that was a few feet closer to her. “Fairfax. Fairfax! Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
“And what is the matter with Fairfax, if I may ask?”
For a fraction of a second, Titus thought it was West, the Eton cricketer who had been abducted by the Bane, standing before him. But though the man bore a close resemblance to West, he was at least twice West’s age.
The Bane’s current body, then.
“It isn’t like you to be speechless, Your Highness,” said the Bane. “Be so kind as to answer my question.”
Titus looked at the unconscious girl in the other containment cell. The main thrust of the lie would be the same, but he had a split-second decision to make. Did he play the cold-blooded opportunist or the distraught lover?
“She begged me to kill her so she would not fall into your hands. But I—” His voice shook at the sight of her, at the mercy of their enemy. “But I botched it.”
“The arrogance of the young. To think you could thwart me and get away with it.” The Bane shook his head, his expression almost sympathetic. “And where are your other friends, by the way?”
“They never left Lucidias—they all three together powered the last-mage-standing spell.”
“They value their lives too cheaply.”
“Better that than cleaving to life by any foul means.”
“You, prince, are filled with the sanctimony of the young,” replied the Bane.
“I hope that as the very ancient Lord High Commander lies asleep at night, he dreams of nothing but his own agonizing death—again and again and again.”
Titus had wanted to hit a nerve. But the flicker of anger in the Bane’s eyes hinted that he might have gone too far—and been too accurate. Titus could have kicked himself. The longer he kept the Bane talking to him, the longer the Bane’s attention would stay away from Fairfax.
But now the Bane approached Fairfax’s containment cell, which protected those on the outside against those on the inside, but not vice versa.
“Revivisce forte,” said the Bane.
She showed no sign of recovering consciousness.
“Revivisce omnino.”
The reviving spell should have been strong enough to counter the stunning spell Titus had used, but Fairfax remained motionless, not a twitch, not even a fluttering of the eyelashes.
“Highly inconsiderate of you, Your Highness,” said the Bane. “For what I’ve planned for her, it would be much better with her awake and alert.”
Titus felt as if he had been enclosed in a coffin lined with spikes inside. “I thought all you needed was for her heart to remain beating.”
“True, but it makes for a far more powerful sacrifice when she is completely aware of the goings-on—up to the moment the contents of her cranium are extracted, that is. I have a very good spell for keeping the heart beating throughout it all, until that too is required in the last step.”
At the horrors the Bane so casually described, Titus’s throat closed. His still-bound hands clenched into fists, shaking.
“You love her, I see. Then you must be there to witness her final moments on this earth. It’s the least you could do for her. The least I could do for such a pair of devoted young lovers.”
“No!” He banged his shoulder against the wall of the containment cell. It was soft enough to absorb the impact of his weight but firm enough not to move an inch. “No! You will not touch her.”
“And how will you stop me, without the aid of your magic book? You are in my domain now, Titus of Elberon. There are no surprises that you can wield against me.”
“She will defeat you.”
“I built these containment cells to be mighty enough for me. You can say many things about her, but you cannot say she is a greater elemental mage than I.”
The Bane turned to Fairfax and pointed his wand. “Fulmen doloris.”
Titus flinched. The spell was powerful enough to make the dead sit up and scream in pain.
She did not move or make a single sound. He could not believe it. Had he inadvertently rendered her permanently comatose?
“When you bungle an execution curse, you bungle it royally, young man,” murmured the Bane.
He pivoted, his wand pointed at Titus, and such a conflagration of pain engulfed him, as if every square inch of his skin had been set on fire. He screamed.
“Hmm,” said the Bane. “She really is insensate. In a few minutes, if she still doesn’t come to, I’ll put some actual flame to her person and see if that doesn’t help.”
Titus trembled. The pain that had