“You’re no idiot, Slave King of Oriel. You remember your sister. Unless working in My mines poisoned your brain into stupidity. I hear that happens, along with other, terrible physical tolls. Tell Me—how’s your father? Oh, wait, I do believe he died on Vurgmun.” He grinned at me with cruel delight.
I clamped down on every vile and raging part of myself, refusing to let the howling, wounded wolf in me rise to the bait. He’s poking at you, figuring out what you really care about. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been there myself in a long time.” I bared my teeth. “I pardoned myself, just like I’ve been helping myself to anything I wanted, including the Flower of Calanthe.”
That worked to distract him—some fruitful testing of my own—and Anure jerked with rage. “You will give Me what is Mine,” he shouted. “And it is all Mine!”
“Not this,” I replied easily, showing him the case still chained to my manacles. “If you want this—with or without Queen Euthalia—you’d better offer me something more than idle threats.”
Anure made a sound of disgust. “You weary Me. Take the ring.”
The black wizard came close enough to reach for the case, but I held it well out of his reach. I topped the old guy by at least a head, and I’d have felt a bit like a bully playing keep-away if the stakes hadn’t been so high. I also knew, though, that the fragile-looking elder swallowed in his cowled black robe wasn’t anyone to be taken lightly. If I’d learned nothing else from Ambrose—and Merle—it was not to make assumptions based on appearances.
“It is definitely Her Highness’s hand and finger,” the black wizard called back to his brethren, eyes glittering as they fixed on me, like a snake measuring its striking distance.
“And the ring?” the red wizard inquired.
“It is the magic of the Abiding Ring, but … I need to inspect it more closely.” The black wizard smiled at Percy. “Lord Percy, you may undo the chains. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to be relieved of this responsibility, as you were of so many others in your frivolous youth.”
Percy pulled a key from the pocket of his full skirts and turned to me.
“No!” I snarled. “I won’t give it to them.”
The black wizard only shook his head. “You will. Lower your arms, please. I’m sure they’re terribly tired.”
My arms were tired. The strength fell out of them like water falling to the earth, draining them. They dropped of their own deadweight. I wasn’t surprised—I’d been warned—but it was deeply unnerving. Lia could reverse intention, but this …
Percy unlocked the chain that attached the case to my manacles—simultaneously slipping the pin that held the manacles together—and removed the chain leash. As he did, he flicked the sparker embedded in the bottom of the case, starting the fuse on Brenda’s smaller, more potent bomb. The countdown had begun. We had ten minutes—or less—before Agatha’s new, slower-burning fuse, nicely housed in a ventilated case—set off the bomb. Percy and I would both be counting, and I hoped to blessed Ejarat between the two of us we’d get it right and be gone before it went off.
If they did bring Rhéiane into the room before that … It didn’t bear thinking of.
“Hand me that case, please,” the black wizard instructed. I made a show of resisting but gave it over. “So obliging.” He carried the case to the red wizard, both of them bending their heads over it.
“An orchid ring,” the red wizard announced, “and one touched by Her Highness’s elemental magic. Along with something else quite intriguing.” He looked back at the blue wizard, who stood unmoving. “Her Highness’s living essence has recently come in contact with this, which confirms that She lives. A clever facsimile, but this is not the Abiding Ring.”
The black wizard curled his lip, released his grip on the case, and let it fall to the marble floor where it shattered, sending fragments skittering as far as my feet. The heavier base containing the packed vurgsten thudded intact, and it was all I could do not to flinch in anticipation of it going off.
But it didn’t—Brenda had crafted it well, and the metal compartment stayed intact—so I moved on to the next worry: that the fuse had either gone out or never sparked. If it had sparked: nine minutes left.
Lia’s severed finger had bounced a distance from the hand, the orchid’s petals crushed. The hand itself fell palm down, a withered and dead