Lita had wanted to burn his Gift out and send him to
Security at the Palace and Collegia—well, it was not going to be anything like the same. Someone had sent down to the Ambassador to the Shin’a’in to try to find out if they had ever heard of anyone who was at all like Ice and Stone. If the little hints that Mags had picked up were even remotely true, there were sleeper-agents of their own on the Karsite side who were going to be activated with the sole purpose of discovering how the Karsites had found these men, and perhaps where they came from.
The bodies had been carefully preserved and were going to be delivered to a Karsite border post—a very unsubtle message that the best that Karse could send was no match for the people of Valdemar.
Sedric had been assigned to study the stone, because no one had ever guessed it was semialive. That was fine with Mags; if he never had to “talk” to it again, it would be too soon.
Working on the assumption that it was only a matter of time before more of these mysterious assassins turned up in Haven, pretty much everyone had decided that getting Amily ambulatory and trained to defend herself should be a priority right along with reinforcing Palace security. So Bear and his team had gone into intense and detailed practice—so much so that the actual work on her leg turned out to be anticlimactic. Everything had gone well; the result was everything anyone could have wanted.
Outside this room, the Hill buzzed with so much activity that it looked like a hive preparing for winter.
In here... in here was momentary peace.
It would not last past the moment he crossed the threshold, but for now, at least, peace held Mags and his love in the shelter of its hands.
And for right now, this moment, that was enough.
