“Unfortunately, Rudra didn’t eat the fish that night,” Imala Kalis told him. “I knew I should have put it in the beef.” She shrugged. “He has to eat again sometime. If he wishes to avoid an embassy-wide case of the runs, he will come to terms with me.”

“Terms?”

“I will accept nothing short of his resignation, then I will personally see him on a ship back to Regor—or to Hell for all I care.”

“Didn’t King Sathrik appoint him personally?” I asked.

“As head of the secret service, Imala outranks a mere ambassador,” Tam informed me.

Nice.

“And Sathrik knows of your botanical activities?” I asked Imala.

The cute smile was back. “It is not my intention to tell him.”

“You know who and what and how old Rudra Muralin is, right?” I asked her.

“I make it my business to know my enemies, Mistress Benares—to know what strengths can be turned against them and which weaknesses may be exploited. I think I would refer to that creature as a ‘what,’ not a ‘who.’ ”

I grinned at her. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know why Imala Kalis was here or what she wanted, but I had to admit that the lady had style. “Rudra with the runs; that would be priceless.”

“Since he has a food taster whom I do not wish to harm, I’ve now tainted his soap. He’s especially fond of bathing.”

“Are the contents of that letter why you’re here?” Tam asked Imala Kalis.

I knew he meant her knowing about our umi’atsu bond.

“No.” She lowered her voice. “It is not in my best interests, or yours, for the contents of that letter to become public.”

“When will it be in your best interests?” Frost rolled off of Tam’s words.

“Never.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t expect you to. I’m here to help you. And if we can stop standing in the middle of the street, I can tell you why.”

Tam lowered his voice. “You can tell me right here.”

“And if I refuse?” Her words were playful but her eyes weren’t.

“Then Raine and I will go inside—and you and your men will leave.”

All signs of cute instantly vanished. “This is not a topic you want discussed openly.”

“I’ll decide that,” Tam countered smoothly. “Tell me what—”

There was a whistle and a thump and a goblin guard’s eyes went wide in pain and shock. He slid from horse to the street, a crossbow bolt embedded in his back. Two of the goblins posted at the end of the street were next. Then the air was thick with shouts and bolts.

I caught a flash of one of the shooters on a roof across the street. Dark clothes, with a tight, dark hood over his head.

The goblins nearest Imala Kalis instantly surrounded her, forming a goblin and equine shield around their boss. Tam and Vegard moved to protect me. They needn’t have bothered. I was in the shadows of Sirens before they could pull me there. I didn’t want to be turned into a pincushion, and I did want to know who was trying to make me one.

Vegard’s hands glowed incandescent white. The glow turned to white flame, spinning faster than the eye could follow into a whirling ball of fire. One shot skyward, a flare blazing straight up into the night sky. Vegard held the second fireball in his hand and scanned the rooftops. His lips curled back from his teeth in a feral snarl as he hurled it at the roofline of a nightclub across the street. A sniper erupted in burning white light and fell screaming three stories down to the street. There wasn’t much left when he landed. A blast of flame from a sentry dragon circling in the skies above the city signaled that Vegard’s flare had been seen. A second and a third dragon responded to the call. Backup was on the way, but would there be anything left of us when they got here?

A voice shouted three words from above us, each with its own discordant pitch and vibrating with a power that charged the air like the aftermath of a lightning strike. It was magic—raw, potent, and dangerous.

Talon.

Oh hell, kid. Not now.

I looked up to see Talon leaning out of a window two stories above us, his eyes fixed on a figure in the shadows not a dozen feet from where we were standing.

Shit.

I drew blades and the man didn’t move; I mean, he didn’t move at all. He had a crossbow, it was loaded, but it was only half-raised. The man was frozen. Not with a paralysis spell; I knew the residuals of a paralysis spell. This wasn’t it. It was as if Talon had stopped time for him.

That was impossible.

Tam saw what his son had done, and from the nearly sick expression on his face, I knew it was something Talon had no business doing, especially not with a street full of goblin secret service agents.

Talon nimbly swung out of the window and onto a fire escape ladder attached to the stone wall. The kid wasn’t coming down to us; he was running up that ladder to the roof.

Now it was my turn to feel sick. There were snipers up there and Talon was going after them. Alone. Recently Talon had taken on a major demon with his voice, and at that moment I’d known that the kid’s spellsongs weren’t limited to making Sirens’ clientele horny.

This was a deadly skill—and an inexperienced, impulsive teenager who had no clue of his own mortality had it.

We had to get up to that roof.

Two more goblins lay motionless in the street, their riderless horses adding to the chaos. As I watched, a Guardian went down. They had all shielded themselves with war magic so strong it was like a wall between them and whatever tried to get through. Solid work. The bolts passed through like there was nothing there. That meant there was magic of the blackest kind involved.

A hood did more than hide a face; it hid skin color and ears.

“Khrynsani!” shouted one of the goblins.

Tam shot an infuriated glance at Sirens’ roof, flung open the doors, and ran inside.

I was on his heels with Vegard right behind me. I sheathed my blades and checked my throwing daggers. I was going to bag myself a sniper. Alive would be good; I had some questions for the bastard, but dead would be perfectly acceptable.

I ran across the theatre floor toward the stage; that is, until Tam’s arm went around my waist and snatched me off my feet.

“Just where do you think—”

I twisted in his arms, putting us face-to-face. I pointed straight up. “Same place you’re going.”

“I’m going to the roof; you’re staying here.” Tam released me and ran to the bar, reaching behind it to pull out the wickedest crossbow I’d ever seen and a quarrel of bolts big enough to take down a sentry dragon.

I whistled. “Got another one of—”

“No!” Tam stalked past me and leapt to the stage in one smooth move. The stage was nearly shoulder-high on me so I had to run around to the stairs.

“Vegard, keep Raine down here,” Tam shouted back without turning. He was headed backstage and to the ladder that went to the catwalk above the stage and to the roof.

Not without me, he wasn’t. I think Tam realized that he couldn’t keep me from following him and get to the roof at the same time, and Vegard wasn’t about to sit this one out. By going up on that roof, he could protect me and get his hands on a Khrynsani at the same time. Tam slung the straps of the bow and quarrel over his shoulders and climbed that ladder quicker than a man could run up a flight of stairs.

“Those sentry dragons are going to torch anything on that roof,” Vegard said from behind me. “And if they’re Khrynsani, they’re goblins, and our men won’t be able to tell the difference between them and Talon.”

Tam swore and climbed faster.

I couldn’t catch Tam, but I could almost keep up. “We need one alive.” Though Nachtmagus Kalta could probably have a conversation with a dead one just as easily, and we’d be spared the annoyance of leaving a Khrynsani among the living. But in my family, killing someone you needed information from was just sloppy work. I was going to get a sniper, neat and tidy. He might have a neat hole or two in him, but he’d still be able to talk.