but I could see him, and, um, Josie and Skrymir. Josie turned him in!”
“Are you sure?”
“Look, I’ll show you.” As always, when Guld concentrated on his magic, the stutter disappeared. He murmured a few words under his breath and a light grew in his palm, a silver ball that swam with all colors and none.
The light swirled, confounding the eye so that Holden had to look away. When he looked back, a blurred image was playing across the surface. The inside of a large room, the Yelen palace he assumed. Some sort of party. Just on the edge of hearing, Josie’s voice whispered, “Ten thousand sharks was just too good to pass up.” Then Skrymir, dressed oddly, stormed toward a discreet corner, his face as dark with anger as a storm cloud. One fist delved into the corner and came out with Van Gast.
The picture shimmered and twisted so that Holden’s stomach rolled, then it cleared again. Van Gast stood with a bloody nose and a fat lip, glaring into a face Holden didn’t know. The words “Van Gast” ghosted out of the spell and then guards cuffed him and dragged him off.
“That’s Rillen,” Tallia whispered. “He’s got what he wanted then.”
“There was more, but that’s the pertinent bit,” Guld said. “Van’s in the cells. The Yelen cells. No one gets out of there.”
“But why would she?” Holden glanced at Tallia but she looked as perplexed as he felt.
“That’s not how it was supposed to go,” she said. “Not quite. Rillen wasn’t supposed to know who Van was.”
“Josie’s pissed at him, you know that,” Guld said. “Wants to make him pay, I expect. Women are like that. Um, present company excepted, I’m sure. But you can’t ever tell what Josie will do. You’ve got to do something.”
“How do we get into the palace?”
“Well, um, no. Sorry. Those mages are weak still, but strong enough to stop that. I was lucky to get what I did with the scrying spell. If I tried to get us in, we’d probably end up splattered over half the docks.”
Holden ran his hand over his hair. “There has to be a way. Has to be.”
“I can get you in,” Tallia said and Holden whirled to face her. She looked up at him with dark, soulful eyes, searching his face for something. She held out a hesitant hand for his. “Only—” She shook her head, as though clearing out dark thoughts. “I can get you in, Holden. It’s getting out that will be the problem.”
Holden tried a smile, but it felt awkward and stretched. “Not with Van Gast around. Not a cell in the world can hold him, that’s what they say, right?”
Her smile was tremulous, the bottom lip aquiver, and tears lurked in her eyes.
“Tallia, I—”
“It’s all right, Holden.” Again, her hand on his, warm and smooth. “I just don’t want to see you hurt, that’s all.”
He couldn’t still the thrill at her touch, or the way her tears made his heart ache, or the way he wanted, very badly, for her not to be the traitor she seemed. He covered his confusion with gruff words that came out harsher than he intended. “I’ll not be the one getting hurt. But what’s to say I can trust you?”
Her tears fell slowly, mesmerizing him, spearing him with the thought that he’d caused them. “Nothing, except you won’t get in without me. Please. I want to help. It’s—my family are in there too, in danger, the only family I have left.”
Not for the first time, Holden wished he had Van Gast’s little-magics. An itch behind his ribs to know whether she was trouble, whether he should believe her or not. In his heart he wanted to, but his head—his head told him that there was a good chance she wasn’t telling him everything, and that was dangerous. Tears are the sly woman’s weapons. Someone had said that to him once, and he knew it for truth. His heart told him one thing, but his head ruled him in this.
He hardened his heart against Tallia’s tears. She had tried to betray Van, and him. Perhaps. There was something more to Gilda coming back, that was sure. Maybe they were in it together. Or in it with Josie. Whichever, she hadn’t told him the truth yet.
Remember that. Don’t trust her, use her. It wasn’t his voice that sounded in his head, it was the rich, rolling, commanding tones of the Master, dead now but still with the power to