My Dear Malthus,

This bastard prince, Kynyr Maguire, that you mentioned in your last dispatch, must die. I grow impatient. You will receive no further supplies or units from me until you have eliminated the entire ruling family. It has been seven months since you infiltrated Clan Red Wolf's territory and yet there have been only two deaths in their family. You have until winter solstice. If the goal has not been accomplished by then, I will replace you.

Furthermore, I am no longer negotiating for you to send me the bitch and her cub, I am ordering you to.

Yours,

Lord Hoon.

"I have no intention of giving you my wife or my stepson."

Malthus Estrobian crumbled the letter up, snarling under his breath, and tossed it onto the fire in the hearth. He had not planned to become obsessed with Merissa to the point of marrying her--at least not at the time he wrote Hoon about her. Darmyk was the son of a sa'necari apostate, Isranon. Rumor had it that Isranon was the impossible mage known as Dawnreturning. Both the god-queen of Minnoras, Gylorean Galee, and Lord Hoon had placed bounties on Isranon's head. That prompted Malthus to write both of them about Darmyk to see who would make him the better offer for the boy. Galee wanted just the boy; Hoon wanted both the boy and his mother. Malthus regretted those letters.

Over the months that had passed since he sent them, he had learned that his brother Troyes, who disappeared in Red Wolf four years ago, had been killed by Darmyk's father in a quarrel over Merissa. There was not enough money in the world to buy the boy from him--when Malthus planned to chop the child up and send the pieces to Isranon.

Stalking to the window of his study, Malthus threw the heavy brown drapes open and stared out at the flurries of snow swirling across the stableyard. That light dusting would not impact upon Malthus' plans for the day, unlike a week ago. A large barn and stables swept out to the west side of the yard with more buildings concealed behind them with the grazing lands sprawled to the northwest beneath their white blankets. The simple practicality of water troughs and hitching posts in the courtyard contrasted sharply with elegance behind it.

Troubled and restless, Malthus began pacing back and forth between the window and his desk, thinking furiously. Lord Hoon was not someone whose desires could be safely ignored, and Malthus wondered what kind of devil's bargain he had entered into. Lord Hoon was a powerful Lemyari vampire of many aliases, of which Hoon was merely his favorite and best known. His true name, which he used only when he wished to intimidate, was Brandrahoon--which meant fire dragon in an old language. Had he known at the outset that he was dealing with Brandrahoon, Malthus might have turned the job down. On the one hand, Malthus was the most powerful sa'necari necromancer in existence. On the other, Brandrahoon was his equal and opposite number in the dark ranks. No one knew the full extent of Brandrahoon's power: the vampire preferred calculated deception and subterfuge to pyrotechnics. Malthus shared his reticence, seeing no point in the use of conspicuous force when dissembling and treachery would suffice.

Sa'necari were the only serious rivals within the ranks of darkness that the vampires like Lord Hoon had. They had stolen all of the matchless powers and abilities of the undead that they could take or control, assuming them through their rites, mastering and perfecting them in addition to their native arcane talents. This had been gained at a price, for they also had the needs and cravings of the undead, the unnatural appetites for blood. After generations of sa'necari being created in the rites, their very genes had altered until more and more of their descendants began to be born sa'necari with those appetites and powers manifesting in puberty.

The rite of mortgiefan made them what they were, triggering the final transition from human to sa'necari. They took a life in a rite combining sex and death, sticking their victim repeatedly with their hellblades while sheathing themselves in their bodies, finally killing them at the moment of sexual climax, causing the victim's soul to shatter so that the sa'necari could suck pieces of it into themselves, enhancing their powers. The more lives they took in the rite, the more powerful and nearly unkillable they became. Even when slain, they had to be properly destroyed or they would rise undead, like vampires. Their eyes were the single most condemning evidence of their true nature. The first time they took mortgiefan their eyes changed to amaranthine lacking in iris, whites, and pupils.

Most concealed it with a minor glamour. Others went still further, imbuing the deception on an item of jewelry they wore so that the spell could not be defeated by the use of spellcord or detected by a Reader. The latter was the option that Malthus had chosen and the innocuous golden band on his right hand concealed his sa'necari nature beneath an effective guise of humanity.

