The light of the pyre throws fiery shadows across the alcove I stand in. Other low-tier Ladies stand with me, faces illuminated from below with reddish light. It plays over their maroon dresses, blending and then twisting with morose beauty. These women can haunt this place all they want, though. I've done my due diligence; there's a different dead person I'm more concerned with.

I slip out, the Ladies murmuring behind me about the coming coronation. I don't need to watch the overconfident Princesse get a new name and a crown stuck on her head. I wasn't expecting her mother to die so quickly, so I'm glad I started the potion yesterday night. It only finished this morning.

I stride quietly down empty halls, emptier than usual. Everyone is morbidly busy watching the Morineause desecrate their Queen. I snag the potion and amulet from my room and stroll down to the first floor.

"Off, off, off we go," the voices sing-song, "to kill a man we'll never know."

"Hush," I murmur. "A prisoner here is destined to die anyway." Doing so early is a small price for them to pay to rid the world of shamans.

Elation sweeps me, dangerous, thrilling, terrible elation. They'll all be dead within the month.

The whole castle is distracted. No one's going to notice a prisoner missing right now. I start down the stairs to the dungeon. In the silence, I tap the back of my nail against the wall as I descend, mimicking the sound of the heeled shoes I don't have clacking against the steps.

As I round the final turn, the antechamber opens up in front of me. A thick door rests on the opposite wall, a desk and empty chair off to its side. A young man stands straight-backed in front of the door, a dark blue cloak hanging from his shoulders and concealing his hands.

His brow furrows on seeing me. "I don't think you're supposed to be down here, Lady."

"Mage Adelle," I say, winking. "I'm allowed down here." Cool confidence gets a person far, I remind myself.

The voices whisper, "Then why are you shaking?"

"Huh. Where's your cloak, Mage? Standing order is for us to wear it when on duty." He stands solid and still as a guard dog.

I take the final stair down, and his expression rearranges to clearly inform me that I should move no closer. An arrogant smile tilts my lips. "It tends to clash with my clothes." I gesture at myself, then sober as he frowns. "But, really, I'm not on duty right now. I came to bring you some bad news and a drink"—I lift the small bottle—"to hopefully help cheer. Doesn't seem right that the folks in guard positions don't get apprised of the news."

His eyebrow raises at the potion. "Doesn't look like the bottle of any strong drink I've ever seen."

I make a disapproving face. "You want me to bring you strong drink while you're on duty? Tsk." I move forward again, and this time he doesn't stop me. I pass it to him. "It's cider."

He pulls the wooden cap off and sniffs. Come on, drink it. "It smells like apples and iron."

My lips tighten.

"And I'm sure it's delicious." He offers a small smile. "Thanks."

I nod. I badly want to encourage him to taste it, but I don't push my luck.

He says, "What was the news?" My expression falls, and worry etches his face. "Is something wrong with Laithan?" He gestures toward the desk.

My mind hurries to catch up. Laithan must be a soldier that's normally down here. They would have moved him to the wall. "No, no, no." My hand waves. "No, but—" I pause, doing my best to seem as if this is heavy news that matters to me. "The Queen has died."

His eyes widen, and for the first time, his posture slacks. He leans against the door behind him. After a moment, he says softly, "So all three of them are gone."

I nod gravely. With an absent-minded look in his eyes, he lifts the bottle to his lips and drinks.

It takes all my effort not to break out in a grin. Keeping my voice steady and somber, I say, "The Princesse is being coronated right now."

He nods, lowering the bottle. "Good. Good." He takes a deep breath, pushing off the door.

I straighten, and as if trying to lighten the mood some, say, "Is it good?" I gesture at the bottle. He still has to drink the rest for it to do any good.

"Um, yeah. Must admit I was a little thrown by the smell, but—" He nods slowly. "Yeah. It's good." He takes another swig.

I talk about other news of the castle, hoping that as we continue, he'll keep drinking the potion. I try to keep my giddiness from showing as he does. Soon enough, the bottle is empty, and he sets it aside, thanking me again. I brush it off and keep talking. Now just for it to kick in.

The spell doesn't keep me waiting long. His eyes start fluttering only a minute later, and I can see him physically fighting the sleep. I don't say anything about it, though, just keep talking as if everything is fine.

He's in the middle of replying to me when he cuts himself off. "Did—did you do..." He blinks rapidly, leaning against the door. "You did some—something..." His eyelids fall, and he begins to slump to the ground. I step forward and grab him under the arms, slowing his descent.

I need to hurry.

I dig through the numerous pockets in his cloak and am rewarded with a small ring of two keys. I hope to shades that they're all I need.

Straightening, I pick one and jam it into the door, but it doesn't fit. I drop it and shove the other in. It twists. Perfect. When I try to push the door open, though, it's too heavy to budge. I whisper a curse.

The voices laugh, singing, "He's going to catch you."

