The child burst out of the alley, darted under the wheels of a moving wagon, and hotfooted it down yet another narrow side street. He skidded to a halt when the cobbles in front of him bulged upward and a wall of Earth erupted out of the ground to barricade the road. Rowan and Adrial leapt down from a rooftop, breaking their descent with a cushion of Air. Bel and the others blocked the other end of the street.

The boy feinted right towards the back door of a baker's shop, then dodged to the left, pelting down a dank, narrow alley—little more than a moss-and-slime-covered footpath— between buildings. Bel charged after him, closing the distance between them. The boy was tiring, but the Fey were scarcely winded. The end of this chase would not be long in coming.

The boy knew it, too. He cast a wild-eyed glance over his shoulder and put on a burst of desperate speed, heading down yet another side street. He spun around a lamppost and launched himself down a short, narrow alley.

"Got you, boy!" Bel growled. The youth had made a mistake. This alley offered no outlet. Three solid brick walls hemmed the boy in, and Kieran wove Earth to weld shut the back doors that opened to the alley. There would be no more dodging through back rooms and kitchens, and no more escaping Fey weaves. "Now throw down that blade of yours and come with us. The Feyreisen has some questions for you." Bel moved in, arms spread wide, his palms open. He didn't want to kill the boy, only catch him and bring him in for questioning. After that, the King's justice could decide what to do with him. If the child decided to get difficult, Bel would simply weave the Air out of his lungs to render him unconscious.

The child spat out a filthy oath. Suddenly his thin body went poker stiff. He clutched at his throat and chest and gave a gurgling cry.

"Boy?" Bel abandoned caution and ran towards him. Only then did he sense the weave. Air and Earth, and something else Bel couldn't quite make out, something masked by the other weaves, but it set his teeth on edge.

Blood vessels burst in the boy's wild eyes, turning them into pools of scarlet framing terrified brown irises. His lips went purplish blue. His eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the damp filth of the alley ground.

Bel didn't need to check the boy's pulse to know he was dead.

His eyes scanned the alleyway, seeking the path of the weave that had killed the boy. The murderer had already erased his tracks, leaving nothing, no fragment of a weave to trace back to its source.

"The knife, Bel," Kiel reminded him. "Rain will want the blade that cut his mate.”

Bel knelt to rifle the urchin's ragged clothes. He found a sheathed blade tucked in the boy's waistband. "Spit and scorch me," he whispered as he recognized the distinctive, black-silk-wrapped hilt of a Fey'cha. What was a street urchin who'd attacked the Feyreisa doing with a Fey'cha? The name-mark etched into the blade's pommel chilled Bel's blood.

Without warning, the knife grew hot to the touch. Swearing, Bel released the weapon and leapt back just as it burst into intense, blue-white flame. The boy's body began to burn, too. "Murder!" The scream came from the mouth of the alley where a crowd of Celierians had gathered. A woman pointed at Bel and cried again, "Murder!"

Kolis Manza turned away from the crowd across the street, a satisfied smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. That should keep the Fey busy for a while. Let them deal with the accusations of murder now, on top of all the suspicions of dahl'reisen raids and the new, dark distrust quietly spreading among the lower classes and the religious zealots.

He walked three blocks down to the Inn of the Blue Pony and entered unobtrusively by way of the back door and servants' stair. Young Birk, friend of the dead urchin, was waiting obediently for him. Wordlessly, the boy handed him the long, wavy-edged dagger the now-dead Beran has tossed to him before leading the Fey on that wild chase through the city streets. The black metal blade was dry, but the dark jewel in the hilt throbbed a rich, satisfied red, testifying to its recent taste of Ellysetta Baristani's blood.

"Excellent, boy," Kolis said. "You did well." Even Beran had served his purpose—though he'd nearly killed the girl rather than merely nicking her as he'd been ordered.

Kolis sheathed the dagger and tucked it inside his vest. Vadim Maur would be pleased.

"So much for my second lesson with Master Fellows." Ellie forced a weak laugh. She lay on a chaise in Rain's palace suite, her body tense despite the soothing warmth of Marissya's expert healing weave and gentle touch. Even the shock of her stabbing had faded in the face of her fear of the shei'dalin.

She imagined herself surrounded by a solid, impenetrable wall of stone and steel, her thoughts and emotions safely barricaded within, but shivers still racked her body and her teeth chattered uncontrollably as the warmth of the shei'dalin's magic penetrated her flesh. At last the glow surrounding Marissya's hands dissipated and she stepped back.

"Will I live?”

A tired smile curved the shei'dalin's lips. "Aiyah, I am glad to report that you will.”

Ellysetta's eyes narrowed as magic tingled across her skin and she saw a faintly unfocused look enter both Rain's and Marissya's eyes. "Speak so I can hear," she told them. "As I was the one stabbed, I have a right to hear what you are saying.”

"Sieks'ta," Marissya murmured. "I was telling Rain the blade wasn't poisoned but there were remnants of a pain suppressant in your blood. The blade was treated with a numbing agent, which explains why you didn't feel anything even though the boy stabbed so deep he pierced a kidney." She glanced up at Rain. "It was good you stopped the bleeding as quickly as you did.”