*

  It was like swimming against a river current. Lily was determined to carry out the spur-of-the-moment plan she had devised, no matter the dread it raised in her. It was foolish, reckless, insane, and her own legs seemed to know it and fought her, so that she had to push herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other, push herself to swim against the fear current. But she did. The storage barn where Fae and Revenge were stabled was only a couple streets over from the inn. It felt more like a couple miles. With every step, she conceived of a new reason why she should not do this. To combat that, she repeated for herself over and over the one reason she would: Vetch. She kept striding forward.

  The building came into view. She decided not to waste time by finding and speaking to its owner; she would just take Fae and Revenge. But when she came around to the front of the building, her heart sank. The Lady’s soldiers were here, too! Two men stood watch in front of the barn’s doors. One stood absently twirling a club, and also wore a sword on his belt. The other leaned on a pole axe. If Lily had harbored any remaining doubts about whether or not she and Vetch had been betrayed, this put them to rest. Even their animals were being guarded on the chance that Lily would come here. She hadn’t anticipated this at all. Indecision took hold of her. This was the only way into the building, and the only way Fae and Revenge could be brought out.

  Without realizing it, Lily had frozen in the street in plain view of the two soldiers. The one leaning of the pole axe grunted and pointed her out to his companion. “That her?”

  The second soldier stopped twirling his club and looked up. He grinned nastily. “Aye.”

  Lily was pinned to the spot. Run, girl. Run. Run. Why couldn’t she run? It was the same way she had felt when she believed Vetch was being attacked by Siegert—frozen and unable to act. But though she struggled to act, neither did she flee. The same force that had brought her here held her in place, an instinctive conviction that if she did not press forward, she would never see Vetch or Marigold again. Her only option was to use magic. She had meant to save her spellcasting for when she arrived at Black Crux Manor. If she protected herself now with it, she ran the risk of falling into Slumber before she made it there.

  As all these contradictory certainties held her immobile, the two soldiers edged forward. The one dropped his club on the ground and drew his sword, while the other held his pole axe at the ready. They separated in order to come at her from both sides, faces set in grimaces.

  Lily was not a battle mage, she was a Barrier-Caster, and an apprentice one at that. These men wielded weapons of war. Having those blades leveled at her was what finally snapped her to action and, without thinking, she threw her arm up in preparation to enclose them in a Barrier. She hadn’t considered how strange it was that these two battle-hardened killers were displaying a caution in approaching her that bordered on the comical. It only registered when she raised her arm and both men flinched back.

  They were afraid of magic!

  Because of Marigold? Because of their mistress, Iris? It didn’t matter. Lily withheld the spell she had been about to cast, but kept her arm raised out in front of her. Inspiration struck. She mimicked the hand motion she had seen Lady Iris use to nearly kill her back in Moonfane Forge. The fear reaction of the two soldiers was visceral! The man with the sword raised his free hand.

  “Don’t be hasty! No need. No need,” he said in a heavy accent. “Come with us, chat with our captain. Just talk.”

  Lily could see that they were fearful, but that they wouldn’t run. These men were not like the common brutes she and Vetch had met in the forest clearing scattered with gold coins. These two had an air of cunning about them, and she would not fool them for long without casting something for real. And once she did that, the grains of sand would begin falling toward Slumber.

  She tried to make her expression confident, even as her body quaked with fear. If she was going to conserve her magic for when she really needed it, then she would have to be absolutely certain about what she was about to do.

  Lily took a deep breath and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Fae! Fae! Come here, girl!”

  From inside the storage building came the sound of Fae chuffing, the sound she always made to greet Lily. Then, nothing more. Lily called again. The two soldiers shared a look, then one glanced back at the barn doors and seemed to decide nothing in there was his concern.

  Returning his attention to Lily, he said, “Don’t make a scene. Come with us.” The two began advancing again. This time, Lily began backing up.

  “Fae!” she tried again. “Come on. Fae! Come, girl!” Nothing.

  Hearing the urgency in her voice, the soldiers seemed to gain confidence. Weapons leveled, they positioned themselves to either side of her, hemming her in between them. Desperately, Lily raised her arm in a feint at spellcasting again. It didn’t work the second time. The man with the pole axe shook his head and chuckled, then said something in a foreign tongue to his sword-wielding companion, who hardened his expression in response.

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  The swordsman lunged in first. Uttering a panicked gasp, Lily stumbled backward, throwing her hand up reflexively at the same time. The Barrier she cast was one born of self-preservation, a cylinder that encircled the swordsman partially. His momentum carried him into it, like crashing into a solid wall. His sword clattered to the cobbles as he grabbed at his bloodied nose. The sense of relief Lily felt was short-lived. The man behind her had dropped his pole axe, and the next thing Lily felt was his arms trapping her in a painful bear hug. She screamed, but he kept repeating by her ear, “Let him free! Let him free!” Did he not realize that, even if she wanted to, she could not dispel the Barrier with her arms crushed to her sides like this?