I growl, scrambling for ideas. There was the spell those Retran miners taught me, but this door is wood, not stone, and if I use it on the stone beside the door, I might be stepping straight into a cell.

I shoot a glance around the room for something I can wedge the door open with. A chair leg is too thick, a letter opener too bendable...

I rifle through a drawer. Inkwell, quill, paper...

My magic leaps in my soul, and I draw out the quill and close my eyes. It's only a feather that's undergone treatment. I set it back down, spinning to the door, and press my hands against it.

The magic has a way for me to go through, I know it. I focus, leaning my forehead against the door.

In my mind's eye, the outline of a doorway forms within the door, and I picture the substance of it falling away, disappearing. The magic grows within me, whispering that it can, whispering that it will.

I push back, eyes snapping open, and stab the pad of my thumb with the quill. Blood wells, drawn up into the instrument. On the door in large characters, I scrawl runes going down the length. The incantation draws itself out of my lips, the power raging through me, painful and fantastic. I spray powder at the door, hissing the last few words. The runes glow for a moment and then disappear, along with the feather.

I stare at the door. It looks as solid as ever.

"You don't know how to cast," the voices mock.

I glare at the door. The runes disappeared. Something happened. And that something will let me move through this door.

I take a deep breath and walk into it. A flash of blackest black smothers me, and then I'm standing in a long, stone hallway. I glance behind me.

The other side of the door.

Elated, I start down the corridor. I sense that the little portal will only last as long as I spent casting it. Now I have another reason to hurry. I doubt I spent more than a minute or two.

My feet patter against the stone floor as I dash from cell to cell, trying to find one that's occupied. As I reach the fourth, a well-built young man stands and shoots to the bars. His sudden motion startles me, and the keys slip from my fingers. I curse, snatching them back up and look at him.

"Who are you?" he says.

"Do you want out of here?" My hand is shaking, whether from casting or tension, I can't tell. My eyes are wide, and I must look like a frantic lunatic in a Lady's dress.

He grips the bars, fear burning in his eyes. "Get me out."

I grin. That's the look of a man afraid for his life. He's desperate, and if him showing it is anything to go by, he's gullible enough to listen to me. "You have to do everything I say."

"Anything."

I pick one of the keys, unsure which opened the last door, and jam it into the lock. It doesn't fit, and I hiss through my teeth at the wasted time and fumble for the other.

"How are you in here? Are we going to get caught?"

"Shut up," I bite, twisting the key into the lock. The door swings open, a sharp creak echoing down the hall. I cringe. "Come, and stay quiet."

Lips tightly closed, he follows me. When we reach the door back to the antechamber, though, he says, "How did you open it?"

I spin on him. "If you talk past this point, I will drag you back into that cell and rescue someone else. Do you understand?"

His throat bobs, and he nods.

Shades, doesn't he realize he could easily overpower me? I resist the urge to laugh, and I snatch his wrist. "Then come on." Please don't have ended, spell, and please don't end while we're walking through.

I step into the door, his whispered surprise suddenly cut off when I blip into the Inbetween, the same thing I always saw when traveling through the pearl's portal. I yank his wrist as I go, and he stumbles into the antechamber with me. I step out of his way to the side, having to jerk him again to keep him from tripping over the motionless guard.

The prisoner's mouth gapes on seeing him, and he looks at me, alarmed. I roll my eyes, lock the door, and drop the keys onto the desk. Then I snag my bottle and pull him toward the stairs. We're almost out, and the closeness is making me both impatient and giddy.

The boy's footsteps are awkward and loud, like he's trying to sneak with the grace of a bear. I take the first stair and hear a sleepy mutter behind me. Every muscle tenses as I shoot a glance back at the guard. He shifts. My panicked gaze slides to the prisoner's. Hopefully, the guard won't fully wake in time to notice us. Hopefully, he'll be left groggy and confused, no inkling of who tricked him or when they left.

I'm not confident enough of that to try to wait for him to fall back asleep, though.

I release the prisoner's wrist, and we dart up the stairs, my light gait echoed by his lumbering one. We're about halfway up when I hear, "Hey! Who's there?"

Our pace somehow increases, but a third set of footsteps rings behind us. I'm not unused to running, but the suspense and steep, twisting steps make my legs burn.

We break out of the stairwell and rush down a couple halls before I pull my prisoner to a stop. "He'll be up," I gasp, "the stairs any moment, surely. We don't want him hearing us."

He nods, also breathing hard but seeming in better shape than me. I lean against the wall, head tilted back.

"He probably won't leave the staircase," he whispers.

I look at him, my now-disarrayed hair flopping in my face. "Why?"

"Can't abandon his post. He might be one of those creepy wizards that can talk in people's heads, though, in which case he'll ask for someone to come after us, but I don't know."

I take a breath, pushing off the wall. "Either way, we should get going." I pull my failing updo down and finger-comb it. People ask fewer questions if you don't look like you just ran from a wolf.