getting naught but what he deserved.
His opinion hardened further when the globe was spinning madness into all of
them and the injured Stepson had summoned the strength to reach into that
dazzling blue array of magic to disrupt it. At first, all Stilcho had seen was
the globe passing from Haught to Roxane: from bad to worse; he had cursed
Straton with all the latent power his hell-seeing eye possessed. He had not been
gentle getting his hands under Strat’s shoulders and dragging him along the
hallway while Roxane gloated and Haught wore a superficial obsequiousness.
Then he saw the little things they did not: the subtle wrong-ness in the globe
wrought wards, the holes through which She might be yet able to reach. He felt
the pulse of fear and anticipation pounding at his temples, making his hands
sweat-and that he had never expected to feel again; he even remembered,
distantly, what it meant.
Haught had said She had cut him loose-had proved it- but now Haught had nothing
except what Roxane had allowed and Death’s Queen would surely have claimed
him… if he’d been dead.
“I’m alive?”
He paused for a heartbeat’s time and went immediately back to moving the
Stepson, as they had ordered. What man could bear to lose such a precious gift?
But he tugged more gently now; Strat, whatever he had meant with his gesture,
had given him life. He pushed the kitchen door shut with his foot and wiped the
spittle from the fallen man’s chin.
“Kill me,” Strat begged when Stilcho bent over him.
Their eyes locked. Stilcho felt himself assaulted and dragged to a level of