around the lockpicks.
He spat loudly and muttered a curse under his breath, before his footsteps continued off into the night.
Bless us, Tymora, Tennora thought, and let that be the worst we encounter.
'What was that powder?' she whispered to Nestrix as she released the tension on the tumblers just a hair.
'The last of the wizard's gifts.'
The pin dropped, like a blessing from above, and Tennora eased a little more tension back into the tumbler. This time it clicked into place without much trouble. Tennora breathed a sigh of relief and, despite still wanting to cast a fireball at him, silently thanked Sovann for the lesson. She went after the last pin.
'What wizard?'
'The one in Cormyr,' Nestrix said. 'He wasn't using it.'
Click. Tennora looked up at Nestrix, who was slowly fading back into sight. 'It's not a gift if you take it.'
'Fine,' Nestrix said with a cold smile. 'Spoils.'
Inside the shop the walls were lined with iron cases set with panes of glass that revealed within golden bowls, chains, and goblets; jewel-studded collars and belts; and delicate statues of gods and kings. Faint light shone from a trio of caged glowballs, and the metal reflected it coldly.
'What in the-' Nestrix said. Tennora hushed her. Nestrix scowled. 'There's something strange here,' she whispered.
'A trap?'
'No,' Nestrix said. 'These treasures-'
'Then let it wait,' Tennora whispered.
There was a door at the back of the shop-a heavy, windowless door. Tennora crept toward it, scanning the floor for inconsistencies.
Aha! There before the doorway-just where a person would have to kneel to pick the lock-the boards had been cut away in a square and reset. The edge blended into the grain and the grooves of the rest of the floor, but when Tennora felt gingerly along the suspected edge, there was the faintest gap around it. She bit her lip.
From the looks of it, pressure would set off the trap. She unrolled her kit and picked through the various tools until she found a stout rod with a tapered tip-not too unlike the turning tool. She wedged the tip under the edge of the panel and eased back. It lifted away from the floor. Tennora felt something tugging back on the panel-the mechanism beneath. From the way it didn't want to ride up more than a hairbreadth or so, the trap had to be connected fairly close to the edge.
'Nestrix,' Tennora hissed. She couldn't let the panel fall, and she couldn't lever it up against the other side without chancing engaging the mechanism beneath. She glanced behind her. Nestrix stood before a display of brooches, making a face.
Tennora called her twice more before Nestrix looked up.
'We have to lift both sides of this.' She shifted her weight enough to kick the open kit toward Nestrix. 'Give me a hand.'
Nestrix kneeled down beside her and picked out another stiff, tapered rod, a little slimmer than Tennora's. 'Did you see those brooches?' she whispered.
'No,' Tennora said. 'Tell me later. I can't hold this up forever.'
Nestrix harrumphed and slid around to the other side of the board. Tennora lowered her side-very slowly, very slightly-until Nestrix could jam the second wedge into the gap.
'Lift slowly,' Tennora warned. Together they moved the panel out of its spot, until the bottom showed over the floor's surface.
Tennora tugged upward slightly-it was still attached to the trap beneath.
'Hrast,' she swore under her breath. Without heavier pry bars, they wouldn't be able to remove it. She didn't dare let it drop back down-it would surely trip the mechanism. If they could only hold it there…
'Wait,' Tennora said, eyeing the shape of the hole. 'Hold it there.' She pressed her thumb to one corner and pushed toward the side so that the panel turned around its center. The mechanism beneath squealed slightly, but it did not trip.
And the panel sat, balanced on its corners, stable and unmoving.
The door beyond was warded-as heavily as Tennora had expected and then some. She traced the pattern of the spell with her mind's eye. A complex, knotty ward. An alarm combined with a nasty and explosive burst of acid. And something else… though what wasn't clear. Just the fact that the spell veered ever so slightly into the frayed remnants of the Weave in a direction she didn't expect.
'This is going to take me a while,' she whispered. 'Look around and make certain we're alone.'
Tennora felt her way through the first of the spell's defenses, smooth threads of magic retwined into a neat web. No matter what Master Halnian said, Tennora knew she was more than a mere dabbler. She sensed the effort in the spell, the care with which its caster had brought the broken magic together. She sensed the fragile points, the joining of one bit to the next-and with her own whispered spells, she teased loose the connections. First the alarms unhooked bit by bit. Sparks of green light spat and nipped her fingertips.
The trap was more complicated-the magic knotted and snarled around more compact spells. The shop, the treasures, the sound of Nestrix's footfalls as she paced the shop floor-all vanished in Tennora's mind, replaced by the spell that sang with the dirge of the dead goddess.
And for a moment, that song was Tennora. She smiled.
The spell shimmered and came undone. Tennora opened the door.
'Nestrix,' she said. 'We're in.'
Gold, platinum, gems-the room beyond was no larger than Tennora's apartment, but shimmering treasures draped every inch. A shelf ran along three walls, heaped with sealed parchment and elaborately stamped books. There was a table in the center of the room, noticeable only for the regular shape of the pile in the middle.
Nestrix's eyes roamed the vault with unbridled greed. If she'd started salivating, Tennora wouldn't have been surprised. Falling to one knee, Nestrix ran a light hand over the glittering scales of a platinum-plated mermaid, entwined around a silver column.
'This one,' she murmured. 'I want this one.'
'No,' Tennora said. 'We're looking for a mask, Aundra said.'
'We could take this too. No one said only take the mask.'
' I said it. We're not thieves.'
'Of course. We're just people who take things but not other things,' Nestrix said, but left the statue to search the piles of treasure for Aundra's mask.
Tennora shoved aside a stack of gold chains and a pile of rubies. What had Aundra said? A gold-feathered mask in a case.
'Don't you think this is peculiar?' Nestrix said.
'Later,' Tennora said.
A moment later, Nestrix spoke again. 'We should find the mask and get out.'
Tennora fought the urge to snap at her. Hadn't she said that already? Of course, Nestrix didn't listen to anyone but Nestrix.
'You're right,' she said. 'Keep looking.'
'We're not…' Nestrix started to say, but broke off with a frown at a pile of books and another of her distant stares.
The case lay beneath a bolt of silk and a shield emblazoned with a rearing griffon. It was flat, hardly thicker than her wrist, and made of a heavily waxed wood without any ornament. Tennora nearly discounted it out of hand, but not wanting to leave any stone unturned, she opened the case.
Nestled against a layer of watered silk lay the mask.
It was shaped like the face of a woman with full lips and a tapered chin. But instead of a smooth plane of skin, delicate feathers sculpted by a master's hand layered her cheeks and forehead. Tennora lifted it from the case. It was heavier than it looked, and as her hands closed on the mask she felt the trill of enchantment.
Tennora laid the mask back in the case and snapped it shut. 'I have it,' she said to Nestrix.
'Hsst!' Nestrix stood stock still, staring at the door like a dog that has sensed a robber's movement beyond. Tennora held perfectly still, listening for the sound that disturbed Nestrix's happy looting.
