half an hour, unless the Achelings got here early. Emeric had better have been right that they tended to have their fun in the south end of the garden. Apparently they’d invited his family along once, years ago. Who knew if their habits might have changed? I could find myself having to cart the illusion all the way across the mile-wide grounds.
A faint nudge in the back of my mind told me Percy was flying nearby—and wanting to know if he could join me, now that I was away from all the densely packed urban buildings that made him uneasy. I thought an impression of distance back at him. The Achelings probably knew what kind of familiar I had. He took no offense, sending a spark of a thrill my way a moment later, probably having spotted some easy prey for his lunch.
Finally, I spotted the three expected figures emerging through the arching foliage of the entrance. Wilhelm Acheling took the lead, strolling along with his weighty steps, his son at his flank and Flora just behind them, talking with a young woman I guessed must be Carmine’s girlfriend. I hadn’t heard anyone mention a relationship as significant as an engagement.
She looked nervous. Given the company she was in, I couldn’t blame her.
Emeric had come through—they headed pretty much straight toward me. I eased a little closer to the hedge wall, the brambles poking my back through my shirt, drawing the illusion closer at the same time. I’d only put as much power into it as I’d felt I had to—it wouldn’t last more than ten minutes without me feeding it a little more magic as I needed—so I could hope they wouldn’t sense the energy that’d created it. A Warbury should be able to out-cast these minor villains.
Wilhelm stopped several feet away near a sculpture of a rearing stallion. When the others gathered around him, I sidled over until I was almost directly behind them, setting my feet carefully. Their voices became more audible.
“…nice day for it,” the girlfriend was saying.
“Sunny days are always best,” Carmine said, slinging his arm around her waist. “The starker shadows give more material to work with.”
Flora cocked her head. “Now… who should we put through the wringer first?”
I tensed instinctively, my attention roving over the nonmagical patrons wandering the garden just as the Achelings’ gazes must have been. So many potential unknowing victims. The thought that must have invigorated them made me cringe inwardly.
They were going to petrify some innocent person—maybe several people—possibly to the point of recurring night terrors, and I couldn’t stop them, not without blowing my cover and probably my entire mission. My hands curled into fists at my sides.
“That child looks like a good choice,” Wilhelm said, nodding toward a little girl who couldn’t have been more than six or seven, scampering ahead of her parents to ogle a massive hedge swan. “Flora, why don’t you indulge first?”
Indulge, as if scaring a kid out of her wits were some kind of treat.
My back stiffened even more as Flora’s head turned, tracking the girl with a chilling smile curling her lips. The kid came to a stop by a sculpture of a slumbering bear, Flora’s mouth moved with the softest of castings, and the shadows between the bear’s thin leaves wriggled to life. Its eyes seemed to glower darkly, its mouth to yawn open, its head to leap up as if to chomp on her—
Even knowing the sight was an illusion, my pulse hiccupped. The little girl shrieked. She ran back to her parents, babbling about the bear that’d been going to eat her. All they did was chuckle and point out that the hedge creature was lying there totally still, not a bear at all.
For how many years would that vision haunt her?
The Achelings couldn’t be so overt about all their frights, of course. If a whole bunch of people screamed in a row, others might be hesitant to set foot in here.
Wilhelm’s eyes gleamed, and he murmured a word of his own. Following his gaze, I saw a young woman ambling by a sculpted knight startle and then giggle breathlessly to herself with her hand pressed to her chest. I hadn’t caught the illusion he’d cast—it must have been a more subtle one, but enough to feed his stash of magic all the same.
Carmine ambled a little to one side, veering uncomfortably close to my hidden stakeout spot. I crept a few steps farther away as stealthily as