“So the girl was lying to us all along,” Paxon observed bitterly. “She’s Arcannen’s creature.”

Avelene was looking around, distracted. “I think we can retrace our steps out of here if we can remember all the twists and turns. We should get started.” She turned away, moving toward the door through which they had entered. “I don’t think you should jump to conclusions about Lariana.”

Paxon hurried to catch up, his anger hot and roiling within him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just not sure what game she’s playing yet. Maybe she’s Arcannen’s cat’s-paw, but maybe she’s got something else in mind. It’s in the way she acts and talks, going back and forth, always straddling the fence. I can’t quite make up my mind.”

Paxon snorted. “Well, I can. Her loyalties lie in one place and one place only. With her own best interests. She’d turn on anyone if the opportunity presented itself.”

“Maybe” was all Avelene said.

They left the room and passed down the corridor that had brought them in and then down several more before finally reaching the doors that would allow them to exit the building.

Doors that this time around were firmly barred.

Paxon slammed the palm of his hand against the metal in frustration. “We should have known. The plan was to delay us any way they could.”

“But not try to kill us,” Avelene observed. “Interesting. That doesn’t seem like Arcannen.”

Paxon stopped pounding and stared at the doors. “No, it doesn’t. What do you think?”

The lavender eyes fixed on him. “I think it is the same as before. He wants us to try to break free.”

“Another trap.”

“I would not want to chance it.”

The Highlander exhaled sharply. What do we do?”

The Druid shook her head. “Find another way out.”

“One of the other doors?”

She gave him a look. “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t trust them, either.”

Paxon found himself wondering what the point of all this was. Why had Lariana gone to the trouble of leading them into this complex? Couldn’t she have found a way to lose them in the city without going through all this? She was quick and smart; she could have gotten free at some point. Why pretend she was leading them to Arcannen? It just further convinced him that she was firmly allied with the sorcerer and using Reyn for her own purposes.

Which would be Arcannen’s purposes. Which would mean killing Dallen Usurient. But she had insisted she was trying to help Reyn and prevent him having to kill anyone else. Was she lying or was something else going on?

“We’re missing something,” he said suddenly.

Avelene gave him a look. “I’m listening.”

“Why does Arcannen need the boy to help him kill Usurient? Why can’t he just do it by himself?”

“Maybe he has some special form of retribution in mind that requires the boy’s help. Nothing too ordinary would suffice for someone like him.”

“He still wouldn’t need Reyn Frosch for that. What if we’ve been looking at this the wrong way? What if you’re right about that special form of retribution but wrong about its target?”

The young woman stared at him. “What does that mean?”

“Well, think of it like this. If Arcannen doesn’t need him to kill Usurient, maybe he needs him for something more complicated. What if Arcannen intends to kill not only Usurient but all the soldiers of the Red Slash? After all, the entire company carried out the massacre at Arbrox. Wouldn’t Arcannen see them as equally responsible for what happened? Would he really confine his revenge to just Usurient?”

“So you think he needs the boy to help him because he’s going after more than just one man? But how much help can he be, even with the aid of the wishsong’s magic?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling about this. He has to need Reyn or he wouldn’t bother keeping him close. He found him and took him along and trained him. He’s used Lariana to help him with all this. I think whatever he’s got planned involves destroying the Red Slash entirely.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Sounds to me like you’re whistling in the dark. But on the off chance you might be right, we’ll need to act quickly. He knows we’ll find a way out of here soon enough, and he won’t want us interfering with his plans.”

“Will we? Find a way out of here?”

“Come with me. I have a thought or two myself. We’re going back inside that room.”

They retraced their steps through the complex to the chamber where Lariana had disappeared—Avelene in the lead, guiding them with use of her werelight—making their way back to the place they had last seen the girl. The werelight glimmered brightly against the shadows as the Druid held it up and peered around the room.

“We were looking at this wrong, too,” she said suddenly. “Over here.”

She led Paxon to a corner of the chamber where a section of wall had cracked open just enough to reveal it was a hidden door. “Ah,” he said.

“We were fixated on what we thought we saw, which was Lariana dropping through a floor. But that was an illusion created out of magic. Arcannen left it in place here, and Lariana triggered it and then slipped out this door while we were distracted.”

“So she knew it was there. She had to.”

Avelene nodded. “She knew.”

They eased through the doorway into a narrow tunnel that wound through several twists and turns before ending at a section of wall that Avelene quickly determined was there to provide concealment for a hidden door. She tested the portal for traps using Druid magic, found none, and, bracing herself, pushed on it until it opened outward into the night.

Paxon breathed in the fresh air, looking up at a clouded sky. “Very smart of you.”

She pulled a face. “It took me entirely too long to see the obvious. You’re the one who’s sharp. I think you’re right about what Arcannen intends. But I also think you’re wrong about Lariana.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Call it instinct. There’s something more complex at work in that girl than what we’re seeing.”

He shook his head. “What do we do now?”

She gave him a shove away from the building. “Haven’t you learned anything, Paxon? Wherever we find the Red Slash, that’s where we find the sorcerer. Let’s hurry.”

When the door to their quarters opened again, Reyn was expecting Arcannen’s return. But it was Lariana who entered, and instantly Arcannen’s final words came back to him with razor-edged clarity.

I will gut Lariana from neck to navel right in front of you.

But was that threat real or another ploy to gain his compliance? He stiffened as she turned to him, still suspicious in spite of his fears for her, still wary of the truth behind her role in what was happening to him. She saw the expression on his face and glanced around.

“Where is he?”

“He went out. He didn’t tell me where he was going.”

She gave him a hard look. “What’s wrong? And don’t try to tell me it’s nothing. I know you well enough by now.”

“Maybe I don’t know you quite as well.”

She folded her arms. “Maybe you should tell me what you mean by that.”

When he looked at her, even now when he knew what she might be, he was so unnerved that he had to look away again quickly. “I’m finding out some things I didn’t know about you. Arcannen told me on the trip back. He said you and he …”

He stopped, unable to finish, not even really sure where he was going. What he wanted to say and what he was afraid might be true were getting all mixed up, and everything was coming out wrong.

She pursed her lips. “He and I what? Better finish that sentence, Reyn. Let’s hear all of it.”

With an effort, the boy pulled himself and his thoughts together. “It wasn’t so much what he said as what he hinted at. That you and he … might be more than teacher and student. That your relationship might be something else. But it’s not really that, either. It’s how you seem to know so much that I don’t. He tells you more than he tells me. You had a plan for finding us after we left you with the Druids. You and he had worked it out ahead of time. No one told me. I was worried sick about leaving you. I know he’s told you other things, too. About his plans for Usurient. About what he intends for me.”