Lord Au'shiyn stepped out and walked toward the front steps of his home as the coach pulled around behind the house. In a city that had grown faster in population than in physical size, space for a personal coach and driver was a luxury even among the wealthy. Lord Au'shiyn lived well indeed.

As he reached the front door, the visitor stepped from the shadows to follow him up the walk, and called out softly, "A word, if you please."

Au'shiyn turned in mild annoyance, looking tired and uninterested in a late chat, but then recognition crossed his features, and he stopped.

"Oh, good evening. What brings you here so late?"

The visitor stepped up to front porch as if to convey information, and his gloved hand seized the back of Au'shiyn's neck.

Before the Suman elite could cry out, the visitor bit into his throat with elongated canines, not to drink but to tear. He ripped flesh open to expose raw veins, crushing his victim's windpipe in the process.

Lord Au'shiyn died quickly, with panic in his eyes.

The visitor shook the body until blood ran free to soak the white shirt and russet robe. The layered cloth wraps about Au'shiyn's head fell to the porch. Pausing, the visitor shredded the shirt's front for savage effect and then dropped the corpse upon the steps.

Chapter 12

The sun hadn't yet risen, and Leesil lay sleepless in his bed.

Upon leaving Lanjov's bank the day before, he, Magiere, and Chap had gone to the alley behind the Rowanwood. Chap smelled the piece of lavender silk Leesil had cut from Sapphire's gown, sniffed the ground, and, with a bursting cry, took off down the winding back ways. Only a few streets away, the hound raced into an open road and stopped, turning about in confusion. The trail was gone.

After this disappointment, they journeyed to the sages' guild to check on Wynn's progress, but she was still awaiting delivery of records. With nothing further to follow up, they returned to their inn for supper and much-needed sleep. Except that Leesil had not slept well at all, and now lay on his back, eyes closed, unable to quiet his thoughts.

How would they spend yet another day with no further hint of where to look? He had no answer.

Predawn darkness finally overwhelmed him in his frustration. Rolling to his feet, he leaned the bed up against the wall on its side to give him a small space of open floor and lit the candle on the bedside table. He slipped his new weapon from its sheath. The blade had been well beveled and sharpened, ready for use.

He began with slow feints as he tested its weight. At times he felt unbalanced, for it was heavier than expected. The blade itself was stable in his grip, but he needed its twin as a counterweight on his other arm. He executed a series of straight jabs with the blade's point, alternating with sweeps of his leg. Each time he tried a swinging chop with the weapon's outside edge, he felt an unnerving imbalance in his step.

In the sleeping inn's silence, booted footsteps in the hall were easier to catch, and he paused, perfectly still. Who would be walking around the upstairs guest quarters at this early hour? Then a short rapping sounded at his door. Slipping the blade behind his back, he cracked the door open.

One of the white-surcoated city guards stood outside. A few steps down the hall stood Captain Chetnik in full uniform, pounding on Magiere's door as well.

"It's Captain Chetnik," he called out. "Don't be alarmed."

"Don't be alarmed?" Leesil said, sticking his head out. "Yes, why would she be alarmed by someone beating on her door before sunrise? If this is about the Rowanwood, we'll talk later at the barracks."

Chetnik barely glanced at him, and Magiere opened the door, rubbing one of her eyes.

Her long hair was completely black in the dim hallway and hung loose down past her shoulders, making her pale face stand out like a specter. She still had her shirt on and was wrapped up in a blanket from her bed.

"Chetnik?" she said. "What's wrong?"

Magiere was tall for a woman but looked vulnerable standing next to the towering captain. Chetnik looked her up and down, and Leesil's grip tightened on the blade hidden behind his back.

"Lord Au'shiyn of the city council was found dead on his front steps this morning," Chetnik said. "Looks the same as Councilman Lanjov's daughter."

Magiere stared at him without speaking.

"There's more," Chetnik went on. "The constabulary of the Westside mid-district found a body two days ago in an alley but just notified me. It's a young woman who was reported missing, and her condition appears to fit the pattern. I assumed you'd want to look at both immediately."

Magiere rode in silence to Au'shiyn's manor.

Leesil sat in the military wagon across from her, equally quiet, with Chap resting between his feet. Chetnik sat beside her, and the single guard who'd accompanied the captain drove the wagon. As they pulled up to a house, Magiere wondered at the display of wealth all around them.

Nearly every house was three stories tall and constructed of crafted stone or cast brick. Fences and gates were solid iron or stained timbers carved with ornate patterns. The street was impossibly clean, and dwarf trees and shrubs were planted in the small front spaces of many houses. Chetnik leaned toward her.

"I had the woman's body brought here, before it was taken to the funeral house, so you could look them over together. The constabulary couldn't identify her, but one of the guards saw the similarity to Lord Au'shiyn's death and brought it to my attention. I won't contact her family until I hear your thoughts on this."

"My thoughts?" Magiere asked.

"I want to know if you think the killer is a madman or… or something else, and if the deaths are truly connected."

She climbed out the wagon's back. What could any of this matter to the woman's family?

The sun was rising. Magiere felt it on her back as she spotted the weary figure of Lanjov standing on the house's front steps. She passed through the open gate and up the walk toward him.

"I'm sorry," she said and meant it.

He simply nodded, his expression guarded and beaten at the same time.

"Thank you for coming so early. I was not sure what else to do, so I asked the captain to bring you."

"Is it the same?" she asked.

"Yes, both of them," Lanjov answered, and then added as an afterthought, "but the young woman was found in an alley."

His steel hair looked limp and simply gray as dawn began. Magiere couldn't help feeling pity.

Leesil came up quietly beside her, and she was grateful for his presence. He often picked up details that she didn't. Chap sniffed around on the porch, drawing close to Lanjov, who didn't pull away this time. The council chairman motioned them inside, past a sobbing middle-aged maid, through a fair-sized dining room, and down the servants' hall to a back part of the house Lanjov simply referred to as "the kitchens." Magiere entered the macabre scene.

Both bodies were laid out on the large center table with pots and knives hanging above them. Peasants did this for visitation, having no better place to wash the dead before burial, but Magiere was jarred by their lying on a table used for chopping meat and other foods consumed by the wealthy.

"Nothing has been changed or removed from the bodies," Lanjov said, flat and emotionless. "The captain wanted you to see them as found."

"You found him on the front steps?" Leesil asked. "Like Chesna?"

Lanjov nodded. "Yes, across the stairs. The door was not open as with my daughter. His coachman came inside from‘ the rear stable and, not finding Au'shiyn present, stepped out front to discover the body."

Chap reared, placing both paws on the table to sniff at Au'shiyn's body. At this, Lanjov winced and closed his eyes.