Within minutes, three other servants and a Guardsman arrived. Regis set up the outer sitting room, easily accessible from the hallway, as a base of operations. He issued a stream of orders, to seal off the Hastur section and gather everyone within, to send word to Gabriel as Commander of the Guards and also to Javanne. Merilys took this last upon herself and showed her country good sense, for at the news that Mikhail had been abducted, Javanne came close to hysterics. She recovered enough to count off the servants and identify the one missing, a Thendara native she had hired for the season.

“Find him!” Regis snapped.

Before he could say anything more, young Kennard-Dyan Ardais stumbled through the door, closely escorted by two grim-faced Guardsmen. Regis did not know Kennard-Dyan well, although Danilo did; the lad was Mikhail’s friend, as well as Heir to Ardais. Word had it that his mother, Lady Marilla, was educating him in the Terran manner. Annoyance vied with concern on the youth’s face, both fading into confusion as he recognized Regis.

“Lord Hastur, we found this one coming up the back staircase,” said one of the Guardsmen.

“I’ll have you know I am—” and here, Kennard-Dyan rattled off a string of names and titles. He pulled his arms free. “Dom Regis, what is going on? I came to meet Mikhail, not to be mauled by—” He broke off, glaring at the Guards.

“That’s all right, I’ll handle it,” Regis said. At his nod, the Guardsmen retreated. “You and Mikhail had agreed to meet? Here, at this hour?”

The youth flushed slightly. “We were to go . . . um . . . hawking.”

“Hawking? At night? Is that what they’re calling it now?” Could it be a coincidence that the Ardais youth had come looking for Mikhail at this hour? Regis eyed Kennard-Dyan’s shamefaced countenance. Whom would he suspect next?

Wetting his lips, Kennard-Dyan glanced around the room. “Sir, please . . . is something wrong?”

Regis hesitated, for a moment tempted to enlist Kennard-Dyan’s help. Just then, Gabriel stormed into the sitting room. From his expression, he had already heard news of the kidnapping. His glance took in the scene.

Regis laid one hand on Kennard-Dyan’s shoulder and propelled him toward the door. “There is no time to explain, and in any event, it will all come out soon enough. I require your word of honor that you will say nothing to anyone, not even your mother, until I myself or Commander Lanart-Hastur make an announcement.”

Kennard-Dyan straightened his shoulders. “The word of an Ardais may not carry the same legendary weight as that of a Hastur, but to me it is as precious.”

Regis bade the youth return to his own apartments, then turned to Gabriel. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it’s probably true. Mikhail’s been kidnapped, by whom or for what purpose, I have no idea. I heard a scream—the servant girl had been knocked unconscious by the time I got here. I picked up the laranresidue of the assault.”

He did not add that his mind was already open, sensitized by Danilo’s anguished mental cry.

“You’re sure no one has entered or left?” Gabriel’s voice was rough with barely masked emotion. “Good.”

“There’s more.” Regis found his legs suddenly unsteady. He lowered himself to the nearest chair. “Danilo has been taken as well . . . and maybe Rinaldo, I’m not sure. There’s no trace of him, but he’s only been gone a few hours. Danilo went in search of him. To a tavern on Music Street—The Starry Plough.”

“I’ll dispatch my best men there at once.”

Saying the words aloud, hearing them in his own voice, gave them a terrible reality. Dimly, Regis realized he needed to eat, that use of laranexhausted physical as well as mental energies. Cold shivered through his gut. He swayed in his chair.

Gabriel bent to steady him. “You’ve had a shock. Let me get you some wine.”

Regis shook his head, trying to remember what was needed. What had Linnea said? Not wine. “Food, I think. Something sweet.”

Regis slumped forward, head in his hands. What a weakling he was and what a fool! Silently he cursed his traitor body for collapsing just when the people he loved most needed him.

He heard voices, people moving through the room, the door opening and closing. Someone shoved a plate into his hands. It smelled of honeyed pastry. With shaking fingers, he broke off a morsel and chewed it. The sweetness melted over his tongue. Moments later, the trembling eased. He was able to sit up, to focus.

“. . . to see Lord Hastur . . . should we . . .” One of the Guardsmen who had captured Kennard-Dyan stood talking to Gabriel just outside the door.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Send her in at once.”

Regis got to his feet. “Send who in?”

A clatter of feet at the top of the stairway drew his attention. The next moment, Linnea came running down the strip of carpet toward him. Her green traveling cloak and the leafy pattern underfoot made her look like a wild creature of the forest. Her hood had fallen back, revealing flushed cheeks.

Regis!Her mind touched his, that light, supple contact he remembered so well.

Linnea, here?Of all the people he could have wished for—

Incredulity melted into relief. Disregarding all propriety, forgetting the audience of Guardsmen and servants, Regis caught her in his arms and buried his face in the auburn tangle of her hair.

16

“How could you come so quickly?” Regis murmured. “How did you know?”

They were sitting together in his private parlor, their chairs drawn up so that her slim fingers could easily rest in his. Within moments of Linnea’s arrival, Regis had ordered the tightest security and the best guest quarters for her party. He had wanted Gabriel himself to stand guard over Kierestelli, but Linnea had insisted on keeping the girl with her. Regis had forgotten or not allowed himself to remember the shimmering beauty of the child, the quickness of her mind, the calm, almost inhuman serenity of those silvery-gray eyes. Kierestelli sat on the carpet beside her mother, long legs tucked with unselfconscious grace beneath her, one hand resting on Linnea’s knee.

She knows more than she reveals,Regis thought with a pang. He too had been forced to set aside his childhood far too early.

Linnea caught his glance. “Would you have her face this world ignorant and unprepared?”

Did she mean a world in which children—and Mikhail was barely more than a boy, although adult in Comyn eyes—were abducted from their own homes? A world in which others could be set aside, consigned without their consent to lives of privation and servitude? A world in which a boy like Felix Lawton, immensely Gifted, could be brought near death by the superstition of a parent?

“I did not know,” Linnea said, returning to his question, “not when I set out from High Windward. I was on my way, almost at the city gates, when your telepathic sending reached me.”

“Then you know what happened?”

“I know that your mind was linked to Danilo’s when he was assaulted. I did not know about Mikhail until I reached the Castle.” She stroked his wrist with a featherlight touch, a Keeper’s touch. “I am so sorry about Danilo. This must be dreadful for you. I will help in any way I can. And with Mikhail’s disappearance as well.”

As she spoke, she lowered her laranshields, opening her mind, inviting his presence. The simplicity and trust of the gesture was more than Regis could bear. The contact of skin on skin intensified his feelings. He pulled his hand away, but gently, so as not to affront her.

“What is to be done?” he asked, heaving himself to his feet. “They have taken everyone in Thendara dear to me. If you had been here—”

“Could I have prevented it?” she said. “Sensed it coming, used my Keeper’s sensitivity to give warning?”