but the alchemist reached for his bodkin rather than the whip.

“I don’t have time for this. I’ve redone my calculations, and if this proves suitable…” He jammed the bodkin into Alec’s sore finger and performed the flame spell. It burned pale lavender. “Ah, good. I haven’t lost too much ground, after all.” He paused, and Alec realized he was staring at the dragon bite on his ear.

“I know what that is now, Alec. Khenir confessed it to me. It’s such a small thing, and yet…? Well, no matter. We are where we are.” He went to the tincture shelf. “I believe we can start with silver, this time.”

“No!” Alec tried in vain to wrench free of the guards, but they knew his tricks now, and had little trouble holding him down on his back and pinching his nose shut as Yhakobin leaned over him with the funnel.

CHAPTER 26 Pride

SEREGIL HAD NO way of knowing how long Ilar had kept him drugged, but when he finally did wake up in that cold little cell, he was desperately hungry and thirsty. His ribs were sticking out again. The pallet under him was wet and reeked of urine.

Mine, no doubt, he thought wearily.

A wooden pitcher stood beside the bed. He rolled over and sniffed at it. Water. Not caring if it were drugged or not, he took several gulps. It was stale but cool, and it soothed his dry throat.

His next priority was to get away from the dirty bed. He rolled off and sorted out a few of the quilts that hadn’t been soiled, then used the corner of one dipped in water to clean himself. His skin was sore where he’d lain in his own filth.

Wrapping himself in the musty quilts, he propped himself up in the corner and stared at the door. The spot of barred light on the wall told him it was late afternoon.

Alec could be dead by now.

Seregil hugged the quilts tighter around him, pondering that reality. Whatever this rhekaro thing was, Alec’s blood was clearly an important ingredient.

It was no secret that the necromancers of Plenimar favored ’faie blood for use in their foul magics, a fact from which the slavers made a great profit. Hadn’t the alchemist said that Bôkthersan blood was used for making a dra’gorgos? He wondered whose life had been given for the one that had attacked them in Aurënen.

But the alchemist also claimed to have no intention of killing Alec. My precious alembic, brewing wonders for me.

Seregil shuddered. Not while I have breath in my body!

Gathering his strength, he used the wall to push himself upright and then leaned on it as he walked around the room to test his strength. He was light-headed and unsteady.

I couldn’t fight my way out of a rotten gourd!

He’d waited before, in the upstairs room, getting his strength back, and all the while Alec had been at the mercy of the alchemist and Ilar. Now, when he knew Alec was so close by, Seregil was right back where he’d started-limp and useless, trapped in a cell with no means of escape. He wondered if Ilar meant to starve him to death this time, but doubted it. That would end the fun too soon, and it had sounded like he meant to savor Seregil’s destruction.

I’ve been in worse spots, he told himself again, but was hard-pressed to think of many. At least he wasn’t bleeding and had no broken bones so far. That was to the good-though from what Ilar had said, he wondered how long that would last. The future looked rather bleak at the moment.

He found himself missing Zoriel. She’d taken good care of him and cared enough to send that Khatme nurse to check on him.

He tugged absently at a strand of dirty hair. To get out of this wretched prison, he was going to have to use his wits. Fighting Ilar was hopeless. The bastard would enjoy it. No, it was time for a new strategy, and fast.

“Rhania, come pay me another visit, won’t you, my dear?” he whispered into the gathering gloom. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d found a servant just as useful as any lock pick.

But it was not Rhania who came to him after dark, but Ilar, and he had an escort this time. Seregil didn’t stir from his corner. He’d had a long time to consider his options.

One of the men placed a stool and a lantern by the door. The other held a tray and Seregil’s mouth watered at the aroma of some soup made with onions and spices.

Ilar sat down and regarded Seregil with obvious delight. “Awake, I see. I hope fasting has improved your temper?”

“I suppose it has,” Seregil replied, purposely sounding fainter than he felt. “Please, what’s happening to Alec?”

“I believe Ilban Yhakobin is preparing him to make another rhekaro.”

“Another?” Seregil closed his eyes, fending off a wave of very real panic.

“Yes. The first one was not suitable,” Ilar told him, relishing his discomfort.

“I want to help him,” said Seregil. “Is there anything I can do that will sway you?”

“My goodness, this is a sea change,” Ilar sneered. “And why should I bargain with you?”

“No bargains,” Seregil replied. “I’ll do anything you want, take any torture you like, if you can keep that man from killing him.”

“You must think me quite a fool, Haba. I assure you, I’m not. I know the minute I turn my back on you, you’ll try to strangle me again, or run away. Probably both.”

“You think I’d leave Alec to die in this place?”

Ilar pondered that a moment. “Perhaps not, but I do find it hard to believe this sudden change of heart toward me.”

“You have my word, Ilar-Ilban. By the love I once had for you, and the love I bear for Alec now.”

“Words are worthless between us, Haba.”

Seregil gathered his will, swallowed his pride and crawled to Ilar on hands and knees, letting the quilts fall away.

“What’s this?”

Seregil crouched before him, kissed one slippered foot and then rested his forehead lightly on it. “My life for his, Ilban. Please, I beg you, my life for his.”

Ilar grabbed the back of Seregil’s head, fingers twisting painfully into his hair. “Be careful, Haba. I will not be lenient with you again when you betray me.”

“My life for his,” Seregil whispered.