resting on the dagger.
What had her mother thought the first time she'd had to kill an attacker? She didn't wonder any longer if she had-even the easy world Tennora had grown accustomed to was rife with dangers. Merely stepping to one side of it had left her with two men's blood on her hands and the intention of adding more. If she didn't die first.
Dareun opened the door of the cage and swung the little boy in. He warned him that Nestrix was a dragon who might eat him. 'Don't worry,' he whispered. 'Even if you leave him be, the blindfin will have him soon enough.'
Tennora closed her eyes and fought back the shudder that threatened to rack her at the thought of the blindfin, their sucker-mouths gnawing away at her skin. And poor Veron… Despite their cross-purposes, she did hope he'd made it out. Preferably out to the tunnel that led to the lair, his crossbow intact and ready.
Nestrix squatted down beside the little boy. 'You were the boy in the boot shop,' she said gently and too softly to be heard much farther than where Tennora sat. 'Master Mrays?' He nodded, his eyes still wide. 'Is your mother safe?' Nestrix asked.
'I… I think so. Saer.' He swallowed as if it hurt him, and added in hardly more than a squeak, 'Please don't eat me!'
'I do not eat little boys,' Nestrix said. 'They taste bad. Especially when they live in cities. Did the man tell you what he means to do?'
'He… he said to the man who took me from my bed that he thinks my mother will give him what he wants.'
'And did he say what that was?'
The boy shook his head. 'He said… he said she would not want to give it up, but she would have no choice. And the man with the…' He started to cry a little. 'The man with the knives said they should get insur-insur-'
'Insurance?' Nestrix said, setting a hand on the boy's shoulder.
He nodded. 'Then he took one of his knives and poked me in the armpit and asked if I knew where Mama keeps the staff.'
Cold horror flooded Tennora's body. I could unmask a hundred lords tonight, Dareun had said.
'What's the staff?' Nestrix asked.
'It's a secret,' the boy said. 'It's a special staff. I only saw it once. I wasn't supposed to. The Lord Dagger and the wizard who died gave it to Mama, and she hid it. With magic.'
The Open Lord, the Blackstaff, and Goodwoman Mrays. And a staff that had to be hidden. By a lord in a mask. That a dragon dearly wanted.
The lodestone is the first lord's gift.
Blood of Mystra, she thought.
Dareun meant to take the dragonstaff of Ahghairon.
If Dareun got hold of the dragonstaff, the dragonward would be all but meaningless. The wielder of the dragonstaff could allow certain dragons to pass through the city without being harmed by the magic of the ward. In that way the Masked Lords who ruled Waterdeep could allow helpful dragons in and keep the dangerous ones out.
With the dragonstaff in Dareun's hands, he could rescind any and all such allowances and give himself free rein in Waterdeep. All dragons in the Great Game would be blocked by the dragonward from approaching his lair, and Dareun would have his claws in the heart of the city.
Especially if he held hostage the son of a Masked Lord influential enough to have been charged with keeping the dragonstaff.
It was no longer just about helping Nestrix. If Tennora couldn't stop Dareun, the whole city was in danger.
She shifted enough so that she could see Dareun standing with his back to her, leaning heavily on the chair beside him. The gorget was protecting him from the powers of the dragon-ward, but it could not undo the damage the mythal had already wrought, and he looked exhausted. The key to the cage dangled from a ring in his left hand. So close, and yet so far. She might be able to snatch it from him, if she was as quick as she had ever been in her life, but she'd never get it to Nestrix before his lackeys attacked her.
Tennora looked back at Nestrix, and with her hand made the shape of a lock. Nestrix laid a hand on the lockpicks in her pocket. She'd need Dareun to be distracted if she was going to attempt to pick the locks.
Which meant Tennora had to do something profoundly reckless.
Nazra wanted to storm Rhinzen Halnian's tower herself, but she settled for sending Jorik over with a troop of his bodyguards to meet the Watch captain-and for thinking of the things she would do to the man who stole her son. If it was the eladrin's doing, she'd see him hang from the Troll Wall.
'Mistress Mrays,' Agnea said calmly, 'you'll wear a hole in the floor pacing like that.'
'Let it wear,' she snapped, and continued pacing.
Agnea spoke again a few moments later. 'You know we'll find him.'
Nazra didn't answer, didn't even look up at her chamberlain. The anger in her was all that kept her on her feet and alert. To address the idea that there was even another possibility was unthinkable.
It had been four hours since the man in green velvet had vanished from her garden. Since then, Nazra had her servants sweep the house for clues, and sent Agnea out to politely inquire of the party guests as they left whether they had seen a young man in a green velvet suit, as he had left behind his overcloak. No one remembered seeing him until just before he escorted Nazra out into the gardens, and no one had spotted him afterward. It was as if he appeared out of thin air and vanished once more into it.
Moreover, beyond the bodies in the nursery and the blood on the wall, there was no trace that anyone had broken into her home. She had sent for a wizard to feel the wards out-the wards that bastard Halnian had devised- and find how the kidnappers had made their way in, but no one had arrived yet.
'Why is this taking so long?' Nazra said.
'Perhaps Master Halnian put up a fight,' Agnea said mildly, a wicked smile on her lips. 'I think Jorik would relish the chance to compel Master Halnian, should he prove unwilling, and it might take longer than he intended.'
From the entryway came the sounds of Nazra's bodyguards returning. It took every ounce of self-control Nazra had in her to wait for them to come to her. Running through the hallways tearing her hair would not do-later, alone, but not now. Now she needed to seem in complete control.
Jorik strode into the office. 'You will never believe this, saer,' he said.
Nazra ignored him. 'Where's Halnian?'
'Trying to survive the night in a cleric's hospice,' Jorik said. 'And his circumstance doesn't bode well for him. His tower came down. The Watch was already there, trying to get him out and to safety.'
'How does a tower come down on its own?' Agnea said.
'It doesn't,' Jorik said. 'Two of his apprentices were there. They say he went mad and cast a spell to call down missiles from the sky on them. While he was still in the tower.'
'Watching gods,' Nazra said. 'Are they sure?'
'Um, quite sure, goodwife,' a young man's voice came from behind Jorik. Jorik stepped to the side to reveal the two apprentices, a very handsome human boy and an elf girl, standing side by side in the doorway. Both wore the robes of students from the House of Wonder.
'I thought they could check the wards,' Jorik explained.
'It was a meteor swarm,' the young man said. 'And yes, he was most certainly mad by that point. Tennora mentioned some sort of smoke. I expect they will find traces of it on him.'
Nazra looked to the young woman. 'Smoke?'
She turned red. 'Oh no, goodwife. I'm Shava. Tennora ran off. But she did mention some sort of smoke before she left. A… well, a sort of intoxicant, I think she meant.'
'Who is Tennora?' Nazra said. 'Why did she run off before the Watch arrived?'
'Another student,' Shava answered, but she left the other question hanging.
'Tennora Hedare,' the young man said. 'Also, I'm Cassian Lafornan; it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.'
'Yes, of course.' Nazra turned to Agnea. 'Hedare?'
