It had no features, but the shape was vaguely humanoid, though small. Seven inches at most and thin, as if cast by something much smaller in late-afternoon sun when the shadows stretched long. It hunched down as it realized the shadows it had been hiding in had vanished. Its spindly neck seemed to turn, the stretched head swiveling back and forth.
Dugan twisted his hands, his fingers straightening and reaching toward each other. The room’s shadows rushed back into the corner. They wrapped around the stretched shadow, twisting into dark vises that caught it and pinned it in place. The strange shadow quivered and thrashed, but it was stuck.
“What a repulsive creature.” Stiofan spat the words, and I frowned at him. Unless he could see something I couldn’t, it was just a shadow, hardly repulsive at all. Though that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.
Dugan stalked across the room, shadows twisting around him as he moved. If I’d been the small shadow staring at the approaching prince, I would have been terrified. When he reached the corner, he snatched the thrashing shadow as if it were more than just an absence of light but had true substance and mass.
“Who are you? And who sent you?”
The shadow trembled in his hand. Dugan lifted the shadow closer to his face. The natural Sleagh Maith glow of his skin brightened with his magic, but his dark hair and armor seemed to drink down the light and become a living shadow of their own. It was an eerie and fascinating juxtaposition.
I strained to hear if the shadow answered, but the only sound in the room was the unarticulated grumbling from Stiofan. Beside me, Falin was still, silent, and just as intent on the shadow as I was.
The small shadow convulsed, and then it folded in half, draping over the back of Dugan’s hand. I frowned because that didn’t look natural. Then the little shadow dissolved, growing thinner until we could see Dugan’s fingers through its body, and then it vanished into nothing.
“You killed it?” Falin asked, his voice guarded, suspicious.
Dugan shook his head as he turned to stare at each shadow in the room. They wavered under his scrutiny, but the movement was from his searching magic, not from an another intruder. “No. It was nothing I did. And I’m not sure if it self-destructed or if whoever sent it had a fail-safe spell in place in case it got caught.”
“Was it an imp or a crafted shadow?” Falin asked. His daggers were still out and bared as he watched Dugan’s survey of the room.
“That was a shadow master’s handiwork—an imp would have left a body.”
“So . . . someone from your court?” I asked.
Dugan shot me a frown. “Not necessarily.” He waved his hand in the air and every shadow—except those inside my circle—scurried up the walls to meet in a giant ball on the ceiling.
It was disorienting, and I swayed, wishing there were something to grab hold of inside my circle. Falin offered his arm, but the dizzying effect had already passed, so I shook my head. I glanced around at a room now absent of darkness. Not a single disembodied shadow remained, so I assumed that meant there were no more spies hiding in my office.
Dugan’s hands twitched, and the shadows streamed back where they belonged. This time I did grab Falin’s arm. He made no comment about it, but both Dugan and Stiofan frowned at me. I ignored them.
“If it wasn’t ‘necessarily’ someone from the shadow court, who could have created it? And what was it doing here?” I asked, dropping my hand as soon as the shadows stilled and the disorientation passed.
“It appeared to be attempting to join either your or the knight’s shadow, likely so it could follow you around and report back to its controller,” Dugan said, his frown deepening. “As to who could have been controlling it . . . the list isn’t exactly short right now.”
“Right now in particular?” I asked, shivering, but not because something could jump into my shadow and spy on me. Not entirely at least. My shields were still open, the grave clawing deep into me with icy fingers. If I was going to raise that second shade, I needed to get on with it.
Stiofan scoffed. “‘Right now’ because his courtiers are fleeing that cesspool of a court like rats from a sinking ship.”
Dugan shot the ghost a look that might have been able to do