But wards and warding had no meaning to Moria, though she was one of Ischade's.She rammed stiff fingers into his gut and made a lunge for freedom. It was allhe could go to grab her around the waist, keeping her barely inside the house.The linen slipped from his hands and fluttered to the street below. Moriawhimpered; he pressed her face against his chest to muffle the sound. Ward-fire,invisible to her but excruciating nonetheless, dazzled her hands and forearms.

"We're trapped!" she gasped. "Trapped!"

Hysteria rose in her face again. He grabbed her wrists, knowing the pain wouldshock her into silence.

"That's Strat down there. Straton! They'll come for him. The horse will bringthem, Moria. Ischade, Tempus: they'll all come for him-and us."

"No, no," she repeated, her eyes white all around. "Not Her. Not Her-"

Stilcho hesitated. He remembered that fear; that all-consuming fear he felt ofIschade, of Haught, of everything that had had power over him-but he'd forgottenit as well. Death had burned the fear out of him. He felt danger, desperation,and the latent death that pervaded this house and this afternoon-but bowelnumbing fear no longer had a claim on him.

"I'm going to save Strat-hide him until they come for him. I'm going to save me,too. I'm lucky today, Moria: I'm alive and I'm lucky. Even without thehorse...."

But he wasn't without the bay horse. The bloody rag had landed on the carvedstone steps that had been, many years ago, the Peres family's pride. The baypounded on the steps, surrounded but unaffected by ward-fire. It scented Strat'sblood soaking into the wood planks of the lower hallway and heard his anguish.Trumpeting a loyalty that transcended life and death, it reared, flailing at theephemeral flames which engulfed it. Stilcho watched as the mortal image of thehorse vanished and the other one became a black void.

"Moria, the back stairs, the servant's stairs to the kitchen, where are they?It's only a matter of time."

Candlelight flickered over Ischade's dark-clad body. She had collapsed backwardsinto her silken lair. Her hair made tangled webs around her face and shoulders.One arm arced around her head, the other fell limply across her waist; both weremarked with dark gashes where the priest's glass had cut her. Ischade had deathmagic, not healing.

She was, if not oblivious to her exhausted body, unmindful of it. If her effortswere successful there would be time enough for rest and recovery. She continuedmanipulating the bonds which made all she had ever owned a focus for her power.She set resonances at each flawed boundary, reinforced them as motes of wardingeroded away and tried not to feel the tremors that were Straton.

It was not her way to move with such delicate precision- but it was the only wayshe had left. Balancing her power through every focal object within the Pereshouse which could contain it, she hoped to build her presence until she couldpull from all directions and burst the warding sphere Roxane had created. Shehad discarded the thread tying her to the bay horse. She had never regarded thecreature as hers but only as a gift, a rare gift, to her lover. Thus the momentwhen it had scented Strat's blood passed unnoticed but the instant when itpenetrated the wards was seared into her awareness.

Her first response was a heartfelt curse for whatever was causing havoc in herneat, tedious work. The curse soared and circled the wards until Ischadeunderstood she had an ally within the house. She examined the small skein ofliving and dead within whom she had a focus and found that one, Stilcho, was nolonger anchored. Stilcho, whom Haught had stolen and fate had set to livingfreedom.

Smiling, she pushed her imperceptible awareness past the ward-consumingemptiness.

"Haught," she whispered, weaving into his mind. "Remember your father. RememberWizardwall. Remember slavery. Remember the feel of the globe in your handsbefore she stole it from you. She does not love you, Haught. Does not love yourfine Nisi face while she wears a Rankan one. Does not love your aptness whileshe is trapped in a body that has none. Oh, remember, Haught; remember everytime you look on that face."

The ambitious mind of the ex-slave, ex-dancer, ex-apprentice shivered whenIschade touched it. Foolish child-he had believed she would not look for himagain and had taken none-of the simple steps to ensure that she could not. Shesealed her hypnotic surgery with a gentle caress on the ring he wore: the ringhe had thought to use against her.

Ischade retreated, then, behind the little statues, the gewgaws and the sharpknives she had scattered throughout the house. Her thoughts would eat at a mindalready disposed to treason just as the essence of the bay horse ate the wardfire. It was only a matter of time.

"You have to eat. Magic can't do everything."

Randal opened his mouth to agree and received a great wooden spoonful of Jihan'slatest aromatic posset. His eyes bulged, his ears reddened, and he wantednothing more than to spit the godsawful curdled lump to the floor. But the FrothDaughter was watching him and he dared do nothing but swallow it in onehorrendous gulp. His hands were immobilized in gauze slings, suspended in ovalbuckets filled with a salted solution of the Froth Daughter's devising. His ownmagical resources were insufficient to guide the spoon to his mouth- if he hadbeen so inclined in the first place.

He had been to the Mageguild and found his treatment there even less pleasant.Get rid of the globe; get rid of the demon; get rid of the witches, hiscolleagues had told him-and don't come home again until you do. So he'd comeback to the palace to be tended by Jinan and to fret over the way fate wasunfolding for him.

"You tried," Jihan assured him, setting the bowl aside. "You did your best."

"I failed. I knew what happened and I let her trick me. Niko would haveunderstood; I knew that Niko would have understood why we had him down here. ButI listened to her instead." He shook his head in misery; a lock of hair felldown to cover his eyes. Jihan leaned forward to brush it back, moving carefullyto avoid the shiny, less severe bums on his face or the singed, almost bald,portion of his scalp that still smelled of the fire.

"We've all made more than our share of mistakes in this," Tempus commiseratedfrom the doorway. He unfastened his cloak, letting it drop to the floor as hestrode across the room. The hypocaust fires had been banked for two days but theroom was still the warmest, by far, in the palace. "How is he?" he asked when hestood beside Niko.

The young man's body showed few traces of his ordeal. The swellings and bruiseshad all but disappeared; his face, in sleep, was serene and almost smiling.

"Better than he should be," Jihan said sadly. She laid her hand lightly onNiko's forehead. The half-smile vanished and the hell-haunted mercenary strainedagainst the leather straps binding him to the pallet. "The demon has his bodycompletely now and heals as it wishes," she acknowledged, lifting her hand.Niko, or his body, quieted.

"You're sure?"

She shrugged, reached for Niko again, then restrained that impulse by grippingTempus's arm instead. "As sure as I am of anything where he's concerned."

"Riddler?" The hazel eyes flickered open but they did not focus and the voice,though it had the right timbre, was not Niko's. "Riddler, is that you?"

"Gods-no," Tempus took a step forward then hesitated. "Janni?" he whispered.

The body that contained the demon and Janni and whatever remained of Nikodemoswrithed and pulled its lips back into a skull-like grin.