the corner into the promenade hall and stopped dead in her tracks.
The throne room looked nothing at all as it had when she’d last seen it. The marble floor was smooth again, with no sign that it had ever been scoured by the acidic soul of a dead enslaver. The colored-glass windows were unbroken, filtering the sunlight into colorful streams that played across the gracious golden fixtures and delicate ornamental stonework, all of which was back in its proper place. The roof had been restored to its original graceful arch, and the walls were smooth and straight again, as though they’d never been broken. Only the great golden doors were immune to this miraculous repair. They hung sadly from their hinges in a cascade of melted gold and iron slag, just as Eli’s lava spirit had left them.
Men in austere black coats were standing in pairs over the few remaining spots where the damage was still apparent. Most of them seemed to be lost in deep contemplation, studying the last bits of wreckage as if the shattered stones were works of art. As she watched, one of them waved his hand, and a cracked stretch of wall righted itself before her eyes.
“Should you be up, Lady Spiritualist?”
Miranda jumped at the voice, and she turned to see a handsome middle-aged man in a long black coat standing a few feet behind her with a polite smile on his face.
“My apologies,” the man said and held out his gloved hand. “I did not mean to frighten you. I am Alric, deputy commander for the League of Storms.”
Miranda took his offered hand firmly, keeping her eyes locked on his face. This was not the time to show weakness. “Miranda Lyonette.”
“Ah,” he said, smiling, “Master Banage’s young protege.”
“How unfair,” Miranda said, taking back her hand. “You know who I am, but I’ve never heard of you, Sir Alric.”
“The League lives to serve, lady. We have no need to make a show of our achievements.” He smiled as he spoke, but the thin-lipped expression did not reach his blue eyes. “Now”-he took her arm and began walking her toward the throne room-“to business. I was hoping you would wake up before we finished our work. I have several questions I’d like to ask you about the night all this unpleasantness occurred.”
Miranda nodded. “You want to know about the Great Spirit.”
“Of course not,” Alric said. “That’s your realm, lady, not ours. Our interest lies in the one called Nico.” He stopped, and his grip on her arm tightened. “You know what she is, of course.” He smiled at her. “Tell me, then, why did you let her escape?”
Miranda stepped back, putting some space between them. “It was my duty to see to the welfare of the spirits first,” she said, keeping her voice steady and neutral. “Considering the extraordinary circumstances that night, I judged her to be the lesser threat.”
“The ‘lesser threat’?” Alric chuckled. “I sincerely doubt that.”
As he spoke, his pleasant smile took on a sinister tint and, despite the warm sunlight, a shiver ran down Miranda’s spine. Suddenly, she was uncomfortably aware of just how powerful a wizard the man standing in front of her was.
“That night,” Alric said, “the demonseed inside the girl awakened, correct?”
“She did change,” Miranda said, choosing her words carefully. “But things were happening very quickly, and I have no experience with demons. Some of your members must have been close by, since you arrived in Mellinor in such a timely fashion. Surely you can ask one of them.”
“The League can move quickly when it needs to,” Alric said. “And seeing how every spirit within a hundred miles of this place was in a screaming panic on the night in question, we felt it necessary to move very quickly indeed. Thus, imagine our surprise when we arrived and found not only no demonseed but no spirits that would tell us where it had gone. I was hoping you could shed some light on the subject.”
“I’ve told you what I know,” Miranda said coldly. “She changed, and my ghosthound was injured trying to subdue her. However, one of Eli’s companions was able to bring her under control, and she changed back.”
“Awakened demons don’t just ‘change back.’ ” Alric leaned closer. “Isn’t there something else you’d like to tell me?”
“No.” Miranda glared stubbornly.
Alric’s blue eyes grew colder still, but before he could speak, a man’s voice called his name from the throne room.
Miranda jumped at the low, rumbling sound. Alric gave her a final warning look before turning on his heel and marching back into the throne room where the man who’d called him was waiting. The man was standing at the center of the sun-drenched hall and was wearing the same long black coat as all the rest, but Miranda was positive he hadn’t been there when she’d arrived-there was no way she could have missed a man like that. He was enormously tall, close to seven feet, and every inch of him-the ready tenseness of his broad shoulders, the lightness of his boots on the stone, the clenched hand on the hilt of his long blue-wrapped sword-spoke of a man who lived for one purpose: to fight. To fight and win.
He turned as Alric approached, and his silver eyes flicked to Miranda for only a moment, but a moment was enough. She felt blinded by the intensity of his attention, the sheer weight of his focused gaze, enough to make her lungs falter. She hung on his look, pinned like a fly, until his eyes flicked down to Alric, and the air came thundering back.
Without a word, she turned on her heel and fled. Her spirits were wide awake, yet oddly silent, their attention buzzing against her shaking fingers. She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked faster. So that was the Lord of Storms. For the first time, she understood why Banage had been so adamant about leaving demon matters in League hands. The silver-eyed man did not look like someone who took well to having his affairs meddled in. She almost felt bad for Eli and Josef. If the Lord of Storms himself was here looking for Nico, it was only a matter of time before they found her. Alric had said that awakened demons don’t go back to sleep and, whatever Josef’s sword had done, Miranda believed him. She shuddered, remembering the flickering glow of Nico’s lantern eyes. Despite Eli’s pleas, she didn’t see how something like that could ever go back to being human. Hopefully, the thief and the swordsman would have enough sense to give her up quietly when the Lord of Storms came, or there wouldn’t be enough of them left for her to catch, much less bring back to Banage.
That thought nearly made her sick, and she put the whole affair out of her mind. Whatever horrors were yet to happen, it wasn’t her problem anymore. That thought cheered her up immensely, and she threw open the door to the stables with remarkable gusto for someone who’d spent the smaller half of a week in bed.
Gin was where she knew he would be, sprawled at the center of the stable yard, eating a pig. The stains on the cobbles around him spoke of many such meals, and she stopped at the edge of the walkway, putting her hands on her hips with a mock glare. “Are you eating them out of house and home?”
“Nice to see you, too,” Gin mumbled between chews. He licked his chops and rolled to his feet. Miranda winced when she saw the long, still-healing gash that ran across his shoulders, interrupting the flow of his undulating patterns.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he growled when he saw her expression. “I’m not made of paper, you know.”
Miranda walked over and reached up to scratch behind his ear. “I’m glad to see you doing so well.”
“So am I,” Gin said, but he leaned into her scratching. “So, where now?”
“Home,” Miranda said. “I have to let Master Banage know what happened, especially now that the League’s involved. I think our Eli hunt is going to get a bit more hairy from here on.”
“If Banage lets us keep going,” the hound said. “League nonsense aside, Eli still got away with the increased bounty and more than eight thousand in loose gold. Banage isn’t going to be happy about that part, and he’s not the forgiving type.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we reach it,” Miranda said, giving him a final pat. “Finish your pig, we’re leaving as soon as I find where they put the rest of my things.”
They left that afternoon, after Miranda said good-bye to Marion and paid her respects to the king. Henrith was in a bit of a panic when she found him, for the league members had left just a few minutes before, vanishing as mysteriously as they had appeared.
“It really is too much,” he said, slumping down in his chair. “First we have no wizards, then we have too many, and now none again.”
