would have had much in common.’ He gave her a winsome grin, and was rewarded with a shy smile in response.
‘How did you come by those bruises?’ she asked, placing a gentle hand to his face. He felt his body respond and shifted uncomfortably.
‘Let’s just say the Watch and I don’t always see eye to eye,’ he replied. He couldn’t resist giving her a conspiratorial wink. She looked thoughtful and bowed her head.
He noticed abrupt movement in the corner of his vision. One of the tradesmen the woman had been speaking with was suddenly grabbed from the back. His surprised face was visible for a split second before he disappeared behind the mass of humanity. There was a yelp, cut off as suddenly as it had begun, and then a young woman was also forcibly removed from the throng, her arms flailing before she faded from view.
A worried murmuring spread. Faces glanced left and right and behind them. Two more people were suddenly pulled from the crowd: an old woman and a man of middling years.
A dark foreboding seized Cole. He stared at the woman opposite him. She frowned as if trying to figure out some puzzle. Her eyes had changed. The wetness was gone. There was no tender recollection there, no earnest longing. They were as hard as stone.
‘I can’t work this one out,’ she said, and it took Cole a second to realize her words had been directed at someone behind him. He spun around to find a large man dressed in commoner’s garb looming over him, preparing to grab his arms. He was about to go for the dagger concealed in his sleeve when he felt a prick on the back of his neck and suddenly his body refused to listen to his brain. He was completely paralysed. Even his chest protested at drawing breath.
Cole listened to the sound of air whistling through his nose as the woman moved to stand in front of him. She held a hairpin in one hand, its pointed tip glistening red. With her other hand she removed a stud from her right ear, which had been hidden underneath her hair. Both adornments glowed softly.
‘Magic!’ he tried to exclaim, but nothing issued from his frozen mouth save for an unintelligible moan.
‘What shall we do with him, Goodlady Cyreena?’ the burly male asked.
The woman stared at Cole as she might an insect that had performed an interesting trick. ‘My earring could not read his thoughts,’ she said. ‘This has never happened before. Carry him to the safehouse on Kraken Street. I would experiment.’
Davarus Cole struggled with all his strength, but the best he could manage was to close his eyes. The day had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.
‘Look at me. Look at me or I’ll tear your prick off and feed it to you.’
Cole opened one eyelid a fraction. His whole body ached from being thrown across the shoulder of the disguised goon and carried like a sack of potatoes. He appeared to be lying on a stone table in an abandoned warehouse. A small torch provided the only illumination.
The woman who had instigated his kidnapping, Goodlady Cyreena, hovered next to a table covered in evil-looking metal instruments. Her face was as passionless as death. She regarded him with those pitiless eyes. There was something vaguely familiar about them, he thought, but he couldn’t quite work out what it was.
‘Can you feel the sensation creeping back into your muscles?’ the goodlady asked. ‘It will be hours before you can so much as walk unaided. Don’t think about escaping.’
Cole tried to work his mouth and found that his tongue had loosened enough to form mangled words. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked. ‘I’m innocent!’
Goodlady Cyreena pushed her hair back from her face, revealing the silver stud gleaming softly in her ear. ‘Words weren’t necessary,’ she said. ‘I could tell by the way you reacted to my mummer’s show that you harbour treacherous appetites. Usually, my bondmagic’ – she tapped the glowing metal at her ear – ‘confirms the intentions of those I suspect of treason.’ She walked over to him and placed one smooth hand on his brow. ‘You, however, refused to yield anything. No thoughts at all. That should not be possible. You are going to explain to me why I cannot read your mind.’ She looked down at him expectantly.
‘I don’t know,’ slurred Cole. ‘I was drinking last night. Maybe—’
The woman looming over him grabbed a handful of his