Malthus' gaze wandered to a curious device lying on his desk. He lifted and held it where the glow from the lamp could best illuminate it. The glass tube had a plunger at one end and a hollow needle at the other. Various groups of healers had been attempting to create something similar for years, inspired by the way that a viper's hollow fangs injected venom into its victim. Malthus paused, trying to recall what Larena Wiggins had told him they called it and then it returned to him.

"Syringe. Devilishly simple thing."

She had stolen it for him at his urging. Things that could heal could also kill and killing was more to Malthus' liking than healing. He wondered at the strange markings on it 'cc' and 'ml' at different lines across it. That had to be some kind of measurement, but Malthus was uncertain how that related to using it.

He laid the syringe in a bed of wool within a small wooden casket, opened the drawer to his desk, and took out a golden chain with small globes strung on it like glass baubles. He studied the globes. Some were red, others amber, and a few were green. Malthus tapped a green one with a word of command and three crates appeared on his desktop.

Taking a leather-bound book from the crate, he opened it to consider his options. It was a catalog of poisons arranged according to the Romilay scale with one being the mildest and ten the most deadly. Starting with level four, many of the poisons mimicked the effects of known diseases in such a way that the average Reader would not detect them and be forced to diagnose the disease rather than the poison.

He had employed a poison that misled the healers into thinking that Prince Kynyr had Black Mountain Fever, a disease spread by the bite of infected ticks found in the moist marshy regions of Waejontor. The disease had a ninety percent mortality rate.

The Assassins' Guild, the holy avengers of the nethergod Hadjys the Dark Judge, had involved themselves and had determined that Kynyr had been poisoned. That obviated the need to continue the pretense and Malthus no longer had Larena dose the prince with it. The time had come to administer something more lethal before the Guild found a way to cure him. The syringe had given Malthus an idea. Kynyr's death would satisfy Lord Hoon and buy Malthus more time to complete his assignment.

Malthus thumbed through the book, scanning the charts that applied to lycans. When it came to a knowledge of poison, Malthus had few peers. His name was not Estrobian, it was Tyrins. He was the bastard son of Sidera Tyrins and the late Waejontori Lord Feodras Iagaris. The Tyrins family were a branch of the Romilays, a large extended family of arcane toxicologists who specialized in creating poisons and antidotes--although most of their wealth came from creating toxins and very little came from curing them.

He came across a level eight that appealed to him, certain that he had it in stock. Malthus tapped the golden globe on his string and six cases of jars and bottles appeared on his desk. Going through them, he found a bottle of hedysmorte. Primarily an arrow poison, he judged that it would work well with this new invention. He could get more into Kynyr with it than he would have been able to by coating an arrowhead.

Malthus filled the syringe completely with the nacreous liquid and returned it to the little box. He had no idea how his poisons would work injected directly into the body like this, but he suspected it would be faster and more efficient. He pocketed the box, returned everything else to the carrying globes, and shoved them into the drawer.

Stepping into the corridor, Malthus glanced to see who was about at that early hour. The last time he had gone out this early had been the morning that he drowned Searlait Redhand, the Chieftain Claw Redhand's youngest sister. Malthus had lived in the manor since summer, having married Claw's daughter Merissa. That both gave him easy access to his targets, and forced him to be more circumspect since he had the eye of Claw's guardsmyn upon him.

The manor was built mostly of stone with wood layered over portions of the interior. Tapestries and paintings lined the walls. Malthus passed two servants as he returned to his bedchambers to grab a coat and a heavy cloak to put over it. His eyes trailed the delicate blonde Kissie until she disappeared around a corner.

Merissa sat staring out the window in the antechamber of their suite, a blanket wrapping her swollen belly. Malthus' twin sons were due in early spring. She had already been pregnant by him when they married. It had irritated him that Merissa waited until a month after the wedding to inform him of that fact.

He noted the tears running down her face and then the chilliness of the room. Merissa had allowed the fire in the hearth to go out again.

Malthus knelt at the fireplace, filled it with wood from the bin, and got a fire going. "You must stop doing this. You'll catch your death of cold."

"Would you care?" Merissa's voice sounded hollow and lifeless.

"Of course I would." Malthus snorted. He snatched a long doeskin coat, a heavy wool cloak, and a scarf from the closet.

Merissa watched him dressing. "You're going out?"

"I have unfinished business to take care of."

"Kynyr?" A sob caught in her throat.

