“If a ward spell uncoiling looks like a robe on a wall hook, then that’s what I saw, ma’am.” said Tervis. “Tall black robe with nothing in it.” The boy’s eyes met hers, and after a moment Meralda shook her head.

“We can talk about it at the bottom,” she said. She motioned for the Bellringers to move toward the door. “It may not be safe here, and I don’t have the tools to deal with a ward gone bad. So we leave, right now.”

The Bellringers nodded once, in unison.

“I lost the magelamp,” said Kervis. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It flew out of my hand.”

“I have another,” said Meralda. “And you are not to be blamed.” Meralda swallowed, banishing from her mind the image of the two boys falling through the dark. “I thought you’d both fallen.”

“Nearly did,” said Kervis. The boy shivered. “Tervis caught my boot.” The lad forced a small smile. “Glad it’s a good fit.”

Meralda bit her lip and motioned for her bag.

Tervis snatched it up and loosened the straps. “Here you are,” he said, holding it forth.

Meralda reached inside. She found her spare magelamp, smaller than the one Kervis dropped, but only slightly less bright.

“Light,” she said, and the magelamp flared to life.

Meralda urged it brighter. Kervis moved to stand beside the door. “I’ll go last,” he said. “If Ugly wants to follow, he’ll do it with holes in his chest.”

Meralda gazed round, one last time. The flat was empty, and though her ears still rang Meralda knew it was quiet again. Sunlight streamed through the windows, though it looked cold and thin on the worn stone floor. Nothing passed by beyond, and there was simply no place to hide in the open expanse of the Wizard’s Flat.

Emptiness. And yet Meralda shivered at the sudden sensation of a watchful gaze turned full upon her.

Meralda swallowed. “Be quiet a moment, gentlemen,” she said. “I’m going to close my eyes. Don’t be alarmed, and don’t move about.”

The Bellringers croaked out an affirmative.

“I’ll put an end to this nonsense here and now,” she muttered. Then she closed her eyes, counted backwards from ten, and extended her second sight into the flat.

Something, like the lightest caress of a spring thistle’s bloom, stroked the back of Meralda’s flash-burned neck. With it, fainter than a whisper, came words:

“The old, old wizard goes round and round the stair-”

Meralda wrenched her sight shut, and the Tower floor spun, and when she opened her eyes Kervis had taken a step toward her.

“What is it?” asked Kervis. “Ma’am, you’re white as a sheet!”

“We’re leaving,” said Meralda, aloud. The flat seemed smaller, now. Smaller and darker. The open doorway to the Tower proper gaped. “Stay close. We’re all half blind and a bit deaf. Keep your eyes on your feet and listen for trouble.”

The muscles in Tervis’ jaw quivered. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Kervis. Don’t linger.” Tervis stepped through the open door, prodding at the dark with his short, plain guardsman’s sword. Meralda followed, careful to keep the light at Tervis’ feet. Kervis backed onto the stair, his crossbow still trained on the empty flat.

Meralda reached past him and closed the door. The Tower, bereft of the daylight, was plunged into darkness. Meralda’s spare magelamp glittered and shone, and Meralda felt, for an instant, as if she walked alone high up in the night sky, bearing a single tiny star to light her way.

“I really, really don’t like this place,” muttered Tervis, miserably.

Meralda waved the pool of light a few treads down. “Then let’s leave it,” she said, pocketing the key. “Can you gentlemen see?”

“Well enough,” said Kervis. “I can close my eyes and still see you in front of the light,” he added.

“Me too,” said Tervis, as he began to descend. “Will it go away?”

“It will,” said Meralda, with what she hoped was total confidence. “Before we reach the park, I imagine.”

Tervis squinted into the dark. “Look down there,” he said, pointing at an hourglass-shaped splash of light far down in the distance. “Is that your lamp?”

Meralda peeped over the edge of the stair. “That’s it,” she said. “We shall soon have two to light our way.”

The light winked out.

“Sorry, Thaumaturge,” said Kervis. “I dropped it, and now it’s broken.”

“Think nothing of it, Guardsman,” said Meralda, quickly. “It’s just a brass cylinder. I’ll latch a new spell to it, and it will shine again.”

They wound down the stair in silence for a time, and Meralda was glad for the darkness, for it hid her worried frown.

One could cut the magelamp in half, and then crush it, and grind it to a powder. Even after all that, though light would shine from the fragments, until the spell unlatched. A fall, even from the top of the Tower, would not be sufficient to douse the light.

“I still don’t like this place,” said Tervis, to no one in particular.

Meralda nodded in silent agreement as Tervis set a brisk pace to the bottom.

The king put his head in his hands and sighed through his fingers.

“Thaumaturge,” he said, his face still covered. “Is there or isn’t there a haunt in the Tower?”

Meralda forced herself to relax her grip on the arms of her stiff old chair. She’d been dreading this moment, ever since reaching the bottom of the Tower and discovering a ring of soldiers holding back a crowd. The flash had been seen as far away as the upper ramparts of the palace, and the roar, according to Angis, rolled like nearby thunder all through the sunlit park.

“There are no haunts, Majesty,” she said, slowly and evenly. “Not in the Tower, not in the palace, not in the most ancient and blood-stained Phendelit fortress.” Meralda took a breath. “Haunts are things of legend and folklore, not fact or history.”

Yvin lowered his hands. Meralda was surprised to see how tired he looked, surprised to see the dark bands under the bleary grey eyes, and surprised at all the wrinkles that seemed to have crept across his wide, round face in just the last few days.

“No haunt in the Tower,” he said, softly.

“No haunt,” replied Meralda.

Yvin’s gaze bored into hers. “You don’t sound entirely convinced,” he said.

Meralda looked away. A sheaf of paper on the desk caught her eye; scrawled at one corner of the top page were the words “Who do we blame?”

“Something happened, in the flat,” she said, after a moment. “I used second sight to look around a bit.”

Yvin raised an eyebrow. “Madam, I’ve known five mages, and you are the first to dare second sight in Otrinvion’s stronghold,” he said. He leaned closer. “What did you see?”

Meralda frowned. “Nothing, Majesty,” she said. “Nothing. I felt what might have been a draft, and a verse from a child’s play poem about the Tower presented itself to me. Nothing else.”

Yvin drew himself back in his chair. “So. The ward spell failed, the blast left you and your guards justifiably shaken, and you left without further incident,” he said. “Still. What burst your ward?”

Meralda shrugged. “Residual spell energies, I suspect,” she said. “The Tower’s construction involved structural sorceries, and some certainly linger. The sheer weight of the Tower would cause it to collapse, otherwise.”

“Seven hundred years is a long time to linger,” said Yvin.

Meralda nodded. “It is, Majesty,” she replied. “But linger it does. Even Fromarch admits he had trouble latching spells to the Tower. And Shingvere-” Meralda halted, spread her hands. “Well, you know what Mage Shingvere thinks.”

Yvin grunted. “Residual spell energies. Structural sorceries.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

Yvin shrugged. “Then that’s what we’ll tell the papers,” he said. “We’ll tell them, and they’ll run headlines proclaiming the return of dread Otrinvion anyway. A free press.” The king sighed. “What was King Latiron thinking?”

Meralda shut her mouth just as she realized Yvin was chuckling.