Ignoring the angry bellows of the guards trapped outside by the Barrier, Lily walked forward. Fae grunted and followed her. For as much as Black Crux Manor displayed its origins as an old fortress on the outside, it truly was a manor house on the inside. Thick rugs carpeted the black-stoned floor, while white plaster walls stretched up to decorated ceilings and intricate chandeliers that cast subdued candlelight over old paintings of stern men and women. Aside from these faces of past inhabitants, Lily saw no one.

  To her left was a stairway spiraling up; to her right, a closed door. She chose to continue forward, up the step and into the main hall. Here were long tables for dining, with tableware all set out in place, everything in order and ready for guests. The ceiling was high, composed of thick wooden beams interspersed with ornamental wood carvings. Up near that ceiling, the walls were ringed on three sides with decorative outcroppings. Lily’s gaze was drawn up to where long tendrils sprang from potted plants set upon those outcroppings. They trailed haphazardly down over the dusty tapestries and banners hung beneath. The chandeliers here were even more impressive than those in the entranceway, though the candles in these were not presently lit. Nor were any of the chamber’s fireplaces. The big hall was dim and cold, oddly lifeless. Even the plants appeared to have not been watered for some time.

  As Lily stood gawking, a serving girl entered from a door on the opposite side of the hall. She took one look at Lily, and the panthegrunn flanking her, then turned and fled without a sound.

  Lily wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. More people? Bustling courtiers? A garrison’s worth of armed fighters feasting at the table? The encounter with the serving girl reminded her that, no matter the place’s evil reputation in her eyes, it would be home and workplace for many regular townspeople. It also reminded her that soon someone higher up than a serving girl would be informed of her presence, if they hadn’t already. It was unrealistic to expect zero confrontations, and it was time to move if she wanted to keep those to a minimum.

  Concentrating, she located Marigold by the magic she radiated. Her teacher was somewhere to Lily’s left and up two or three floors. And Lady Iris? Much higher up. Was she in one of the towers? Everything Lily had already endured this day made her fearful, but none of that compared to how she feared to meet that dark mage again. With any luck, she could get to Mari first, then find Vetch and flee quickly with them. Lily took a breath, chose a stairway, and ascended.

  Fae attempted to follow, but the stairs in the old fortress were narrow and spiraled around and around on themselves as they went up. She grunted and tried to shove her way into the too-narrow stairwell behind Lily.

  “Wait here, Fae,” Lily soothed her. The panthegrunn fixed her golden eyes on Lily, before sitting down as a cat would and lashing her tufted tail.

  Up and up Lily went, keeping her eyes open for any other people she might run into and her magic attuned to where she sensed Marigold to be. She passed the first landing without a second glance. From somewhere on that floor, she could hear people chattering jovially and guessed them to be servants jesting with one another as they worked.

  The stairs terminated at the third floor. Marigold felt as if she was one more floor above that. Frustratingly, Lily would have to find another stairwell that led there. She stepped out into a wide corridor. She could go left or right. A third option—a side hall that split off perpendicular—appeared cold and dark as far as she could see down it. Lily went right, her shoes tracking dust onto the hallway’s thick carpet.

  She had barely gone three steps when a man’s voice startled her from behind. “Miss? Excuse me, miss. Do you belong here?”

  Turning, Lily was confronted by a little old man dressed in immaculate yet dated courtier’s wear. Despite his agedness, he peered up at her with astute eyes.

  “I ... I’m ...” Lily faltered.

  “The Lady is not receiving guests this day.” As he spoke, Lily could see how he scrutinized her and her dirty and rumpled clothes, the haphazard fall of her wavy hair loosened from its tie, and the dirt she had tracked onto the carpets. What had sounded like minor irritation in the old man’s voice changed to suspicion. “How did you get in here? Bah. Don’t bother answering,” he muttered. “Damnable guards. It falls to me, then. Young miss, you do not belong in this castle and shall be escorted out. Now, if you will follow me, please ...”

  “Where is Marigold?” Lily blurted out, before the man reached the stairs. He stopped in his tracks and fixed Lily with a strange gaze. For a moment, he stood stock-still and silent, chin trembling and brows knit in thought. Something about the way his eyes kept darting around unnerved Lily. She started backing away. Why was she wasting time allowing anyone to detain her? She was already trespassing. It wouldn’t be long before someone more threatening than this old man was alerted to her presence.

  “Miss ...” the old courtier cautioned. But he had barely gotten the word out before a loud bell began clanging from somewhere. At almost the same moment, there was a screech from below, followed by loud cursing, and Fae roaring. The old courtier advanced, stiff-legged. “Miss, please ...”

  There was too much happening all at once, too much noise, too many doors and corridors to choose from. Lily decided she was done with this old man. Why she had humored his words in the first place, she couldn’t say. What was she doing? Why did she think she must furnish explanations to anyone? Would Marigold have stood stuttering in the presence of some primly-dressed courtier? Of course not.