"You're learning." Malthus tied his cloak on and crossed the room. He cupped her chin, his nails digging into her left cheek as he forced her to meet his eyes. "He'll be dead by nightfall."

"Please don't."

Covering her lips with his mouth, Malthus breathed a spell down her throat. "You won't be telling on me."

Merissa grimaced at a sharp pain in her head and blinked as if to clear her eyes. "Don't hurt me."

"Don't tempt me."

He had placed so many spells of coercion within her mind and body over the past few weeks that his wife would die rather than betray him. Her love for him had faded; however, arcane methods existed to restore it once he had destroyed her family.

Malthus left, walked down the corridor to its end and turned right. He passed the landing to the stairs he had shoved Claw down a month ago. It would have killed a human, but all that Malthus had achieved was to break Claw's spine and put the old bastard in a wheel-chair.

Reaching the servants' stairway, Malthus saw Darmyk's tiger-striped cat sitting on the landing, licking his paws. The cat gave Malthus an indifferent look and went back to ignoring him. His stepson called the cat Kerry. Although clearly a domestic cat, the creature was the size of a lynx, fifteen inches at the shoulder and weighed at least thirty-five pounds. Malthus kicked Kerry in the ribs. The blow caught the cat and lifted him into the air, sending him across the landing and into the wall. Kerry struck hard, but recovered quickly. Malthus sucked in a breath and backed away as Kerry, instead of fleeing as other cats would have, stalked hissing and spitting toward him, showing every intention of attacking.

The sa'necari reached for his knife, spooked by the uncanny beast.

Before matters could go any further, a small boy darted onto the landing, scooped Kerry into his arms, and draped the cat over his shoulder. Kerry's hissing changed into a purr, as Darmyk wrapped protective arms around him.

"I hate you," his stepson snarled at Malthus. "I hate you."

The boy spun about and ran off with his cat.

"You can both die," Malthus murmured, his lips tight. "I'll send you to your father in pieces."

He descended the stairs, and went out the side door into the garden. His breath made little puffs of mist in the frosty air. This put him at the north corner of the garden, and on a whim, he headed for the Redhand family graveyard.

Small for his age, the lycan cub looked more like nine than eleven-years-old. Not even the heels of his horsemon's boots could add enough height to make Cooley Blackwood seem older. His white at the edge of blond hair hung in a long tail. The only thing that he had inherited from his Waejontori mother was his velvet brown eyes. His knee length doeskin coat with a sheepskin lining concealed the fighting knives he carried strapped to his thighs for an easy draw.

Most cubs his age might own a small belt knife for utilitarian purposes, but only Cooley--in all of the town of Wolffgard--went armed with fighting blades. Lycan fighting knives were among the best of their kind on the continent, with an edge, a curved back edge that ran a third of the way up the blade, and strong quillons. They had evolved over the centuries out of the hunting knives carried by rural folk. They well served the practical lycan nature, which viewed with contempt the human habit of carrying a sword whether they knew how to use it or not.

He and his two closest friends, the Scott cubs, Rory and Hamish, had stolen into the southeastern corner of the winter-clad gardens at Redhand Manor where the family graveyard lay.

Short hedges lined the sides and back. A rose arbor marked the entrance down a path lined with oaks. Rather than the open spaces that most humans preferred as a place of burial, lycans, especially the upper classes, preferred to clutter them up with trees, bushes, hedges, and flowerbeds, arranging their graves in sheltered rows. Until three generations ago, the Redhands had burned their dead, burying the ashes in small urns and planting a shrub over it.

The graves of Suleahan and Sorcha Redhand, parents of the current chieftain, Claw Redhand, lay in the farthest corner to the northeast. The remains of Claw's twin sons, Tarrant and Logan lay buried south of those graves. The Redhands had considered it a kindness that the sa'necari had returned the bodies of their sons for burial after riting them for treason during the Lycan Rebellion. Lord Carneades Iagaris had not meant it as a kindness. He had believed that having to care for their graves would serve as a constant reminder to the chieftain of what it meant to oppose the sa'necari. Instead, Claw had turned the manor into a fortress, tripled his standing army, and according to rumor, booby-trapped the bridge over the Eirlys River.

The fifth grave was only two weeks old. Searlait Redhand, Claw's youngest sister had drowned in the Bonnie Draw River. Cooley had heard it whispered that Searlait's death had been murder and not an accident.

