They think I am still blind to the finer workings, she'd said to the ravenperched on the stone finial beside her. Their first mistake. Let's see if thereare others.

No one bothered her as she picked her way across the open expanse of mudsurrounding the new White Foal bridge. It was probable that none of the bravosrunning between Downwind and the more profitable riots uptown could see herthough even she was uncertain how far her magic, or her curse, extended in suchdirections, now that her power had resumed its normal proportions.

Her house showed signs of her indisposition. The black roses brawled with eachother, sending up bloomless canes armed with wicked thorns that flaked therusted iron fence where they rubbed against it. And the wards? Ischade shudderedat the sight of the heavy blotches of power smeared stridently across herpersonal domain. With small movements of her hands, hands now less powerful butonce again skilled and certain, she constrained the roses and reshaped the wardsinto a more acceptable pattern.

The gate swung open to greet her; the raven preceded her to the porch.

Once across the threshold, Ischade kicked the heavy-soled boots the Beysibsoldier had given her into a comer where, in time, her magic would twist theminto something delicate and brightly colored. She retrieved her candles, litthem, and settled into the small mountain of shimmering silk that was, in thefinal sense, her home.

Inhaling the familiarity-the lightness-of it, she gathered the tangled skein ofimaginary silk which bound the Peres house to her and studied her options. Shetouched each strand gently, so gently that no one in the uptown house wouldsuspect her interest as she reacquainted herself with what rightly belonged toher. Then she drew the thread that bound her to Straton as surely as it boundhim to her.

Straton!

Ischade lived at the fringes of time, as she lived at the fringes of the greatermagics practiced by the likes of Roxane or even Randal. She was older than shelooked; probably older than she remembered. Straton was not the first who cutthrough her defenses-even her curse-to hurt her, but anguish had no sense ofproportion: it was now. The Peres house, Moria, Stil-cho, even Haught; shewanted those back through pride but the sandy-haired man who hated magic had adifferent claim. Not love.

Partnership, perhaps-someone who, because he had shattered the walls whichsurrounded her, lessened the loneliness of existence at the fringes. Someonewhose demands and responses were simple and who, like all the others, eventuallybroke the rules which were not. She'd sent Straton away for his own good andhe'd come back, like all the others, with his simple, impossible demands. But,unlike the others, he hadn't died and that, the necromant realized with ashiver, might be- for want of a better word-love.

He would not die, or be stripped of his dignity, in the Peres house, if she hadto destroy the world to stop it.

Walegrin paced the length of the dark, malodorous cellar. Life, specificallycombat, had been much easier when he had been responsible for no more than thehandful of men he personally led. Now he was a commander, forced to stay behindthe lines of imminent danger coordinating the activities of the entire garrison.They said he did the job well but all he felt was a vicious burning in his gutas bad as any arrow.

"Any sign?" he shouted through the slit window to the street.

"More smoke," the lookout shouted back so Walegrin missed Thrusher's hawk-call.

The wiry little man swung himself feet first through another window, landinglightly but not before Walegrin had his knife drawn. Thrush took the arrows outof his mouth and laughed.

'Too slow, chief. Way too slow."

"Damn, Thrush-what's going on out there?"

"Nothing good. See this?" He handed the blond man one of his arrows. "That'swhat the piffle-shit are using. Blue fletch-ings-like the one that took Stratdown up near the wall."

"So it wasn't Jubal starting all this?"

"Hell no-but they're in it now: them, piffles, fish. Stepsons-anyone with anedge or a stick. They're giving no quarter. It's startin' to bum out there,chief."

"Are we holding?"

"Holding what-" Thrusher began, only to be interrupted by the lookout and thearrival of a messenger with a scroll from the palace. "There's no territorybigger than the ground under your feet."

Walegrin read Molin's message, crumpled the paper, and stomped it into theoffal. "Shit-on-a-stick," he grumbled. "It's gonna get worse-a lot worse. Thepalace wants plague sign posted on Wideway and the Processional; seems ourvisitors have arrived."

"Plague sign?" Thrusher whistled and broke his remaining arrow. "Why not justbum the whole place to the ground? Shit-where're we supposed to get paint?"

"Use charcoal, or blood. Hell, don't worry about it; I'll take care of it. I gotto get out of here anyway. You find me Kama."

The little man's face blanched beneath his black beard. "Kama-she started thewhole thing... taking Strat down with Jubal's arrow! There isn't a blade orarrow out there not marked for her back!"

"Yeah-well, I don't believe she did it, so you get her back to the barracks forsafe-keeping. You and Cythen."

"Your orders, chief? She's probably meat by now anyway."

"She'll be alive-hiding somewhere near where we caught her that night."

"An' if she's not?"

"Then I'm wrong and she did start it. My orders, Thrush: Find her before someoneelse does."

Walegrin endured Thrush's disappointed sigh and watched as the little man leftthe same way he'd come; then he went up to the street.

Plague sign: the palace wanted plague sign to keep the visitors on the straightand narrow. It might work. It might keep the Imperials tight on their ship, awayfrom the madness that was Sanctuary. But it would sure as hell bring panic towhat was left of the law-abiding community and, the way things were going, itwould probably bring plague as well.

He wrenched a burning brand out of a neighboring building and, after sending thelookout down to the cellar, headed off to the wharves. It wasn't two hours sincethe afternoon sky had been split by a dark apparition streaking between thePeres house and the palace. Damn witches. Damn magic. Damn every last one ofthem who made honest men die while they played games with gods.

Understanding came slowly to Stilcho, which was not at all surprising. There wasno peace in Ischade's one-time house for understanding and a man, once heunderstood himself to be dead, did not reconsider the issue. Indeed, his firstreaction on seeing Straton there with an arrow by his heart was considerablyless than charitable. This bleeding hulk who had supplanted him in Heraffections; this murder-dealing Stepson who had massacred his comrades wasgetting naught but what he deserved.

His opinion hardened further when the globe was spinning madness into all ofthem and the injured Stepson had summoned the strength to reach into thatdazzling blue array of magic to disrupt it. At first, all Stilcho had seen wasthe globe passing from Haught to Roxane: from bad to worse; he had cursedStraton with all the latent power his hell-seeing eye possessed. He had not beengentle getting his hands under Strat's shoulders and dragging him along thehallway while Roxane gloated and Haught wore a superficial obsequiousness.

Then he saw the little things they did not: the subtle wrong-ness in the globewrought wards, the holes through which She might be yet able to reach. He feltthe pulse of fear and anticipation pounding at his temples, making his handssweat-and that he had never expected to feel again; he even remembered,distantly, what it meant.