“Do it, and I swear I’ll find a way to crush your skull like an egg while you sleep,” Aven whispered.

At this, Daes just smiled. “Tell me what I want to know, and perhaps it won’t come to that.”

“I am not your slave.”

“Aren’t you?”

16

Balance

If she could kidnap a man once, she could kidnap him again, right?

At the crack of dawn, she trotted to the library, quickly checking for any drawings of the layout of the rooms in the Master’s Hall. Anything that could help her locate Aven. She had no luck, but it didn’t matter.

She had worked through the details with her father late into the night, examining a layout they had drawn together from memory, trying to recall the guard’s patrol times, what had been said when she’d given Aven to the Masters, what she would need to collect and gather once the sun had risen. Then in the dark of night, she’d stolen out to the woods again, and she’d hidden the map Aven had given her with some supplies about an hour’s flight toward Akaria. If she failed, the map could not fall into the Masters’ hands.

The sun now completely up, she strode from the library and began gathering her ingredients—web from a spider, hair from a rat and a cat, the antennae of a beetle.

As she ran her hand over one of the wandering gray cats, snatching a hunk of excess fur the cat was shedding, she remembered the wolves who’d attacked them in the temple. With the Balance, there is always another way, the wild wolf had said. She hoped it was right.

She felt the quietest touch of hope creep into her heart. Perhaps there was a Balance, perhaps this was what her father had meant all along. If this feeling of freedom wasn’t somehow a cruel practical joke, if she could actually find him, if they could somehow get away…

That world was too bright to think of, lest her heart be shattered when it didn’t come true.

It was not time to think, it was time to act.

Her steps seemed no different from any other day, but on this day, she headed into the Master’s Hall of her own accord. The day would not end the way it had begun, that she was sure of.

Inside, she found a quiet corridor, waited until she was sure she was alone, and then slipped into the form of a cat. Then she darted from corner to corridor, again under the guise of hunting rodents.

She began systematically exploring the areas of the Hall that she’d never seen before, one by one, peeking in as a cat, looking under doorframes, sniffing others, even slipping in as a beetle sometimes just to be sure. Several doors concealed only sleeping chambers on the other side; some were empty or held crates in storage. Many nearest to the main hall seemed largely unused. One by one she went, fast as she could, eliminating each in its turn.

Beyond another series of storage chambers with dusty barrels inside, she found a doorway made of iron rather than wood, with bars and a large sturdy lock on the left side. She could barely make out stairs leading down into the darkness.

This had to be it.

The hallway was empty and silent. She could hear no one nearby. She wound herself down, coiled into a spider form, and began climbing, heading for the safety of the highest parts of the wall. Then she crawled past a bar and was plunged into darkness.

A spider was not quite the smallest thing Miara knew how to transform herself into, but it was the smallest one that would be at home in a dungeon. There might also be flies, but they might also be more annoying targets for guards or prisoners to squash. All tiny forms carried many risks—easily crushed, stepped on, brushed aside, or blown away by the wind. Tiny legs went a great deal slower than bigger ones or even feline ones. Eight spider eyes did not work the same as two human ones. Still, she had to hide herself somehow. She had no idea what to expect from this dungeon. However, she did know that a spider on a dark wall was probably a fairly normal occurrence no one would pay any attention to.

It was slow going. Her sight as a spider was much blurrier than as a human, but brighter in the dark. She could see more in the low light, though with duller lines. She could tell enough to know that she was going forward and down. Very, very slowly.

Behind her, a loud clanking and smashing sound made her freeze in her tracks. Voices rang out. Guards.

She moved a few inches higher up on the wall, then held very still.

A group of them passed her, headed down. She counted eight, if her eyes were to be trusted. With her strange, new eyes, she couldn’t quite make them out perfectly. Where could they be going?

The sound of the soldiers faded. Had they just quit talking, or could she no longer hear them? How far was it to the bottom of this dungeon?

Didn’t matter. Keep going.

Time blurred and became nothing but the slow, steady progress across the wall: a strange crevice in the rock, a hill here, a valley there. She scaled higher as she neared a torch, unsure how hot it would be, not wanting to end up cooked.

With time came more footsteps. The guards were leaving, but there were no voices this time.

She was about as high on the wall as she could be, but she nestled into a crevice just in case. She waited.

They came around the bend quickly, marching in better form this time, in rows. Two, then two, then three, then two…

Nine? Wasn’t that more than had gone down there? She struggled to look harder in the dim light. Was the new figure slumped against them? Was there even a ninth figure?

Yes. They were escorting someone—someone they’d gone down into the dungeons to fetch.

Gods. It was Aven.

She felt every muscle in her tiny body tense as if she could pounce to free him. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what to do. They were taking him somewhere. Her plan couldn’t possibly work now if there were nine guards surrounding him wherever he ended up.

The guards lumbered with Aven up the stairs, almost out of sight. Think, she commanded herself. Think, damn it! They rounded the corner, gone now. She still stared, numb.

Then action returned to her in a rush. She leapt from the wall and let herself drop down toward the floor, and as she fell she twisted her form into a large rat. She hit the floor with a tumble and a roll, and her head spun, but she righted herself and took off after them.

If she wanted to save Aven, she had to know where he was. And right now she was at least close. When she got to him, she had no idea what she would do.

One step at a time.