The three cubs had come to keep a promise they had made to Kynyr Maguire. Eight-year-old Hamish acted as lookout, crouched beneath the low hanging branches of an evergreen tree. They did not have permission to be there and never thought to ask for it. Kneeling beside the grave of Tarrant Redhand, they cleared the snow from the headstone, and placed sprigs of rowan and mistletoe along it.

Cooley froze when he heard Hamish sound the alert with three hoots in perfect mimicry of a snowy owl. He and Rory faded back into the shelter of an evergreen, stepping carefully on rocks and clusters of windblown debris so as to leave no tracks.

Malthus walked down the shaded path and gazed at the graves of Claw's sons, then moved to Searlait's grave. "Don't worry, Searlait. They will follow soon."

He opened his pants and urinated on her headstone.

Rory's eyes bugged. "Did you see that?"

Cooley jabbed his finger into Rory's shoulder and shook his head. Normally, Rory was the sneakier of the two, but Malthus' desecration of the grave had shocked him.

As Malthus turned to walk back, he noticed that Tarrant's grave had had another visitation. He frowned and knelt by it.

"Who's doing this? It can't be Maguire. He's dying. What makes Tarrant so important to someone?"

Malthus scanned the winter-clothed cemetery. The rows of hedges lining the place, brown knots of bushes sprinkled with white. The trailing evergreens beyond it. And saw nothing.

Crouched down and tight-lipped, the three cubs watched him leave.

Cooley turned to Rory. "He's creepy. You think he poisoned Kynyr?"

Rory shook his head. "He wouldn't get his hands dirty. He'd get someone else to do it."

"Let's get out of here. He might come back."

They stole out of the manor grounds to a place in the woods where Cooley had two of his horses tied. He had loaned Glorygirl to Rory and mounted his big sorrel, Larkspur. Rory climbed into the saddle and Hamish got up behind him.

Malthus had been meeting Larena Wiggins, Kady Maguire's sister, outside the hawthorn hedge circling the Maguire Estate ever since he planted Larena in Kady's household to poison Kynyr last autumn. The hawthorn hedges' thick, strong tangle of growth set atop a three-foot embankment prevented livestock from wandering, but a mon could slip through easily. Malthus sat on a heavy blanket concealed in an evergreen thicket on a patch of cleared ground, resisting an urge to pace. A blind hid him from the road, spelled to appear as an accidental fall of branches should anyone stumble upon it, and sheltered him from the winds and breezes. The sound of someone moving through the trees brought him to full attention.

Larena's buxom form appeared, her belly rounded with his child. She smiled at him, letting her hood back. Her waist-length flaxen hair bloused around her shoulders and she pulled it free of the neck of her cloak. A tentative smile brushed the edges of her mouth.

"You're late." He snarled at her, letting his needle thin fangs show.

She flinched with a whimper. "The place is crowded. It was difficult to get away unseen."

"But you managed?"

"Yes."

Malthus embraced her, nuzzled her neck, and let his fingers trace her stomach. "How is our poor prince?"

"Stronger."

"That won't do." Malthus reached into his pouch and brought out a small wooden casket. "I've been experimenting with that object you brought me. What do they call it?"

"A syringe. That's what the Guild calls it."

"They've made some interesting discoveries in that ancient library." He opened the box. The syringe that Larena had brought him lay there in a bed of cotton, filled with a nacreous liquid. "I assume they leave you alone with him?"

Larena nodded. "We all take turns sitting with him."

"Give him all of this at one time." Malthus mimicked pushing the plunger in. He knew the risks. If they caught Larena, he would lose his only pawn in Kynyr's household. She could not betray him because of the coercions in her brain. It was a gamble, but the injection would be quick and efficient compared to his past efforts.

"That looks different from what I was giving him."

"It is." Malthus closed the box and handed it to her.

Larena slipped it into her pouch. "Will it kill him fast?"

"In minutes."

"Good. I'm sick and tired of living under my sister's thumb."

"Once he's dead, I'll move you to a better place."

Malthus pulled her down, pressed his body over hers, and pushed her skirts up. He made no pretense of giving her pleasure--it was too cold for it. Unlacing his pants, Malthus shoved his erection into her hole and began his ride.

