The stiletto froze in the air a hand's length from Ubad's face.

Magiere closed on him, falchion swinging out. Vordana rushed in from her side, the topaz amulet in his hand, and then he stumbled as growls filled the air.

Vordana fell back out of Magiere's sight, and the stiletto dropped with a muffled thud to the cavern's floor. Magiere heard Chap's snapping jaws and knew the undead sorcerer was well occupied. She stood perfectly still, the end curve of her sword slipped into Ubad's cowl and pressed against his throat.

"Call off your dead," she demanded. "Or you can join them even quicker."

Ubad neither gestured nor spoke.

Chap's snarls lessened, and the sound of Vordana thrashing upon the ground faded.

"Leesil?" she called out, keeping her eyes upon her prisoner, but no answer came. "Leesil!"

"I'm all right," he said from behind her, and she heard his ragged breath drawing close.

"And Wynn?"

A pause followed before he answered. "She's up again."

"Dead… alive," Ubad whispered, and his thin mouth pulled into a smile. "They are not as far apart as most think. Not for such as you and me. Do you still want your answers?"

He glided slowly back out her way, not even raising a hand to the shallow cut seeping blood on his throat. Magiere kept her eyes on him as she reached out to touch the skull upon the slab. Images flashed through her mind.

Blue fabric… a dress. The one Aunt Bieja had given her. And long, dark hair.

Magiere jerked her hand away.

"No," she whispered, and glanced toward Ubad, ready to run him through. "You had someone dig up my mother's grave?"

He waved one hand as if the question were irrelevant and then held it out toward Vordana.

The undead sorcerer got to his feet as Chap circled around behind him. Vordana moved cautiously as he pulled a pole torch from the ground and walked toward the cavern's center. Magiere backed away to keep him in sight, and Vordana shoved the torch head into the wood piled beneath the iron vat. Wild flames ignited.

"I can allow you to speak with her," Ubad suggested, "let her show you who you are."

Magiere's heart pounded. To speak with a mother she'd never known, to hear Magelia even for a moment was something she had never imagined possible. This gift came from the hands of a death-monger like Ubad. Still, she couldn't turn away.

"Only her and me?" she asked.

Ubad nodded. "She will be in you. She will show you anything you ask."

"Do it. Do what you have to."

"Magiere!" Leesil snapped. "No."

Torchlight flickered across Ubad's mask. Magiere wondered at the expression hidden beneath it. Her revulsion grew past hatred.

"Quiet, Leesil," she said. "I'll know if it's a trick, if it isn't her."

Ubad drew a narrow dagger from inside his robe and picked up one of the loose bones on the slab. The sight of this creature touching her mother's remains made Magiere tense against the urge to cut him down. The dark liquid in the large vat was boiling, and it began dribbling over the side to hiss in the raging flames.

Ubad held the bone over the vat and scraped it with the dagger's edge. White flecks fell from the blade into the roiling liquid. He set the bone on the floor and reached out his hand to Magiere.

"You share blood and bone. Give me your hand."

Magiere kept her falchion up and held out her other hand. He sliced her smallest finger and squeezed it, until a drop of her blood followed the bone shavings into the vat.

Ubad began to chant.

The ghosts in the cavern vanished, and Vordana stepped back.

Magiere had one moment to see Leesil's concerned face and Wynn's frightened eyes as the sage crept forward.

The liquid in vat rose, spilling freely over the sides until its sizzle in the flames sent up a cloud of vapor mat nearly blotted out the tripod. An image formed in the mist.

She was young and lovely and could easily have passed as Magiere's sister. Her skin wasn't as pale as Magiere's, and her black hair showed no glints of bloodred, but the resemblance was clear: a high, smooth forehead over thin arched eyebrows and a long, straight nose. She was tall and slender, wearing a blue dress that Magiere herself had worn on several occasions. Her brown eyes filled with confusion-and then her gaze fell upon Magiere.

Ubad's chant grew louder.

The young woman dropped lightly from the air to the granite floor. Her eyes locked with Magiere's, and she held out a hand. Magiere hesitated a moment, then took it. She felt no pain as the darkness of the cavern vanished.

She stood upon a grassy hill in a forest, and through the trees she saw the low huts of Chemestuk. It was early fall, and in the nearby fields cut out of the forest were villagers at harvest, clearing weeds or pulling fat pumpkins and squashes from their vines. One woman caught Magiere's attention. At first she thought it might be the same one she'd seen in the cavern, but this one was shorter and stout of frame, dressed in purple. She stood from her labors and wiped perspiration from her face.

It was Aunt Bieja, but younger, without the years weighing upon her.

Magiere heard the cloth rustle in the low breeze and turned to find the woman in her blue dress standing beside her.

"Mother?" she asked. "Magelia?"

The woman settled a hand upon Magiere's cheek. "Daughter. I know you."

"Magiere," she said back. "I'm Magiere. Aunt Bieja named me for you."

Tears slid down Magelia's face. "You grew up with Bieja? You have been happy?"

Magiere didn't know how to respond. She wanted to touch her mother's tears, to comfort her, but she couldn't seem to move.

"He took you that night," Magelia whispered. "The night you were born, but he promised to protect you. I remember your soft hair. You were born with a head full of black hair, and those dark eyes, not blue like most babies."

"Mother." The word was difficult to even say. "I must know what happened. How… I happened."

"Is that why you call me now?" Magelia's face darkened before Magiere, and it was like looking at her own angered reflection in a mirror. "You want to know your father?"

"I need to know."

Magelia's expression softened again. "I don't care, as long as I can see you, touch you. " Magelia's fingers dropped from Magiere's cheek to grip her hand. "Come with me, back to the keep."

The grassy hill faded along with the autumn sky.

Magelia had been moved to an upper-floor room of the keep, one without windows. She examined the door from top to bottom, but the lock was solid. The door would not even budge when pulled, and likely was barred on the outside.

She was alone.

For all her fear, she couldn't stop thinking of Bieja, how frightened she'd been the night of the abduction and how worried her sister must be. Wild thoughts of bribing servants to deliver messages ran through Magelia's mind, but she saw no one except the guards delivering her meals. Two always came. One remained in the passage while the other set her bowl upon the floor inside the door. She'd given up trying to goad or question them, as neither spoke a word to her.

The only other person she'd seen was Welstiel, the noble with white patches at his temples, coldly polite. He had been the one to move her to this room.

The room was chill and bare, with a thin mattress on the floor and a washbasin beside it. There was no other furniture.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of the door's bar drawing back. The door opened, and Lord Massing stepped in, the one called Bryen.

He was tall and used his imposing stature to cow those around him. Looking at his dark hair and pale skin, she thought he might be handsome were it not for the blankness of his expression. The only quality she ever saw flicker upon his face was arrogance.