  Ignoring the old man’s repeated promptings, Lily turned and strode purposefully away from him. The bell, an alarm of some kind she decided, continued its raucous clanging. From the floors below came a sound like heavy furniture being toppled. Servants and folk dressed in finery alike began coming out into the corridor to see what the excitement was about. Lily pushed past those she met and continued on, looking down every new hall and into rooms she passed for a new stairway. She could sense Marigold somewhere directly above her now.

  Heavy boot falls on the carpet alerted her to a guardsman charging up the hall behind her. Lily didn’t wait for his shout to stop. She ran. The guardsman charged after her. He was faster. He would catch her. A Barrier. She needed a Barrier. How many had she already cast? The edges of Slumber plucked at her awareness. It would not be held off forever. Every additional Barrier she cast now would bring that state closer, so each one was a risk that must be weighed against necessity. She decided she needed this one.

  She stopped and turned to face the approaching swordsman. She had to be quick about it, no time to concentrate. Closing her eyes, Lily drew her hand in a thin slicing motion from one side of the corridor to the other, making not a full wall that would block the swordsman off, but a thin strip of a Barrier at knee height. The sudden appearance of the shimmering tripwire meant the man had no opportunity to slow his charge. His legs were taken violently out from underneath him. He let out a sharp bellow of pain as he crashed headlong to the floor, his sword tumbling out of his grasp. Lily did not even pause to assure herself he was down for good, but ran again.

  “Stairs, stairs ...” she gasped to herself, as if invoking them would make some appear. She checked every door she passed. One alcove she looked into was nothing more than a privy. But then, across from that, a spiraling stairway leading up!

  Panting, she ran up the steps two at a time, her heart thudding in her chest. The damned alarm bell cloaked all other sounds. Were those more boot falls coming up the stairs behind her? Or were they further away? Fully expecting to stumble into the hands of more waiting guards at the top of the stairs, Lily was surprised to find the corridor she arrived in empty but for one man. A few doors down the hallway, a lone guard stood beside a closed door. Lily didn’t even need to concentrate to know that Marigold was behind it.

  As Lily approached, the guardsman went to draw his blade. She didn’t hesitate, but immediately threw a Barrier around him that effectively shackled his arms and torso to the wall. He struggled momentarily, then as realization dawned on his face, he gawked at Lily in fear and muttered something in a foreign tongue.

  Lily tried the door. It was locked.

  “Keys,” she said to the guard. He only smirked. “Keys!” she demanded and raised her hand.

  He flinched and grumbled, “Belt.”

  Keeping her eyes on him, Lily had to kneel and snake her hand up underneath the Barrier, all the while watching for him to try some trick like seizing her arm. But he didn’t. He stood still while she relieved him of the keys and tried each of them in the lock until she found the correct one. Lily pushed open the door.

  In the center of the room, facing the door as if awaiting Lily’s arrival, stood Marigold. The old woman appeared tired, as if she had aged years rather than weeks since Lily had last seen her. But she also stood confidently, dressed and with boots on. She had been waiting, ready. Shaking her head, the old woman chided, “I felt you. Then I watched that wild charge of yours up the bridges on Fae. What in all of Kaldura were you thinkin’ comin’ here, girl?”

  Lily put her hands to her mouth. Almost she feared to believe this reunion was true, that Mari truly was alive and hale and standing here before her after fearing for her so many nights and days. She hadn’t the words to say. In their stead tears of relief slid down her cheeks as she stepped forward and embraced her teacher.

  Marigold hugged her and patted her back, saying softly, “But I’m glad you did come. I am so relieved to see you. I thought she had killed you.”

  Lily swallowed. “She tried.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Releasing her, Marigold crossed to the window and peered out of it. “And she’ll try again if we run into her.” She came back and offered her hand to Lily. “Come. We need to flee from here as quick as possible. That bell means you stirred up the hornet’s nest, girl. How much casting have you done?”

  “More than I’d meant to.”

  Marigold chewed her lip, nodded once. “I’ll take it from here. Follow me. We’ll stick to the servant’s corridors.”

  Lily was relieved to let her Mage-Matron lead the way. Marigold’s presence had an instant calming influence on her. It had been such a mad race breaking into the castle, followed by the confusion and fear of navigating its interior, and not knowing what she had gotten herself into. Now, she could gather her thoughts and rely on Marigold’s know-how, halving the extreme burden she’d felt since launching a solo attack on an entire castle.

  As they passed the Barrier-shackled guard in the corridor, Marigold commented, “Nice work.” She led Lily in a different direction from the one by which she had arrived. They went down a lesser corridor, through a door, and then down a cramped stairway covered in dust and cobwebs, Marigold muttering all the while about the poor state of the place. The words mostly flitted past Lily’s ears, until Marigold said, “Where’s the other guard that was watching my door? She’s the one I’m worried about.”

