I wanted their bosses.

Justinius chose a target, pointed at it, and a fiery needle of molten silver shot from the tip of his finger, passing completely through a goblin in the act of summoning a red ball of flame. He raised his other hand, palm out, and with a shaft of white fire, vaporized two Khrynsani who had the poor judgment to shoot at him. I didn’t stick around to watch the old man have his fun; I had my own pair of goblin targets.

The coachmen with the bad luck to have high-strung horses had all they could handle just keeping their teams from bolting. If you asked me, the horses had the right idea. I darted among the coaches, following Nukpana’s trail while trying to keep myself from being trampled by terrified horses.

A surprised shout turned into a pained scream as a coachman went flying over the top of the coach parked next to his.

I bared my teeth in a savage grin. Found them.

Janos Ghalfari quickly climbed into the now-empty coachman’s seat, then stared directly at me.

Oh crap.

With a wave of his hand, the horses around me erupted into terrified screams. Diving under the coach next to me was all that kept me from being pounded into cobblestone paste by rearing and thrashing hooves. I saw the door of Ghalfari’s coach open and Tam’s boots step up and inside. Two more pair of boots, probably worn by Khrynsani guards, jumped in after him.

Dammit.

“Raine!”

It was Mychael. A real shout, not mindspeak. I rolled out from between the wheels of the coach I was under and scrambled to my feet.

Mychael leapt onto the driver’s bench of a coach near the one Ghalfari had taken, his crossbow slung across his back. I threw together some shields and ran toward Mychael, ducking, weaving, and dodging, but mostly trusting my magic to deflect anything a terrified horse could hit me with.

I was nothing short of stunned when I reached the coach with all my pieces and parts intact. Then I saw the thin metal step to the driver’s bench and stopped cold. The freaking thing was chest-high on me. Who the hell drove these things? Giants? Mychael held the team’s reins easily in one hand and leaned over the side—way over the side—and grabbed my arm right above the elbow.

I just looked up at him. “You’re kidding.”

Mychael’s reply was a grin and a pull that lifted me off my feet and landed me on the seat beside him. Impressive.

Ghalfari’s coach had just turned onto the street. Hope surged through me. We could catch them; I knew we could. We had to. I had no idea in hell what we were going to do when we did, but I’d figure it out on the way or deal with it when it happened.

The axle springs creaked and our coach lurched to one side. I turned to see Vegard getting inside on the heels of Vidor Kalta’s black robes.

“You need ballast, sir,” Vegard called from inside. “Just tell us which side you need us on.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. Ballast?

Below the bench, four sleekly muscled black horses pulled hard at the reins, eager to go. The coach was covered in ebony enamel that virtually gleamed. Dustless. Pristine.

I gripped the bar on the side of the bench and held on. “Nice ride,” I managed. “Whose—”

Mychael flashed a fierce smile and snapped the reins. “Carnades.”

I hung on for dear life.

There was a tilted metal footrest for the driver to brace his boots on, and I was definitely bracing mine. Before now, I thought my experience with coaches had been pretty extensive: I’d fought inside a coach, clung to the back of a coach, damn near been thrown under a coach, but I’d never been on the driver’s bench going at a speed that was so far beyond insane it was ridiculous.

That was Janos Ghalfari’s fault, not Mychael’s. The goblin set the speed; Mychael was simply hell-bent on catching him.

We reached a smoother patch of street and my teeth stopped knocking together long enough to speak. “You stole Carnades’s coach.”

Mychael gave me a crooked smile. “Appropriated. In pursuit of wanted felons.”

“There were other coaches.”

His smile broadened into a grin. “Yes, there were. But Carnades has some of the fastest horses on the island.”

“Plus you taking them would piss him off.”

“That, too.”

When Ghalfari and Mychael took the first corner, both coaches’ wheels stayed on the street where they belonged. But when Ghalfari took the next corner sharp—and on two wheels—the need for movable ballast became all too apparent.

Oh crap.

“Vegard!” I shouted. “Right side!”

He and Vidor moved and our coach’s wheels stayed on the street. Disaster averted. At least until the next time Ghalfari turned.

The good thing about coaches and horses was that pedestrians could hear the hooves and wheels coming and get the hell out of the way. It was late morning; the streets should have been filled with people going about their business. A few people were on the sidewalks; most watched the coaches thunder past from the safety of shop and office windows. I figured that the streetlamps flashing with bright blue lights had everything to do with it.

“The lights warn citizens to take cover,” Mychael told me. “Justinius would have had them activated.” Now that we were away from the Conclave complex, Mychael could scoop up my thoughts like dice off a table.

That meant he picked up the word I thought loud and clear when one of the Khrynsani threw open a small door on the back of Ghalfari’s coach and hurled a red fireball at us.

I didn’t think; I just reacted.

I threw up a shield in front of me and Mychael, and neatly deflected the fireball. My next deflection wasn’t so neat and a signpost on the street corner burst into flames. Oops. Any people left on the street promptly dived for cover.

The Khrynsani grinned in a flash of fangs as red flame spun over his hand. His eyes were fixed on somewhere out in front of us, down low. The fireball became a solid sphere and he aimed.

At our horses. The bastard was going to torch our horses.

I gritted my teeth pushed my shield out in front of the lead team, one hand still gripping the handrail, the other extended palm out, struggling to hold the shield in place. Keeping a shield steady while I ran was one thing; doing the same in front of four racing horses was virtually impossible. If the shield touched them, they’d spook. If they saw that fire coming at their faces, they’d definitely spook.

I felt Mychael’s will combine with mine and the shield darkened. The horses could still see to run, but any fireballs coming at them would just look like a ball, not horse-terrifying fire.

“Vegard!” Mychael called.

“I’m on it, sir.”

I felt a surge of power from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and Vegard was half out of the window, his eyes intent, silently mouthing something I hoped the fireball-throwing goblin wasn’t going to like, or better still, wouldn’t survive. I felt a tug and a sharp yank from Vegard as the goblin came flying out of the back window of that coach like he’d been jerked out by a giant hand. The goblin slammed into a metal lamppost with a hollow clang.

Beautiful.

“Wagon ahead!” Vegard shouted.

Oh no.

One man, one horse, and a cart loaded with what looked like firewood.

And Janos Ghalfari was going to run right over them.

The man saw the coach bearing down on him and desperately pulled the horse’s lead, trying to get him to move. The horse reared, dumping the logs into the street. The man and horse got clear just in time. Ghalfari’s horses jumped or dodged the logs.

The coach wasn’t nearly as nimble.

The right front wheel hit one of the smaller logs and the coach lurched sharply to the side, enough to knock around anyone inside, but not enough to turn the coach over.

The next log was much bigger.