Kitai nodded her head in satisfaction, gathered up her coils of rope and put them in a leather case on her belt. "Just so long as you know that tonight will not go to plan."

"Pessimist," Tavi said.

"Tavi," Isana said, "were the coldstones sufficient?"

He still couldn't believe that his mother had helped Kitai burgle a dozen restaurants in the dead of night. "They should be," he said. "I'm more worried about the armor. It's close, but it isn't perfect."

"One can hardly expect to acquire custom-made, counterfeit suits of armor in two days," Kitai replied. "Not even here in the capital."

"I know, but…" Tavi sighed. "There's no way we're getting inside once the alarm is raised."

"We have made the best preparations we can, Aleran," she told him. "There is no sense in letting it worry you at this point."

"Probably," he said.

"But you will worry anyway." She sighed.

"Perhaps it isn't entirely his fault," Isana murmured. "I'm afraid it's a habit he learned from me." She faced Tavi, and her expression became much more serious. "But she's right, dear. Worry is fear in disguise. And fear will eat you from the inside out if you let it." She gave him a faint smile. "Believe me. I know."

Tavi took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. If anyone in all of Alera had good reason to worry-and fear-surely he was that person. At the same time, though, he recognized good advice when he heard it. He might not be able to follow it, but it would probably be smart to try, at least in the long term. "I'll try," he said drily. "But not tonight. I've got enough on my mind without adding more pressure."

Isana smiled at him and nodded. "We'll be ready to go when it's time," she told him.

Kitai snorted as she rummaged through a second belt case, laying out several tools in a neat row. "Only if there isn't someone here distracting us with foolish conversation about things he cannot change."

Tavi was about to say something about the two of them not liking the way he ran his mouth either but thought better of it. Of all the things he expected to face tonight, paralytic fits of laughter at his expense had been rather low on the list. "We'll go as soon as Ehren's done with the cloaks."

He nodded to both of them and paced back down the hall to his room. When he entered, Araris was standing in the middle of the floor, his body shrouded by a long grey cloak. "Are you sure it isn't going to hang too low?" he asked. "Cloaks look very fine, but they're impractical enough to fight in without making them long enough to trip yourself on, too."

"It'll be another four or five inches higher, once you've got the armor on," Ehren assured him. He glanced up at Tavi and tossed him a second grey cloak, rolled into a bundle. "This seems a little familiar. Try it on."

Tavi unfurled the cloak and donned it. Ehren came over to inspect the hem, which hung halfway down his shins. "Not bad. Not quite uniform length, but it should pass in the dark."

"Right," Tavi said.

Outside, the city's bells struck a single note, as they did for each hour between sunset and dawn.

Midnight.

"All right," Tavi said. He seized his pack. "Let's go."

The first part of the plan was, in some ways, the most dangerous.

The Grey Tower was a nondescript sort of building, utterly lacking in the drama its name-and role in history-implied. It did not look particularly menacing. For that matter, it hardly looked like a tower. It was an unassuming stone building of several stories. There was an institutional look to the square structure, with its even, identical rows of windows that spoke more of regularity and economy than of style or art. There was a wide, green lawn around the building, devoid of any decoration and easily watched.

For centuries, the Grey Tower had served an important role in Aleran society, as the sole prison in the Realm capable of holding the upper strata of the

Citizenry captive against their will. There were furies forged into the very rock of the Tower, fused into each cell by dozens of the most potently gifted furycrafters in the Realm for the sole purpose of neutralizing the crafting of the Tower's prisoners.

In addition to its protective furies, the Tower was also home to the Grey Guard, a half century of Knights Ferrous recruited specifically for the quality of their character and their loyalty to the Realm. Indeed, there was even a Crown Law on the books that required the Crown to pay any Guardsman offered a bribe three times the offered amount when the Guardsman turned in the person responsible for the attempt. In its centuries of duty, not one single Grey Guardsman had ever accepted a bribe.

All of which meant that there would be no relatively easy escape from the Grey Tower, as there had been from the stockade at the Elinarch's fortifications. In point of fact, no prisoner had ever escaped the Grey Tower-until Tavi and Ki-tai had overcome the inward-focused defenses of the Tower and its personnel and extracted Antillar Maximus from his cell during the Vord attack several years past.

At that time there had been little evidence of traditional prison accoutrements. There had been no bars, no gates, and no walls around the grounds.

Since then, things had changed.

The first obstacle Tavi had to overcome was the fifteen-foot wall around the outside perimeter of the lawn. It was two feet thick and made of the same interwoven layers of stone that comprised the siege walls of Legion fortresses. The wall's top was coated in a layer of razor-sharp stone protrusions and dotted with sculptures of tiny owls the size of a man's hand-gargoyles.

Gargoyles were fairly common guardian furies, often used in the fortresses and residences of the rich and powerful, and though their appearance could vary greatly, they all had one thing in common-they were built to be large, powerful, and intimidating. The cost in effort and furycraft needed to maintain a gargoyle meant that they were expensive to keep, and since the Grey Tower was a state institution, economy was a constant consideration.

It had been Tavi's idea to employ a greater number of weaker furies. For an effort comparable to the work needed to maintain a single gargoyle, the wall (also Tavi's suggestion) could be completely surrounded with furycrafted sentinels. The owls were not intended to be creatures of violence, as most gargoyles were. They were simply there to raise a shrieking alarm should anyone attempt to climb the wall.

All of which meant that the only way to get into the grounds, other than flying in or somehow vaulting the wall, was through its manned and guarded gate-which opened for no one but the Grey Guard and those couriers and legal personnel who carried a special authorization from the Crown itself.

That was why Tavi, Ehren, and Araris headed for the docks. Tavi led them into a darkened alley just off a street lined with taverns and wine clubs.

"Are you sure about this?" Araris murmured.

"I used to go to the Tower every week to play ludus with Varg," Tavi murmured as he unbelted his sword. "I got to know most of the Guardsmen. The men they pick for that job don't like to change their routine. Carus and Gert will be along anytime now."

Araris took off his own sword belt and set it aside. "What if the schedule has changed?"

"It hasn't," Ehren said. "I spread a little money around. They have standing weekly reservations at the Scarlet Lantern."

"Carus thinks he's a wine connoisseur," Tavi said. "Well. Whenever he isn't too drunk to pronounce the word. Gert likes the dancers there."

Tavi frowned, faintly. It made him more than a little uncomfortable to contemplate what he was about to do. He'd been on pleasant speaking terms with them. The two men were loyal servants to the Realm, and had always been courteous with Tavi, then a scrawny young page well short of his full growth. What he was about to do seemed a poor way to repay their fidelity and respect.