Mychael nodded. “He will be. He’s extracting a nest of banshees from the basement of the old Judicial Building. He said he’d come as soon as he was finished.”

The old man whistled. “Wouldn’t want him to do a halfassed job of that.”

“No, sir.”

I looked from one of them to the other. “Him having the same last name as Lucan Kalta is just a coincidence, right?”

Mychael lips quirked in a quick grin. “Afraid not. They’re brothers. Lucan is the baby.”

“A baby what?”

I’d had an up-close and unpleasant encounter with Lucan Kalta within days of arriving on the island. He didn’t like me then, and I thought it highly unlikely that he’d warmed to me since. He was the chief librarian of the Scriptorium, a massive repository of nearly every magic- related book, scroll, or stone slab. He didn’t like me because I’d defied his authority in front of his staff. The rule I broke was stupid to begin with, so I saw nothing wrong with going around it.

“Is Vidor Kalta a necromancer or a nachtmagus?” I asked Mychael.

“Nachtmagus. In my opinion, one of the best.”

“Crap,” I muttered. “Like my skin hasn’t crawled enough tonight.”

Most people thought a necromancer and a nachtmagus were pretty much the same thing. I guess you could say that, if you thought there wasn’t much difference between a garden snake and a cobra. Necromancers could communicate with the dead. They did séances, detected hauntings, and could tell you if you had a frisky poltergeist or an ancestor who simply refused to leave.

A nachtmagus could control the dead—in all of their forms. Communicating with the dead was the least of what they could do. I’d heard that given enough time, money, and motivation, they could raise the dead. I never wanted to meet anyone that motivated.

In my opinion, no one majored in necromancy unless they were just plain weird. In theory, the Conclave college had a way to weed out the weirdos. I don’t know what that said about the department’s graduates. They wanted to work with dead things, but at the same time they couldn’t be weird. Had to be the college’s smallest graduating class.

“He’s an odd bird, and quite frankly a creepy bastard,” Justinius agreed. “But he knows his business, and best of all, he’s discreet.” He inclined his head toward the body. “How many people got a good look at the general here?”

“Few, if any,” Mychael assured him. “The section of street he landed in is between lampposts. The shadows helped. Vegard throwing his cloak over the body helped the most.”

“Quick thinking,” Justinius told my bodyguard.

Vegard nodded. “Thank you, sir. I saw his uniform, and knew nobody else needed to.”

“Other than the fact that pure-blooded goblins hate any and all elves, why would Sarad Nukpana . . .” I fumbled for a way to describe what was on that table. “. . . do this or have this done to an elven general? Was Aratus a magic user?”

Justinius shook his head. “Not a spell to his name.”

Something occurred to me and I didn’t like it at all. In fact, the sudden realization made me a little sick.

I felt Mychael’s hand on my elbow. “Raine, are you all right?”

I didn’t answer. My mind was too busy running in panicked circles. I thought I’d hit on why Sarad Nukpana had killed General Aratus and then given what was left of him to me.

Mychael’s grip tightened. “The air isn’t good; you shouldn’t be in here.” It was his paladin’s voice, the one that gave orders I usually didn’t take. “Vegard, escort—”

I waved them both off. “I’m fine. Actually, I’m not, but it’s not because of him.” I indicated Aratus. “Well, it is indirectly, or it could be.” I put my palm to my forehead. “Crap. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

Mychael’s hand stayed right where it was. “Not yet, but you’re getting there.”

I looked up at him. “What if this actually was some sort of twisted gift for me?” I asked quietly. “And a setup?”

His brows knit in confusion. I had a tendency to do that to people.

“Explain.”

“There are two elves on this island who we know report directly to elven intelligence,” I said, “specifically to Markus Sevelien—and one of them is on that table. The other one is Taltek Balmorlan.”

Part of me wouldn’t mind seeing Taltek Balmorlan’s shriveled body on a table. I’d never liked that part of me, but that part always had my best interests at heart—like survival. Balmorlan was an inquisitor for elven intelligence who had an obsession for high-powered weapons, not the steel and gun-powder variety, but people like me whose off-the-charts magical skills made them weapons. Taltek Balmorlan didn’t ask; he just took. He was still on the island, and he still hadn’t given up on getting me.

“Think about it,” I continued. “Sarad Nukpana dumps the general’s dead body at my feet in public and calls it a gift. And in the red-light district right after a raid on a cathouse is about as public as you can get. Balmorlan’s been claiming that Nukpana and I are working together.”

“Nukpana’s been stalking you since the day he met you.” Mychael’s voice was clipped with barely restrained anger. “Even being inside the Saghred didn’t slow him down. I would hardly call that working together.”

“Apparently Balmorlan has a looser definition,” I told him. “And that’s his boss on that table. What do you want to bet, he’s going to claim that I’m an accessory to kidnapping and murder? And since I’m an elf, that I should be in elven government custody, which conveniently happens to be him. He gets me locked up, which is exactly what he wants, and Sarad Nukpana gets the added bonus of knowing where to find me when he wants me.”

“He’d have to get Markus Sevelien’s approval to arrest you,” Justinius pointed out.

I jerked my head toward Aratus’s corpse. “Right now, I think he’d get it.”

Years ago, Duke Markus Sevelien had given me my first big job as a seeker. My new business was struggling. I guess potential clients didn’t trust a Benares to find—and then actually return—their valuables. I took occasional assignments from Markus that mostly consisted of finding abducted elves: diplomats, intelligence agents, aristocrats who’d gotten involved in something over their highborn heads. It was gratifying work and I was good at it.

Markus’s help got me through the lean years. I liked him; I trusted him. At least I used to. Now I wasn’t so sure. I never thought he’d betray me; but before, I’d never been the only person to wield the Saghred and stay both sane and alive.

Markus had always been up-front and honest with me. And if I’d been standing face-to-face with him right now, he’d probably still be honest—his loyalties were to elven intelligence, not to me. He’d put any friendship we might have to the side as an impediment to him doing his job. And I knew from past experience that Markus would do his job at any and all costs. It wasn’t personal; it was business.

It was the Saghred.

And since the Saghred had attached itself to me, that made me his business. I could almost understand that; the Saghred was a weapon that elven intelligence wasn’t about to let fall into goblin hands. That meant he couldn’t allow me to fall into goblin hands. Hell, I didn’t want to be in anyone’s hands.

If Markus had to arrest me to make that happen, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

And both Mychael and Justinius knew it.

The old man’s blue eyes were hard as agates. “No one is going to arrest you. As long as you’re on this island, you’re under Guardian protection and mine.”

The Guardians were protectors of the Saghred, and since the Saghred and I were psychic roommates that protection extended to me. To Mychael, I had become more than his job.

“Would any of that protection override a charge of accessory to kidnapping and murdering an elven general?” I asked them both.

The old man’s silence told me what I already knew.