could make Broahm’s voice seem appealing to others, not a bad trick when trying to make an argument and convince someone. It could also throw his voice up to half a mile away, a magically charged ventriloquism. It this case, Broahm had simply gone for volume. The spell made his voice boom like a Titan’s, but though it was ear- shatteringly loud within the capture gem, Broahm could only hope it made it to the outside.
“House maiden! I’m trapped in the quartz! Damn it! HOUSE MAIDEN!”
It wasn’t working. A leaden feeling crept into Broahm’s gut. What if she couldn’t hear him? What if she wasn’t able to go for help? House maidens were the simplest sorts of servants, not terribly bright. She would simply go dormant until her master called for her. It might be weeks before anyone was curious enough to come looking for Broahm. Months? Years? Broahm did not like the idea of being trapped forever in the blue world.
A sudden panic gripped him. He shouted again, jumped, waved his arms. Damn it, she wasn’t hearing him.
Broahm screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.
SULTON ARRIVED AT the small cottage. It belonged to a journeyman wizard named Bortz. If all went well, he’d sell him on the usual package, and the usual scheme would unfold from there.
It had been two months since he’d sent Lorran to rob Broahm’s house and Lorran had vanished. Sulton wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. Either something had gone wrong, and Broahm had gotten the better of Lorran, or Lorran had stumbled upon something truly valuable in the wizard’s home and, not wanting to share it, had hoofed it into the night.
Either way, Sulton had lost a first-rate sneak thief, and it had taken weeks for him to find a suitable replacement.
Sulton was slowly but steadily getting rich. First, he robbed wizards’ households, the ones he suspected had poor security. As an accomplished wizard himself, he was able to circumvent most of the usual wards. Then he’d sell security systems to the victimized wizards. After that, when the time was ripe, he’d rob them again. More accurately, the thief he had on payroll would rob them again.
Sulton knocked on Bortz’s door.
A few seconds later a plump wizard in green robes opened the door and squinted at Sulton. He was short and innocuous.
“You must be Master Bortz. I’m Sulton from Wizard Home Security.”
“What?” The fat wizard blinked at him. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten you were coming. I was in the middle of a star chart . . . well, never mind. Come in. Come in.”
Sulton followed the wizard through a narrow entryway and into a small sitting room. He made mental notes of the dwelling’s interior. They’d come in handy later when he briefed his new sneak thief.
“You’ve contacted us at a good time,” Sulton said. “The Wizard’s Quarter has been ravaged by a rash of burglaries this past year. You can’t be too careful when it comes to protecting your valuables. We can set you up with a system that will allow you to feel secure, knowing that your possessions—especially any rare magical items you might have—are safe and sound.”
Bortz snorted. “Guarding my knickknacks is the least of my worries. I want to make sure my throat isn’t cut in my sleep. Especially after the disappearance.”
Sulton raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, wizards just vanishing? It’s enough to make you wonder. That fellow just recently, the mage who lived a few doors down. Broahm, I think his name was.” Bortz snapped his fingers. “Gone just like that. Not a note, not a word to anyone. Foul play wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”
Come to think of it, Sulton had heard something about Broahm being gone. Sulton had been curious but didn’t ask anyone about the details for fear of raising suspicion.
In the meantime, Sulton intended to use the situation to his advantage. If Bortz truly feared for his life, then Sulton might be able to sell him an elaborate spell package for an inflated price.
“These are dangerous times,” Sulton said somberly. “What’s money compared to your life? We can spell your household in a way that guarantees your safety. The simple fact of the matter is that you
Bortz was nodding. “Yes. That’s what I want. Okay, let’s talk.” Bortz gestured through a low, arched doorway. “I’ve just made a pot of tea in the kitchen. Come on. I’ll pour you a cup.”
Sulton stepped into the kitchen and—
Blue light flashed, blinded him, the world spinning.
Disoriented.
Sulton sat up, looked around, and saw that he was in a world entirely of blue.
BROAHM CAME DOWN the back stairs into Bortz’s small kitchen. “He’s in there?”
Bortz pointed to the blue quartz on the wooden table next to his teapot. “It worked just as you described. Has he really been ripping off wizards all over the Quarter?”
Broahm bent and squinted at the quartz, wondering if he could see a tiny Sulton in there. It had taken Broahm a little over two weeks to duplicate the capture gem spell and set it up in Bortz’s kitchen. A nice little bit of wizarding if Broahm said so himself. The real trick had been raising the slain burglar. You can’t interrogate a zombie. They just slobber and try to bite you. So Broahm had been a bit clever, combining the zombieraising spell and a mind-reading charm and tying them together in a way that allowed the zombie burglar to be questioned. Bortz had helped.
“The burglar told us everything,” Broahm reminded Bortz. “Sulton has been getting obscenely rich off his fellow wizards.”
“I must admit,” Bortz said, “when your house maiden woke me out of a sound sleep in the wee hours in the middle of a raging blizzard, well, it gave me quite a start.”
“I’m just glad she finally heard me and was able to fetch you,” Broahm said. The thought of being trapped forever in the blue quartz still gave him a little shiver.
“So now that you’ve caught him, what are you going to do with him?” Bortz asked.
“I don’t know.” Broahm grinned at the chunk of quartz in the middle of the table. “But I’m going to take my sweet time thinking about it.”
Gray
PATRICIA BRIGGS
It was raining, a desultory, reluctant angry rain forced unwillingly from the gray clouds overhead. It dribbled with the fiendish rhythm of a Chinese water torture. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Elyna’s windshield wipers squeaked until she turned them off. But the drops still came down to obscure her sight. From old habit, she pulled into the space that had been hers.
She’d first parked there a couple of times because the space had been open. When she’d moved in with Jack, a lifetime ago, it was seldom open again because her car was in it. After a while if it wasn’t available for her little Ford, she’d curse the visitor who’d stolen it and find some other, less convenient parking place. When that happened, she’d go out to check before bedtime to see if it was open. If it was, she’d repark her car where it would be happy.
“Cars just are, darlin’,” Jack would tell her with a grin as he escorted her out of the apartment to keep watch as she moved the Ford. “They aren’t happy or sad.”
Jack had been in love with her, though, and was patient with her little ways. He’d loved her and she’d loved him in that wholehearted eager fashion that only the young and innocent have—secure in the knowledge that there was nothing so terrible it could tear them apart. Having successfully overcome her Polish and his Irish parents’ objections to their match had only given her more confidence.
She was less innocent now.
Much, much less innocent.