  “Other guard?” Lily asked. “I saw only one.”

  Marigold grunted. “Never mind, then. One less problem. At the end of the next hall, a door leads out to a little courtyard, then there’s a gate and some stairs down to a garden path that leads back round to the first floor. We’ll have to be careful of any guards on the walls, but if we can avoid bein’ spotted, and not draw Gilliana down on us, between our Barriers and that beastie o’ yours, we might have a chance at breakin’ out of here. She’ll come when you call her?”

  “Fae? Of course,” Lily responded absently. She had never seen Marigold move as swiftly down stairs as she did now. The old mage’s wrinkled face was set in a pained rictus and Lily knew it cost her much to move like this. The love that she felt for the old woman flourished anew. It was Lily who had been rescuing Marigold, but now it was the other way around. She couldn’t imagine the things her old teacher had suffered during her abduction and captivity, but here she was setting all that aside to lead Lily to safety before Slumber made it impossible.

  How would Lily ever be without her mentor? She did not relish one day having to leave her side to go on her Mage’s Journeying. How would she ever function alone?

  “Okay, girl, be ready,” Marigold said, drawing Lily out of her reverie. They had come to the bottom of the stairs and thence to a door at the end of a long hall where Marigold halted. “This leads outside. Above us will be walkways where guards patrol. We’re gonna have to move fast. Well, fast as this old woman can move. Ready?” Without waiting for Lily to answer, she turned the doorknob.

  “Wait!” Lily gasped, prompting Marigold to stop with the door ajar a crack. “Vetch. Vetch is somewhere inside the manor. We came here together. He may have been captured. We must find him.” Lily felt ashamed at the desperation in her voice, and for how Marigold’s aged face fell in response to this new complication in their path to escape.

  But after a second, the old woman steeled her features, asking, “Where is he?”

  Lily could only shake her head. “I don’t know.”

  Marigold was silent, working things out in her head. The old mage visibly calmed herself, as though to sense the magic in their vicinity, doubtlessly determining where Lady Iris was within the castle. Lily watched as Marigold took in a breath and then let it out.

  “Twice damned we are, then,” the old woman whispered heavily. Her hand still on the doorknob, she silently closed the door and turned away from it. “Okay then, Lily. Let’s go find your man.”

  She went purposefully back up the hallway with Lily following. They did not go back up the stairs. Instead, Marigold took them through a series of dark, empty rooms in a seemingly deserted wing of the great manor. As they treaded past and through knitting rooms and storage alcoves and hosting parlors, Marigold tsked to herself at the disused spaces. Lily wondered at the state of the palatial castle, how some rooms she had seen were well-kempt and richly adorned, while others appeared not to have been utilized in years, or were stripped bare, leaving their original purposes a mystery. Was this how all the lords and ladies of Kaldura’s noble houses lived? Where were all the people Lily imagined should be inhabiting these rooms?

  The peal of the bell, and sounds of disorder, grew louder as they arrived in a corridor that Lily recognized as another part of the one in which she had met the old courtier.

  “Where are we going?” she asked above the din.

  Marigold started down a new set of spiraling stairs. “I’ve a feelin’ I know where your man will be if he’s been captured. There’s an old dungeon under the manor. It used to be walled up back when I was here. But knowing Gilliana, it ain’t walled up anymore.” She added this last as a bitter mutter, more to herself than to Lily. “Pray to all spirits he’s there, and we can get him out before this damn bell brings all those barbarians down on us.”

  “I cast a Barrier so no one can get into the castle from the bridges,” Lily informed her. “None of the sellswords in town will be able to answer the call.”

  Marigold grunted. “Smart thinkin’, girl. There’ll still be some o’ the bastards on the grounds, though. We’ll have to be wary. Let me do the casting. How’re you feeling?”

  Lily thought of lying and saying she was fine. “Lightheaded,” she answered truthfully. Slumber was poking and prodding at her. Had she ever gone this long trying to fend it off before? It felt unnatural. She was trailing her hand on the wall beside her to keep herself steady as they went.

  Marigold’s silence was profound. Finally, she repeated, “Let me do the casting.”

  They reached the second floor and, again, Marigold charged ahead down one of the many indistinguishable corridors. They began running into people now. Serving folk and courtiers alike peeped out of doors, or milled in hallways, questioning one another about the alarm and the chaos in the dining hall.

  “Shoo! Out of an old woman’s way!” Marigold commanded as she strode through them, splitting the groups of people as a falcon splits a flock of starlings. Without slowing her pace, Marigold began casting Barriers, identifying certain side hallways, doors, and stairways, and neatly throwing Barriers across them as she went.