  Lily struggled and screamed again. “Help! Help me!”

  There were people in the street this time of day, but they ignored Lily’s pleas. It seemed no one in Black Crux was eager to confront Lady Iris’s sellswords. As Lily fought fruitlessly against the man’s unyielding hold, the swordsman trapped by her Barrier had found a break in its shape. It was not a fully enclosed cylinder, but had a thin gap in it where the two ends didn’t quite meet. As she watched in horror, the swordsman worked to squeeze himself through it, cursing and exhorting his cohort to hold Lily tightly until he was free.

  Neither man remarked the sound of splintering wood. Then, a loud crack signaled the two barn doors being shoved roughly off their hinges from inside. With one final push from her horns, Fae burst out of the building, one door sent crashing into the street, while the other was left to hang drunkenly from its one remaining hinge. Fae stood in the breach and gave an ear-splitting roar. Both soldiers were well aware of her now.

  The swordsman, who had nearly extricated himself from the Barrier, now pulled himself back inside. Lily was freed and thrown aside by her attacker. He stooped to pick up his pole axe just as Fae lowered her horns and charged. Few were the people brave or foolhardy enough to face down an angry, fully grown panthegrunn, and to the man’s credit, he didn’t waver. The top spike of his pole axe stabbed into Fae’s shoulder before getting caught up in her shaggy mane. Then, the force of her charge snapped the weapon’s haft in two, a second before her horns gored its wielder. With of toss of her mighty head, Fae lifted the man off his feet into the air. Flailing, he struck the roof eave of the building behind him, bounced, and then crumpled hard to the cobbles below, unmoving.

  Fae wasn’t finished. Immediately, she wheeled around and charged the man in the Barrier. Issuing a yelp of dismay, he cowered back in his shimmering golden cell. Fae’s hooves scraped the cobbles as she came to a sharp halt before the Barrier. She gnashed her horns against it, uttering short snorts of indignation at being denied.

  “Fae,” Lily breathed. Her heart was pounding out of her chest like she had been sprinting. If she had not been under such duress and the press of time, she might have reflected on how close she had come to being captured or harmed by Lady Iris’s men and felt more terrified. But there was no time for that.

  With a final snort, Fae came to her and pressed her great head against Lily. Lily held her horns and kissed her nose. “Thank you,” she murmured. Fae answered by licking her face.

  There was no time to waste. Whether she’d had a choice in it or not, Lily had used her magic. The sand timer had been turned and now the grains were rapidly falling toward Slumber. She swung herself up onto Fae’s back and turned her up the street toward the castle, nudging her flanks with her heels.

  “Let’s go, Fae!”

  Feeling Fae’s powerful muscles propelling them through the streets, her hair streaming out behind her as the wind whipped past, Lily was bolstered, empowered. Panicked townspeople hastened to get out of her and the charging panthegrunn’s path. So much for any sort of planning or subterfuge. If the castle had not expected Lily’s arrival before, they would soon. Her only hope of heading that off was to get there before any other witnessing soldiers did. Fortunately for her, none of them had an angry charge-beast conducting them there, as she did.

  She turned Fae onto the main market road and the two of them went barreling directly up it, between vegetable stalls and stunned market patrons, racing toward Black Crux Manor and the bridges that led up to its door. Lily prayed she would make it there with enough time to aid Vetch and Marigold before she must Slumber.

  Fae’s hooves churned up the roads until the gate at the first bridge came into view directly ahead. The astonished looks on the faces of the guards there were a fleeting afterthought as Lily drove Fae through them. Wisely, they both jumped out of the way. Lily voiced a whoop that was part terror, part nervous excitement. Fae clattered heavily up the bridge toward the second gate, while the deep gully that acted as a natural moat yawned below them. Wind swirled up from that jagged chasm, causing Lily’s hair to come loose from its tie and whip about her face.

  The guards at the second gate had already witnessed what they were in for and looked no more eager to meet it. One, however, had been smart enough to fetch a bow from the little gatehouse. Fae was upon them before she could fully draw the string back, the arrow flying impotently off into the chasm.

  Then they were through, and Lily could only glance back and wonder how neither guard had been trampled! She was at the door now. The tall, ebony door of Black Crux Manor stood like a golem made of iron-reinforced wood. Swinging off of Fae, Lily looked back. The four guards had recomposed themselves and were running up the bridges toward her. She thought of coaxing Fae to muscle down the door. Instead, she tried its handle and it swung open.

  She found herself in the manor’s majestic entranceway, represented by a narrow, open landing that led forward to a wide, single stair step up to the main hall. Fae shoved her way in past her to stand in the center of the room. She pawed at the floor with her hoof. The big panthegrunn looked so out of place in the stately manor setting, it almost felt to Lily as if she were having a dream. She returned her attention to the open door and the guards running up the bridges. This time, Lily could calm her breathing and focus herself. She did so, then passed her hand over the doorway. It shimmered with a newly cast Barrier. Now, no one could get in who wasn’t already in.