Aundra Blacklock stared at the molding along the top of the walls. 'He said what you think you're looking for. A man in green velvet. He's kidnapped your egg.'
'My son,' Nazra said. 'Who is he?'
Aundra's great yellow eyes followed a slow, ragged circuit around the edge of the ceiling, as if she were tracking the flight of a moth.
'Your wards have been damaged,' she said. 'There's a hole just the size to jump through.' She tilted her head. 'So to speak.'
'Thank you,' Nazra said, fighting to keep her tone and her temper under control. 'I had wondered. Who is the man in green velvet?' 'The dragon, you mean.'
'Dragon?' Nazra said. 'No, he's a young man-'
'You mean the dragon. If you ask the young lady in the Watch's dungeon, she should corroborate.'
'That's not possible. The dragonward-'
'The dragonward makes it difficult,' Aundra said. 'Painful. Excruciating. But not impossible. Not for one as determined as him.' Her eyes pierced Nazra. 'Can you think of no one who has suffered for the sake of ambition?'
Nazra flushed. 'How dare you imply it's my fault that my son has been kidnapped!'
Aundra blinked. 'Is that what I said?' she asked mildly.
Nazra looked back over her shoulder at Jorik. His normally careful expression was full of naked surprise-at Nazra, and not at Aundra Blacklock. Agnea raised an eyebrow. Nazra pursed her lips-she was losing control. No one needed to hear what she was thinking, least of all that she might have prevented this, somehow.
'I must beg your pardon,' she said slowly. 'My nerves are understandably frayed. Please. You know where to find the man you say is a dragon?'
'I have no idea,' Aundra said offhandedly. 'As I said, you can ask the young woman-she might tell you, though I doubt it. And Tennora has gone after him. I suspect she will find him. One way or another.'
Nazra thought a moment about bludgeoning Aundra Blacklock with the dragonstaff. 'It seems highly unlikely that a young noble with a penchant for stealing has any chance of doing what the Watch and guard haven't been able to do.'
'Possibly,' Aundra Blacklock conceded. 'But Tennora has the other dragon on her side. Much as I warned her not to,' she added in a faintly aggrieved tone.
'Other dragon?' Jorik said. He looked at Nazra. 'She didn't mention anything about that.' But Nazra knew- knew down to the marrow of her bones-who Aundra Blacklock meant.
'The Tethyrian,' Nazra said, and in her mind she heard Antoum's voice, That woman was different, wasn't she?
'Calishite,' Aundra corrected. 'In a manner of speaking. She is fighting the green. One will win, and one will die.' She cocked her head again, to the other side. 'I had hoped the green would prevail. He is younger and weaker. But Clytemorrenestrix… Tennora is young and unwise at times, but she is not a stubborn creature to be obstinate for obstinacy's sake. I could not convince her that the blue dragon was a threat. There is something there.' She looked back up at the ceiling and the molding. 'Your house is very old. It's seen many things.'
Nazra's mind worked at a furious pace. Every secret she uncovered implied a dozen more, but the crux of it was unavoidable, if Aundra was right. She was not dealing with a rival or a madman or even a fellow mortal. Trying to divine a dragon's intentions, the truth or lie in his promise, was futile.
'Jorik, send someone to the Watch and see if you can't convince them to give us that young woman. I'm… I'm going to lie down.' Before anyone could try to stop her, she swept out of the room and went downstairs.
She did not lie down, but instead went into a little-used room off to the side of her salon-a library and gallery of artwork and precious objects. That it was little used was no accident-there were no windows, and an enchantment made the room smell perpetually of mildew and decaying ink. She lit the candles by the door, casting everything in a sullen light.
Nazra had not been in this room for well over a year, not since Dagult and Samark the Blackstaff had brought her the dragon-staff for safekeeping. They knew, and she agreed, that while there were rumors aplenty that she was one of the Masked Lords, few presumed she was anyone of consequence within that august body. She was too lighthearted, too keen to make a joke. Who would trust Old Lady Loudbuckles with the dragonstaff?
'Who indeed?' Nazra said quietly.
In the corner of the library, behind an ornate bookshelf, was a shadow so deep it might have been a portal to that plane of endless night, the Shadowfell. The candles' glow did not touch it.
Nazra plunged her hand into the darkness and whispered the phrase Samark had taught her. A trill of magic, and her fingers wrapped around the wooden haft of Ahghairon's dragonstaff.
She took it from its hiding place, the crystal held in the carved claws as clear and dustless as the day she'd hidden it.
'Why me?' she'd asked.
'Because of every fellow I know who wears the mask,' Dagult had said grudgingly, 'you are the right mix of clever and incorruptible.'
'I did all my corrupting in my youth, you mean.'
'I mean if I cannot hold the blasted thing, then I want it with someone who's not going to use it to his own gain.'
She set the staff back into its magical hiding place and left the library. Three days, she thought. She hadn't betrayed Dagult's trust in her yet, and she still had Nazra stopped. As she passed through the salon, she could see out onto the portico that crossed through the garden. The air shimmered there with a strange, gray light.
The man in green velvet appeared.
He was bleeding from a cut on his cheek, and his clothes had been rent and scuffed in a score of places. Two young guardsmen who had been placed near the doorway rushed at him and fell to dark flashes of magic before they could come within sword range.
His dark eyes turned to Nazra.
'You're early,' she said, flippant because she couldn't bear to be otherwise.
'My plans have changed. And I see you didn't listen to me. I want the dragonstaff now.'
Off in the distance, she heard the rush of footsteps. The office overlooked the garden, and Jorik and Agnea had seen the guardsmen die. A few moments passed and they came down the stairs. Nazra held up a hand to ward them back, but Jorik came into the salon.
'I know what you are,' she said. 'And what you wear.'
'That is immaterial,' he said.
'On the contrary,' Nazra said. 'Your proposition takes on an entirely different dimension if you plan to use the staff on yourself.'
That seemed to annoy him. 'This is your only chance,' the man said. 'Give me the dragonstaff or the boy dies.'
'You didn't bring Antoum,' Nazra said. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. 'How do I know he's still alive?'
The man's eyes seemed to glow green briefly, and a terrible fear washed over her. It was all she could do to keep standing there in front of him. A quick glance at Jorik standing in the brush nearby made it evident she wasn't alone-his olive skin had gone sickly gray.
The man strode toward her. 'Give me the dragonstaff or he's dead for certain.'
Nazra couldn't move, but somewhere in the pit of her heart she became certain that no matter what she did, he was going to kill Antoum. Or worse. He had found her only weakness-the only weakness in Dagult's plans-and he had attacked it without mercy, aiming to drive her to a desperate act.
'There are two things I care about more than anything in the world, saer dragon,' she said in tones as cold and cultured as she could make them while her voice shook with anger and fear. 'My son and my city. You ask me to make a choice, but as far as I can see, that choice may have already been made for me.'
Fury contorted the man's face. 'Then I have a new offer: the dragonstaff, or you die.'
Clinging to Veron's back, Antoum directed them through the still-dark streets of northern Waterdeep. Nestrix's feet screamed and a headache threatened to bloom across her temples, but she ran anyway, too full of
