'Of Waterdeep?' Nestrix asked.
When the coughing faded, he fixed his dark emerald eyes on her again. 'You are a mystery, Clytemorrenestrix. You're a blue-even if Ferremo tells me otherwise, even if your girl says the same, even if there's a hunter calling you to court for human laws' sake. You and I know what is what. You're no more human than I am.' He settled back into his chair. 'And you say you are no taaldarax, but you dance around my questions as if their answers matter a great deal to you and quote rules back at me like an old one.'
Another spell burst from his wand, surrounding Nestrix in a blur of purple light that stung her skin like a swarm of wasps and made her bones feel as if they were melting. She tumbled to her knees.
Dareun leaned forward, looking down at her.
'But whatever you are,' he said, 'you cannot stop me from taking what I want.'
'Why bother?' Nestrix panted. 'The dragonward's doing a fine job bringing you down.'
Dareun smiled. 'For now. Ferremo!' he shouted over his shoulder. The assassin stepped forward and bowed.
'We will take the girl up on her offer,' Dareun said. 'Who knows-it could be exactly what I need.'
Ferremo bowed again. 'Shall I shackle this one?' he said.
'No,' Dareun said, turning back to Nestrix with a smug look on his face. 'We're having such a lovely conversation. She should stay.'
Ferremo hesitated. 'The girl's certain to make a fuss though.' 'Well then,' Dareun said, and Nestrix felt her heart freeze even as he spoke. 'Why don't you give her the business end of your knife for her troubles?'
FOURTEEN
Tennora waited beneath the street lamp at the street corner nearest the antiquary's shop, the sack with the gorget heavy as a millstone in her hand. The key is the singer's collar. Her plan would work. It had to.
Even if she wasn't certain the statue had meant the Songdragon's gorget. She thought of Aundra's naked frustration with the God Catcher's cryptic words. The statues' prophecies were not the neat explanations one found in chapbooks.
She watched the windows of the shop, waiting for the lights to turn on. Be calm, she thought. Be polite. He was going to try to hurt her-she didn't doubt that. But if he saw her as cool and well-mannered, he might not try as hard as if he thought she would fight.
Much like a nasty relation with a sharp tongue. Tennora wondered if her mother knew her advice could be applied to a situation as far from life among the nobility as the one that lay before her.
The lights in the shop came on. Tennora gripped the sack tighter until her hand tingled from the effort. Now or never, she thought.
The door was unlocked, and the room beyond nearly repaired from the earlier fight. Ferremo sat in an ornate, gilt wooden chair, ignoring her and examining a scuff on the heel of one boot. His lower lip was swollen and bruised.
'Well met,' he said. 'What have you brought me?'
Tennora didn't move. 'Where's Nestrix?'
He jabbed a thumb toward the magically protected door. 'Give me what I want, and I'll let you in.'
'That hardly seems fair.'
'You're not in a position to make the terms,' he said. 'I keep your mistress, and nothing changes much for me. I bring her out before I have what you're offering, and you have an ally-while I'm all on my own. Show me what it is.'
Tennora hesitated for a moment, then withdrew the gorget from the bag.
Ferremo's eyes widened at the moonstone and the silvery metal that gleamed even in the faint light. He reached to take it, but Tennora pulled it away.
'So that's it?' he said. 'That will block the dragonward's powers.'
'It's charmed to counteract them,' she said. 'All he has to do is put it on. Now open the door and I'll hand it over.'
'Certainly,' he said with a coppery grin. 'It's the least I can do.'
He went to the door, sidestepping the pressure plate. A quick spell and an intricate wave of his left hand-and, Tennora suspected, the emerald ring on it-and the ward that had been protecting the door shivered and vanished. He opened the door and turned back to her with an elaborate bow.
'Here you are.'
Tennora stayed where she was. 'Where are your knives?'
'You think I'm going to cross you?'
Tennora shrugged and gave a coy smile. 'You'll pardon the presumption, but it does seem likely.'
He smiled back and pulled the knives from his belt, held them out, flipped them over into his grip, and lunged at her. Tennora leaped back out of his reach and swung the gorget in its bag up into his chin.
He grunted and fell back, clutching his doubly wounded jaw. A drop of blood bloomed between his fingers.
'Come with me and you won't get hurt.'
'Oh, like Hells,' Tennora snapped. She pulled a carvestar from her belt and spun it into his forearm. He cursed and pulled the carvestar free. His arm bleeding, he grabbed her by the wrist.
Tennora twisted under his arm and reached for her dagger, but he moved around her and out of the way, pinning her against him.
His arm locked around her throat, pressing into both sides. She struggled against him, jamming her elbow over and over into his gut, while her vision crumbled from the outside in. After a few seconds, everything went dark.
Tennora woke a moment later, bruised, dizzy, and lying on the floor on her stomach. Her feet were lashed together, and Ferremo was busy doing the same to her wrists behind her back.
'You are going to make me get your blood all over the floor,' he said in a disgusted voice, 'if you don't stop fighting back.'
She spit on his boots.
He kicked her in the ribs, and a shock of pain exploded across her chest and drove the air from her lungs.
'Lie there and be quiet.' He walked away, out of her line of sight.
Tennora wriggled her hands within the bonds. He'd tied them tightly, but the rope still had some give to it and each motion stretched the bonds. She could hear Ferremo's muffled voice as he paced in the distance.
She pulled her wrists up, so that they met the belt she wore. Pressing the rope into the cloth and lifting her torso off the floor, she twisted her belt so that the dagger that lay beneath her hip crept inch by inch toward the small of her back.
She nearly had it when Ferremo returned, still speaking to Dareun.
'Master, it's not that simple,' he said, his voice tense and poorly covering an edge of anger. 'If I kill her, I need to dispose of the body. This isn't a neighborhood where people won't notice. And if you need me-' A pause. 'Pegno is dead. Alina is in the dungeons, and I wouldn't trust Arvinik with such a task.' Another pause. 'Master, it's more complicated than that. If you were to change, you could get rid of… I beg your pardon, master. I didn't…' A very long pause, and Tennora suspected Ferremo was getting an earful. 'You need me there
… Yes. That is what's most important. Thank you, master. I will.'
His boots tapped across the floor. He took her by the braid and lifted her head off the floor.
'Much as I hate the situation,' Ferremo said, 'we're pressed for time and have to go about it the old-fashioned way. You're going for a swim.'
The hilt of his dagger clubbed her behind the ear, and Tennora's world went black.
The cobbles below drifted by like floes of ice on the harbor, Tennora thought. Were there floes on the harbor? No… it was still summer, even if autumn was nipping at the days' ankles. She had only thought that because the
