floor with each rising pulse. The light grew brighter, calling to him. He walked
toward it: one step, two steps, three-and put his foot down squarely on the
sharpened clasp of Tempus’s discarded cloak. The pain jolted him backward and
backward and broke the spell.
He had left the room before he had time to scream.
Roxane had been within the Globe of Power longer than was prudent especially
since her bond with life was through Tasfalen-who was dead and already beginning
to ripen. With her reacquisition of a globe, the Nisi witch was powerful beyond
comparison but even she could not do all the things which Sanctuary’s situation
required at once. She had a demon hounding her now, as well as all the other
enemies she had accumulated since the first battles were fought along
Wizardwall. The strain of uprooting her soul so many times was starting to show.
She was getting careless-being gone so long, leaving a freshly claimed sack of
bones like Tasfalen without ensuring that it was life-worthy.
Haught, who was frequently foolish but never careless, knelt beside Straton’s
unconscious body on the floor of the Peres house kitchen. The interrogation
Haught had promised his new mistress/master was going worse than slowly. In his
delirium, the Stepson made no distinctions between truth and imagination;
wandering, his mind had given Haught no more than tantalizing hints about
Ischade or Tempus-plus a throbbing headache.
He comprehended smaller healings like the slash on Moria’s foot; he could tamper
with the magic of his betters as he had when he’d exerted his control over