Cooley and his friends circled around, riding through the clusters of evergreens along the hawthorn hedgerow heading for the rear gate as quiet as they could. They heard the groans and grunts of sex and glanced at each other. Rory slid off Glorygirl with a grin. Hamish followed. They tethered the horse to a tree.

"What are you doing?" Cooley whispered.

"Going to have a look." Rory slipped into the trees as quiet as a fox.

Cooley sighed. One of Rory's previous expeditions had nearly gotten the three of them killed, yet the cub's curiosity and general nosiness remained indefatigable. Cooley dismounted and reluctantly followed the Scott cubs as they stole from cover to cover among the evergreens.

Rory grinned. "I heard folks doing it before. I ain't never had a close look at it though."

"Haven't ever," Cooley corrected him. "I seen it plenty of times. There's not much to it."

Cooley, raised in a bordello, had known what sex looked like almost since he could walk. He had seen so much of it that he had wearied of the topic long before his first wet dream. Whereas, Rory and Hamish had only the vaguest notions from catching glimpses of domestic animals doing it.

"Bet you have." Rory stole closer to the sounds. "I always wanted to watch it."

"Don't go playing peeping john, it's rude." Kady and Cahira would be appalled if they learned what the cubs were doing. Cooley put a lot of effort into schooling his tongue and not doing or saying anything that might offend them.

Rory ignored Cooley, darting to the next cluster of trees. "It's Malthus."

Cooley caught a sharp breath and joined Rory crouching by the tree. His side twinged and he placed his hand on it. One of the village toughs, Rheu Lawson, had stabbed Cooley in the side. Cooley killed him. However, the blade had been coated with a blend of Devil's Silver, which had slowed the healing. Cooley's side remained tender and Mary Sinclair kept it bound tight.

For the first weeks of his stay in Wolffgard, Cooley had been stalked by Malthus, which left the cub so rattled that he quit his job working for Georgie Rogan in the stables. The fight with Rheu had given Cooley an edge that he did not have before. More and more he tried to act with the same courage his murdered father had always shown. He had begun to lose his fear of Malthus, but not his wariness.

He squinted through a parting in the branches. The flaxen hair spilling around the bitch's face was the wrong shade of blonde to be Malthus' wife Merissa. "Who's he poking?"

"Don't know." Rory's eyes remained locked on Malthus' buttocks. He darted to the closest cover he could find and squatted as low as possible, hoping for a flash of skin. A flush lit Rory's cheeks as Malthus reared back and he finally got a peek at the important parts. "Damn, that dog's big. He's stuffing her good."

Cooley glanced around and then dashed over to Rory. "Sonuva dirty mare," he muttered sotto voce. "It's Larena."

"Ginny, ginny cumtwig," Hamish murmured, watching fascinated alongside his brother.

For once, Cooley made all the possible connections first. Rory and Hamish were too caught up in their peeping to think about anything else. Cooley backed away, remembering Rory telling him that if Malthus wanted to poison Kynyr that he would get someone else to do it for him--and he had someone else to do it: Larena. Cooley withdrew silently, and the moment he was well out of sight, he bolted for his horse.

Kady Maguire watched the snow drifting down across the yard of her home, as she sat at her husband's bedside, feeling numb past tears. His chiseled features had become gaunt, his cheeks sunken, and dark purple shadows made pools beneath his eyes. Kynyr could not keep down solid food, and subsisted on water and broth.

He had been poisoned with an arcane substance that mimicked the effects of Black Mountain Fever. The physicians and healers were treating the symptoms while looking for a cure. Drugs reduced Kynyr's fever, eased his pain, and mitigated the seizures. The most frightening thing to Kady was the fact that Kynyr's legs stayed cold and cramped despite any and every thing they did. He was in constant pain throughout his body, especially his muscles. Lesions had formed in spots along his spinal column. The high-level bio-alchemical Readers, loaned to Kady by the Assassins' Guild of Hadjys the Dark Judge, had found them days ago.

Kynyr Maguire would never walk again. She had forbidden the healers and others from informing him of it. After his grandfather, Claw Redhand, had been crippled by a fall on the stairs, Kynyr had told several of his closest friends that he would rather die than live like that.

The possibility that Kynyr might try to take his own life once he knew the truth overshadowed Kady's hopes. She would rather have him crippled and alive than lose him to death.