  Seeing this, the occupants of Black Crux Manor gawked, some in fear, others in wonder. Some older folks’s eyes popped with recognition at the sight of the old master mage. Marigold ignored them all. Lily quickly caught on to what her teacher was doing. She was using Barriers to cut off avenues from which more soldiers might come, making for them a labyrinth that would buy she and Lily additional time by which to search for Vetch.

  “Let me help,” Lily piped up. “Tell me which doors.”

  “No,” Marigold stated flatly, the word made sharp by her intense focus. “I can see ya staggering, girl. Do I look like I can carry your limp form out o’ here if ya drop? No. No casting.”

  She was right and Lily knew it. With every step, Lily felt as if her feet were trying to leave the ground. Dark edges wavered around her vision. She didn’t know how long she could hold Slumber off and keep moving, no matter how she desired to. As if sensing this, Marigold added, “Stay awake until we find Vetch. We’ll worry about the next step then.”

  With that, she turned down another narrow stairway. Lily staggered down the steps behind her.

  *

  -The night of the livestock raid outside Moonfane Forge-

  Off in the distance, Moonfane Forge lay sleeping beneath its inauspicious mountain. Lady Iris marked the few lights she could see still glowing throughout the town from her vantage point beneath the tangled eaves of Bannerman’s Wood. Torches burned at the one town gate she could see from here. It was a cold night, and a strange mesh of subtle magic always brushed against her senses in this odd forest, but she had left the comfort of her tent deeper in the woods in order to send for Murzagis, the commander of her army, and because she wished to witness this first step in her reclaiming of Mage Marigold with her own eyes. Years of planning and gathering her forces had culminated in this night. It began now. In a few days, her magic instructor would be back in her service once again, where she belonged.

  Murzagis approached on his horse, casting wary glances across the night-blackened pastures. His people were amassed on three sides of the town, hidden and ready. The little farmsteads that dotted the surrounding lands slept even more soundly than their guardian town.

  “Why have you not started yet?” Iris asked of Murzagis, before he had even fully dismounted his horse.

  “The man we sent in to count their numbers hasn’t returned yet, as he should have,” he replied smoothly. The experienced mercenary always had an answer ready. He was one of the very few who never wavered in Iris’s presence.

  “And?” Iris countered. She was weary of all the military tactics. While the meticulousness would ensure that their plan bore fruit, she was anxious to begin the harvest.

  “Knowing their garrison’s numbers will allow me to route them with fewer losses.”

  Iris sighed. “Then what do you suggest? It was your idea to send a spy into town.”

  “Put off releasing the yaks until tomorrow night. That will give him one more day to return. He has good reason to do as we bid him.”

  A gust of wind stole through the forest, causing the silhouetted treetops to lumber and sway. Iris stroked the palm of her hand with her thumb, considering the distant town walled with magic.

  “The farms around here, they have warning bells, do they not?”

  “Yes, my lady. Why?”

  Iris ran her tongue over her painted lips. “Let the animals out first. Then have your people ring the warning bells while they destroy the fences.”

  It was a very rare thing for Murzagis to appear hesitant. No indication showed on his pocked face except for the slightest twitch of his moustache. It was a small satisfaction to Iris that she could catch a man of even his prowess off guard once in a while. But she didn’t do it to amuse herself. She was confident he would adapt to this adjustment to his orders.

  “That will bring their soldiers out faster,” he conceded. “They’ll see us and pursue us. We’ll have less time to do as you’ve asked of us.” After a short pause, he said, “May I ask why you want to raise the alarm for them?”

  “So you can count their defenders when they swarm out. Is that not what you wanted?” Murzagis was silent. Lady Iris yawned. She was tired of waiting. It was time to put the plan into action. “It was your man’s failure that necessitates this now. I, too, would like to know the strength of their numbers. This solves the problem for both of us. If your people are as capable as you have always assured me they are, then they will have no issue gauging whatever it is they need to about the enemy’s forces, while still avoiding being caught.”

  Murzagis’s features creased in thought. Perhaps he considered the prospect of refusing her command and angering her. He chose a more profitable tack, as she had expected he would.

  “Calling them down on us on purpose will add considerably to the risk my people are taking on. We won’t have nearly as much time to break all the fences and—”

  “And, yet, you will still break all the fences. If they don’t have need to drive all their valuable animals into town in order to safeguard them, then they won’t have need to take down the Barrier. Make it happen.”

  “It will cost more.”

  “When does it ever not?” Iris asked with a blasé flip of her hand. “Make it happen. Give the order to your forces now. Show me their work is worth the coin and you may name your price when I have the old woman.”

  Murzagis smoothed one of the long tendrils of his moustache between thumb and forefinger. He nodded darkly, mounted his horse, and rode off in silence.

  Iris stared off at the distant lights of Moonfane Forge, a golden treasure box filled with silver and wisdom.