Richly dressed patrons walked in and out, and here she stood in breeches, high boots, and a leather vest. She decided to just go in, pull Leesil out-and, maybe, see if he wanted go someplace a little more suitable.

"Come on," she said to Chap. "But I don't think they'll want a dog in this place."

A woman in a cream lace gown looked at them in shock as they walked through the front doors. A few other heads turned as well. Magiere began doubting her decision and wondered if she shouldn't quickly leave. A tall man approached her, wide shoulders filling up his white shirt and embroidered vestment.

"May I help you?"

"I'm searching for a friend," she explained. "Soon as I find him, we'll be on our way."

The guard nodded politely. "You'll need to leave your sword with me. Food is served in the chamber to the left. Gaming is on the right. Rooms are also available, and you can ask any of the staff to assist you."

Magiere felt her stomach turn hollow.

"You have a gaming room?"

"Yes, miss," the house guard replied. "Your sword?"

A faro table was one thing, but a whole room of chance? The thought of Leesil in there was too much for her. She unstrapped her blade and handed it to the guard, and suddenly Chap growled.

"We try to be accommodating," the guard added sternly. "But you will keep your animal under control or leave immediately."

Chap inched toward the archway to the game room. A low rumble began in his throat and slowly grew to an eerie high-pitched whine. Several nearby patrons stepped away in alarm. It was a familiar sound, and Magiere's attention fixed on the archway.

She looked down to her chest. The topaz amulet glowed brightly.

"You've got bigger problems than the dog," she said, and turned to Chap. "Go!"

Chap lunged into the archway as Magiere followed. She scanned the room for Leesil but couldn't find him, and a bright spot of color grabbed her eye-the back of a shapely woman in a lavender silk gown sitting in a man's lap. Dark-blond ringlets fell down past her shoulders.

Chap let out a series of savage, snapping barks that startled even Magiere.

And the room burst into turmoil.

The nearest patrons rushed, lunged, stumbled, and fell over one another and their chairs while trying to get away from the animal. A dice table overturned. Two men in vestments rushed forward to help patrons, all the while keeping their attention on Magiere and Chap. At the commotion, the blond-haired woman looked back, shifting in the man's lap and exposing him to view.

Leesil? Magiere mouthed, but no sound came out.

He sat alone, except for the woman he held, with a stack of coins on the table next to a large pewter goblet.

Chap's attention was fixed directly on Leesil's companion.

Magiere snatched the edge of a table in her way and jerked it over and aside. Leesil looked at the woman atop him with a strangely baffled and annoyed expression, and then he caught sight of Magiere.

He took a deep breath, amber eyes widening, and his tan complexion appeared to pale.

As Sapphire nestled onto his lap, Leesil had no idea how to respond. The rustling silk and the plump mounds of her breasts filling his view put him at a momentary loss. Blinking, he looked up at her with what he hoped was adequate annoyance. He grabbed her upper arms and was about to hoist her off when he noticed her eyes. He hadn't looked at them closely before.

They were bright blue, her pale face framed by long curls of dark-blond hair. There was something familiar about her, as if he'd seen her once before. Then came a strange, unnatural howl more familiar than the woman's face, and people began shouting.

Patrons clamored and shoved their way toward the room's back. Tables, chairs, and bodies toppled one over the other. Two house guards waded in, trying to disentangle bodies from furniture. But everyone's attention was fixed toward the bestial sounds coming from the archway. His uninvited companion turned in his lap as well, opening his view.

There stood an enraged Chap.

And Magiere.

He was in a gaming room. He was drinking. He had a silk-clad blond in his lap with her chest in his face. Magiere's infuriated expression sent a numbing chill through Leesil that sank through to the seat of his breeches.

There wasn't anything that could save him from Magiere long enough to explain all of this.

Chap snarled, inching into the room, and Leesil tensed in alarm. The reasons for Magiere's ire were plain enough, but what had gotten into Chap?

Magiere looked at Sapphire, and Leesil had a moment's concern over what Magiere might do to the woman. Grabbing a table in her way, Magiere slung it aside, and Leesil winced, trying to figure out how to get both himself and Sapphire out of harm's way until Magiere calmed down. Then he saw the topaz amulet in the room's softer lamplight.

It glowed. His eyes rolled up to Sapphire once again.

Dark-blond ringlets. Bright blue eyes-like gemstones. Pretty and eager. With smooth, pallid skin. Like Magiere's.

Leesil stiffened, a coin's toss between mortified and horrified, and choked back a curse before it could escape. The slim chance of explaining anything to Magiere faded. He'd be lucky if she ever spoke to him again, if he lived through this.

His right hand dropped slowly to his side, and he flicked the sheath strap to slip a stiletto into his hand.

Sapphire's hand clamped around his throat, nails biting into his skin.

"Try that and you're dead," she hissed without looking at him. Her attention was on Magiere, confusion in her voice as she spoke. "Hold that dog off, or this one dies!"

Magiere stopped. "Let him go, or you won't reach the door."

The two guards in the room stood still and uncertain. Leesil spotted a third poised in the entryway behind Magiere, eyes shifting, as if wondering whom to deal with first. Such a disturbance was probably rare in a place like the Rowanwood, and they clearly had no wish for a patron to be killed inside the establishment. But they also appeared more anxious over Chap than the sight of Sapphire's fingers on his throat.

In one movement, Sapphire slipped out of his lap and spun around, pulling Leesil to his feet with his back toward Magiere and Chap. She retreated toward a side exit used by the staff.

Leesil still believed he could remove her fingers with little damage to himself, but there were too many people inside the game room. She might simply grab someone else. He decided to let her to pull him outside.

Chap raged somewhere behind him, and he wondered what Magiere might do next.

Sapphire pulled him through the side door into a narrow, plain passage and kicked the door shut behind them. Her fingers tightened as she backed hastily toward the hallway's end and another door.

"Now, I'll never be able to come here. And this is my favorite place," she hissed, pulling him along. "You might have mentioned you were married, but your kind rarely does on an evening out. Maybe she won't even care if I rip you apart."

Leesil couldn't believe what he was hearing. Not only was she completely vapid if she thought Magiere was some enraged wife, but her main concern was that she'd not be able to patronize the Rowanwood again. When Magiere caught up to them, this idiot corpse had a few surprises coming. How had such a creature survived on her own?

He still gripped the hilt of a stiletto in his right hand, the blade up his sleeve. Sapphire had been so preoccupied she hadn't told him to drop it. The blade wouldn't kill her, but perhaps he could get free at the right moment.

A young house guard stepped from a side door down the passage, blocking Sapphire's way. He looked uncomfortable, as if he should be asking Leesil to release the woman and not the other way around.