She thought about how every time that the enemy had knocked him down, Kynyr had picked himself up and gone after them again. He had defeated them at Hell's Widow, wiped out their followers in Wolffgard, and then ... they finally managed to bring him down forever.

Death would have been kinder. Every time that Kady overheard one of Kynyr's friends say that it made her stomach clench. It made them seem like traitors in her heart.

Death might yet take him, but Kady refused to surrender him to it without a fight.

He lay propped against a pile of pillows. His heavy blond hair had become so matted from sleeping on it, that Kady had--regretfully--cut it short. Kynyr's Aunt Mary brought a bowl of broth in, placed it on the bedside table, and withdrew. Kady lifted a spoon of broth to Kynyr's lips.

He turned his head away, refusing it with a dull listless expression. "I'm not going to make it, Kady." He sounded so weary and forsaken that it tore at Kady's heart.

"Don't say that, Kynyr. Don't say that. You're not going to die."

Finn MacIver came into the room. He had white blond hair that he wore in a tail down his back, a long narrow face, slightly flaring at the cheeks, and a hound dog nose that overpowered the rest of his features. He and Kynyr were spiritbrothers, friends since birth, united against the Dreaded Horde--their name for their combined sisters, Finn's eight and Kynyr's six--who were always trying to prevent them from going fishing. He settled into a chair next to Kady. "Claw gave me an extended leave, so I could keep you company, Kynyr."

"How's Searlait?"

Finn tensed and glanced at Kady for permission to tell him. Kady averted her eyes with a tiny nod. Finn's lips tightened and he expelled a breath through his nostrils. "She's dead, Kynyr. She drowned."

"When?" Grief harshened Kynyr's voice.

Searlait had always enjoyed sneaking from the manor at dawn to sit by the Bonnie Draw River and think. Kynyr had discovered Searlait's secret place and walked her home each morning to ensure her safety. Two days after Kynyr collapsed, Searlait died in the swirling waters of the Bonnie Draw. Most said it was an accident, but a few like Finn believed she had been murdered.

"Just over two weeks ago."

"I begged her, Finn." Kynyr struggled with his words. "I begged her ... to stop ... going out alone."

"Sheradyn says that she must have had a stroke and fell in."

"We need a lawgiver," said Kady. "There must be one we can get."

Lawgivers were chosen by the position of the stars and moon at the time of their birth, and trained from childhood by the oldest lawgiver in the village. Most of their people were illiterate or semi-literate, so the laws and customs were committed to memory, often in the forms of poems.

Finn looked thoughtful for an instant. "You know, I just remembered. Old Phelan at Three Stones. He's got three in his family."

"That's a week's ride northeast, isn't it?" Kady glanced hopefully at Finn as she removed the empty bowl from Kynyr's bed table and then the table itself.

"Closer to three in this weather. Two in good."

Kynyr's face twisted into a grimace, his eyes narrowing into a slant of suffering as his brows knit, and his color faded. He stiffened, his fists clenching against the pain. "Gaahds. Bad one."

Kady gestured at a table across the room, and Finn lunged for it. "Narcantha and Amphereon."

She filled the syringes as Shaheeramat had instructed her, making certain there was no air in the cylinder, cleaned Kynyr's arm off with a swipe of astringent and injected him with the drugs.

He eased and settled against his pillows, sliding into sleep and breathing easier. The only way to stop the episodes of seizures and pain was to sedate him so heavily that nothing woke him.

Last summer those syringes, which Kady had begun to appreciate, were just pictures in an ancient text from the lost civilization of Louistrana. Cahira Sinclair, Kynyr's grandmother, had translated most of one book and the Creeyans were already busy trying to recreate the simpler things.

"You ought to get something to eat." Larena entered the room.

"I don't think I could swallow anything." Kady averted her gaze to hide a frown. Larena always disappeared for a few hours in the morning, and Kady suspected that her sister was simply trying to avoid doing her share of the chores.

"Think of the cub, Kady." Larena gave her a look of firm and insistent concern.

Finn nodded. "Come on. She's right, Kady. You need to eat something."

Kady exhaled heavily. She could argue with Larena, but not Finn--all past attempts had failed. "Take good care of him, Larena. I dosed him for pain, so he should be out for a while."

"I'll take very good care of him."

