split up—a few took Cabhan, while the rest caused a diversion to ensure a successful nap-kid. One has followed her human at a distance. Oh, this is going to be a problem.
The word diversion made Inis’s heart leap, despite what Two said. Is my sister in danger?
No. The diverters are in danger. The Lying One is mad.
The Lying One was what Two called Morien.
So he was back, with his anger. It couldn’t be as strong as Inis’s anger—nothing could. But his came with mirrorcraft.
Morien’s timing was impeccable, and that made it impossible to ignore what Inis had viciously hoped couldn’t be true.
He was spying on them. Constantly.
Rumors had it that hearts bled their truths onto a mirrorglass shard, and none could lie to them or hide from them. But those were supposed to be exaggerated stories. Sorcerers weren’t meant to wield this much power. They drew on old spells, studied the few remaining histories left behind by Oberon’s children, but their work had begun as pale mimicry of legend. They were like children dressing in a parent’s clothes, aping maturity beyond their ken. They could go so far as to predict blurred futures, to extract truths from the Queen’s enemies. To spy, and—sometimes—to salve.
Crisiant the Questing and Siomha the Undine had been frequent guests of House Ever-Loyal while they attended to the Queen’s business, and though they had been odd, they hadn’t been dangerous like Morien, who was a weapon masquerading as flesh.
They didn’t stick mirror shards into people’s hearts and control them like hand-shadow puppets cast on a wall.
She wondered if Morien could hear her thoughts, could eavesdrop on every private conversation she had with Two.
No, Two told her. Our connection is safe. It is beyond the Lying One’s current reach. Relief swelled in Inis’s breast. It was short-lived. He does, however, know that One and her master are missing, because the little one with the dirty mouth won’t shut up about it.
Despite Two’s superior fragment senses, One and her master were too far out of reach for him to determine where they had been taken.
Inis couldn’t let Ivy see any of this. So much like the night they’d lost everything.
Two said, Open your eyes.
Headache or no, it was time to get up.
44
Rags
When Inis came running out of the woods with Cabhan’s shirt, Rags thought it might’ve been a confession. She’d murdered him.
Then Rags figured Morien would’ve seen that coming and stopped her.
Sensible people with wicked mirrors in their hearts needed to avoid pissing off the guy in charge of when those wicked heart-mirrors started heart-murdering.
On the other hand, nothing Rags had seen from Inis, who’d introduced herself by decking an ex-Queensguard in the face, gave him any reason to call her sensible.
That was another problem with working in a group. You didn’t always get to choose your team.
“I had thought,” Morien said, perched in the seat they’d left for him at the table, “that your purpose was to gather more fragments and masters for me. Not lose ones you had already found.”
“One,” Rags pointed out. “We lost One, not ones.” He laughed too loudly. “Get it?” With his nerves this frayed, there was no chance he’d be able to control his tongue. Morien was going to punish them. Might as well bring it on, control when it happened, if nothing else.
“I see no humor in the situation,” Morien said. “And neither does my lord Faolan.”
“Speaking of your lord Faolan—does he have that insurance you mentioned?” Rags kept talking—shouldn’t have, did anyway—figuring it was the best tactic to draw Morien’s irritation to himself and spare the others. He’d set all this in motion with his own two hands simply by excelling at his trade. He had some responsibility for what happened next. “Your insurance. Speaking of, why not do your sorcery stuff, track Cab down, and solve the problem? That’s why you bound him to your ‘cheating will’—so you could snap your fingers and bring him back.”
“There are limitations to the spell.” Morien’s voice had hardened to the point of petrification. Rags’s pulse raced while limping like a dog injured at the track. “If he has been blindfolded, or if he is unconscious—if he himself does not know where he is—then I am unable to track him.”
“Cheating will these days ain’t what it used to be, eh?” Rags asked.
Darkness fell too quickly, not from the setting sun, but behind Rags’s eyes. He didn’t know if Inis was consigned to suffer the same fate or if he’d managed to direct