“I said stand back!” Alec exclaimed.

“What do we do?” Seregil slapped the wizard’s cheeks lightly as the man’s eyes slid shut. “Thero, isn’t there some spell to slow poison?”

“The box,” Thero mumbled. “Open it.”

“We’ve got to get him to Valerius!” said Alec, kneeling beside the wizard and feeling for his pulse. “His heart’s hardly beating.”

“Go fetch Micum.”

Alec dashed away.

“The box,” Thero rasped, and something dark trickled

from the corner of his mouth into his short beard. “Please. Must know.”

With the horrible feeling that he might be granting his friend his last wish, Seregil finished with the lock and opened the casket. Inside were three bottles. He gathered them up and knelt beside Thero. The man’s pupils were huge, his face deathly pale. More of the black liquid ran down his cheek.

“There are three,” Seregil told him, holding them up. “Two are milky and labeled. One says TANIA and the other is EONA. Bilairy’s Balls, Lady Tania died a week ago, now he’s killed Laneus’s widow.”

“Last symbol,” Thero choked out. “Do they have it?”

“Yes.”

“Seals-the soul.” Thero coughed and black spittle speckled his lips and chin. His breath was rattling in his throat. Clutching Seregil’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip, he rasped, “Find Illia’s-before he can-”

“Before he can seal it with the final mark. I understand. But what if he does?”

“She’ll die.” He coughed up a black gout and began to choke.

Seregil got an arm under his shoulders and lifted Thero so he could breathe more easily. “Don’t die! You’re just getting the hang of all this.”

The wizard managed what sounded like a chuckle, but he was shivering badly.

Alec hurried in. “Micum’s gone for his horse. He’ll need our help getting Thero on it.”

“What about the watchman?”

“Micum said he’d deal with him.”

They carried the wizard down and found Micum already at the back door with his tall grey.

“Maker’s Mercy!” he exclaimed softly. “Get him over Stormy’s withers so I can keep a hold on him.”

“We’re going to kill him!” whispered Alec.

“He’ll die if we don’t get him to Valerius,” Seregil grunted, helping him sling Thero over the horse like a sack of grain.

Micum swung up into the saddle and took a firm grip on the back of Thero’s coat. “I’ll come straight back.”

“Where’s the watchman?”

Micum winked. “Napping. What are you planning to do?”

Seregil gave him a humorless smirk. “It’s time to drive our prey. Micum, as soon as you get Thero to Valerius, have him send a messenger to deliver this to Korathan.” Seregil gave him the phial with Eona’s name on it. “Tell him to close the city gates and arrest the other players. Atre still has Elani’s jewelry.”

He put a hand on Thero’s shoulder. “Remember what I said. Don’t die.”

Thero’s eyes were closed and more of the black liquid was dripping from his parted lips. But they moved and only Seregil was close enough to hear his parting words: “Save them!”

Back in Atre’s room, Seregil and Alec set about putting things back where they’d found them. When they were done, Seregil set the leather case in the middle of the bed and took out the bottles that were still clear.

“What are you doing?” whispered Alec.

“These children can still be saved. The others can’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s what Thero thinks. Here, you take one and I’ll take one.”

They tucked the bottles under their belts inside their shirts and put the final things right.

Seregil took a last look around the room. “Finding that case out should be enough to flush him.”

“Where do you think he’ll go?”

“Hopefully to wherever he has Illia’s elixir hidden. And I don’t think he has enough of these bottles to last him for very long unless he goes back to his Basket Street cache. In his place I’d gather up as much as I could. If he’s on the run, it will probably be some time before he can reestablish himself in-”

Just then they heard the sound of familiar childish laughter from the street below.

“Bilairy’s hairy codpiece!” Seregil growled, peering out between the curtains. “Out the back, quickly.”

But before they could get downstairs they heard the sound of the front door opening. Hurrying to Brader’s chamber, they threw open a corner window and climbed down the splintery wooden drainpipe. There was no sign of the watchman or anyone else as they stole silently to the corner of the house and peered around. A link boy appeared in the street, lighting his own way. There was light inside the house now, too, and the sound of more laughter and women talking.

Thinking it was safe, Seregil led the way to the front corner of the house in time to hear Zell chastising the watchman for falling asleep at his post. The man quickly resumed his duties, rubbing his head as he did so.

“Do you feel a little bad for the other actors?” Alec whispered when Zell had gone inside. “I hate to think of the children in the Red Tower.”

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.” The fact was, Seregil was uneasy about that himself. He’d come to genuinely like the members of the company. That had probably blinded him to what Atre really was, he thought bitterly.

Leaving Alec to watch the back of the house, Seregil slipped away through the back garden and circled around to their original hiding spot across the street. There he hid the bottles they’d taken from Atre’s room in his saddlebags and hunkered down in the shadows of a silversmith’s shop to await Atre’s reaction to the surprise they’d staged for him.

The moon was sinking behind the clouds. Candles were lit inside the house, then one by one the windows went dark again as the occupants went to bed, and still no sign of Atre.

Perhaps he was spending the night elsewhere. They hadn’t seen who had come back, and Seregil hadn’t noticed Atre’s voice among the others.

Soon after, he heard Micum’s whispered “Luck in the shadows” from a nearby alleyway.

“And in the Light,” Seregil whispered back.

Big as he was, Micum scarcely made a sound as he materialized out of the shadows.

“How is Thero?” Seregil whispered, barely loud enough to be heard.

“I don’t know. Valerius is caring for him personally, though. Did you find Illia’s ring?”

Seregil shook his head and Micum bit his lip in frustration. Clasping his friend’s shoulder, he put his lips close to Micum’s ear and caught him up on the night’s progress.

The stars were beginning to fade and their cloaks were damp with dew when they heard the loud rattle and jingle of a carriage approaching. It rounded the corner pulled by a fine matched pair of white Aurenfaie horses, and although Seregil couldn’t quite make out the escutcheon on the door, the horses alone, together with the glint of gilt on the carved dolphins gracing the four corners of its roof, were enough to tell him that this was one of Atre’s more affluent and high-placed admirers. There were loud sounds of laughter and merrymaking as the coachman reined the horses to a halt in front of the house and they could hear Atre making his farewells as he alighted on the pavement. He paused a moment as the carriage rolled off, looking up at the sky and stretching, then put his key to the lock and disappeared into the house.

Seregil gave Micum a crooked smile. “Here we go.”

Atre wasn’t particularly drunk. He made a point of always keeping his wits about him, even when he went out carousing. Young Marquise Wentira and her friends had been quite amusing in their cups, though, and very generous.

He lit a candle from the small night lantern in the front room and made his way up through the silent house to his bedchamber. Once there, he set the candle on the dressing table and pulled the night’s pretties from his coat pocket. Wentira’s silver locket was very nice, and contained a lovely miniature of her done on ivory, but she’d had it made for him and it was far too new to be of any use. Sweet-faced Lord Byris had unwisely parted with a gold ring set with a ruby that had been given to him by Prince Korathan. That one was best returned. If only he’d had it from the prince himself, what a prize that would have been, surpassing even the pieces he’d had from Elani. He held his right hand out to