Kady rose and walked slowly toward the stairs. The closer she came to the stairs, the more her feet dragged. The kitchen was on the lower floor. It had always been her favorite place to sit and visit before Kynyr's collapse. Visions of all the times she had sat there with him filled her mind. Kady laid her hand upon the balustrade and then drew back. "Bring me something up, Finn?"

"Where will you be?"

"The north drawing room."

The mansion had so many rooms that Kady had long ago given up trying to count them. Before she had gotten so far into the pregnancy, she had enjoyed exploring and making lists of them. The larger her belly became, the more tired Kady felt.

Cooley raced through the orchard gates, past the guards that Kady had stationed. They knew Cooley and made no effort to interfere with him. Slumbering fruit trees gave way to a sweep of walnut trees and ended at the edge of a wide courtyard defined by bushy hedgerows. Benches, stone water troughs, and elegant stone tie rails stood like stark sentinels among the remnants of the winter-slain gardens. A broad cobblestone carriage path veered to the cub's right, leading to the stableyard. Last night's snowfall had been cleared from its surface, but the afternoon flurries had lain a fresh white drape across the golden orange of the cobblestones.

He rode into the stableyard as if someone had singed his tail, and threw himself from the saddle. "Fychan! Take Larkspur."

Fychan Helmsley, the head stablemon, came out of the barn. His nose, grotesque on his withered face, sat amidst a wealth of seams and folds of sagging skin, weathered to the appearance of old leather. He caught hold of Larkspur's reins. "What's got ya riled?"

"No time."

Cooley went in the side door that led in through the kitchen. Since Kady returned from Creeya with help from the Fae and the Grand Master, the place was always filled. Cooley did not know and had not bothered to get acquainted with most of them. Before Kynyr's illness, Cooley would have gone straight to him with the information. He might have gone to Kady, but the further into the pregnancy she got, the crankier she became. Cooley knew that worrying about Kynyr caused part of that. He did not know whether Todd was there that day or not.

He pushed through the room, past a chattering band of Fae and burst into the hallway, trying to decide whether to check the front room or the salle for Trevor Sinclair, Kynyr's uncle.

The front room was closer. Cooley darted down the hallway and poked his head through the door. Myn turned to stare after him. He scanned the crowd and failed to see Trevor, so he went to the stairs and climbed to the second floor. As he walked down the second floor corridor, Cooley started trying to compose his words to get the most important fact first.

Trevor stood in the center of the mats, working with Tiderider, performing with the practice version of the deadly fans the Fae fought with. For all of Trevor's size, and he was a big mon, he had speed and grace also.

Tiderider had golden skin, eyes, and light caramel-hair with golden highlights. He wore the latter in a tail that exposed his pointed ears. He stood nearly six feet tall--an effect of the unbridled magic still found around the edges of his homeland. His eyes, like those of all the Fae, were like slits in his face from the double epicanthic fold of skin at the edges of them. That characteristic was more strongly pronounced among the Fae than with any other of the sylvan races.

His eyes flicked to see Cooley, and then he ignored the cub.

Cooley sucked in a breath. "Trevor, I need to talk to you."

"Can it wait?" Trevor never missed a movement as he and Tiderider worked their way along.

"It's about Malthus."

That got Trevor's attention; his bushy cinnabar eyebrows went up and he excused himself from the mat with a bow, putting the fans away on the shelf. The entire family suspected that Malthus was the mon behind all the dark happenings in and around Wolffgard, but they had been unable to find proof of it. "What about Malthus?"

"He's over by the hawthorn hedge."

"On this property?"

"Other side. He's jacking Larena."

Tiderider joined them near the door. "Kady's sister is sleeping with the enemy."

"How long ago, Cooley?"

"I was up on Larkspur, so I had to go through the orchard gates. But I went fast."

Trevor patted Cooley's shoulder. "Good cub." Then he turned to Tiderider. "If she came directly back, she could have gotten home ahead of Cooley by squeezing through the hedgerow."

"We must find her."

As they went through the house, Trevor and Tiderider set people to searching with instructions to secure her in the basement. If the cub Larena carried belonged to Malthus, then it explained why she was so reticent about the name of her lover.

Trevor saw Kady coming out of the kitchen. "Where's Larena?"

"Sitting with Kynyr. Why?"

Alarm flashed across Trevor's face with a sudden realization, and he ran for Kynyr's bedroom. "She poisoned him."