It was very late when Malone started to drag himself home. His old bones ached. They would, after so many years spent healing. If ever there was a thing to rush you to the grave, it was healing. When a dark shape stepped onto the path before him, he swore violently, throwing his hands up before him.

  “Ether, Rook,” he growled, bending painfully to retrieve his bag, “What is it now?”

  The young necromancer, with his cursed, spry limbs, beat him to the bag and held it out to him, in a peace offering.

  “The king has Tynan Amaya.”

  Malone swore again.

  “Damn.”

  “That’s more or less the measure of it.”

  The damned necromancer was mocking him. It was subtle, sure, just a slight turn in the corner of his mouth and a twinkle in his eye, but Malone knew.

  “What do you think I can do about it?” he grumbled, starting down the path once more.

  “I need to… extricate her,” Rook said carefully.

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  “That sounds like a job for someone from your Ether-spawned gang, not an old man.”

  “Malone, you sell yourself short. You’re only forty-six.”

  Malone fixed him with a glare. His grey hair and rheumatism gave him rights to ‘old,’. Both men knew the healer would be fortunate to see another ten years.

  Rook continued smoothly, “If she were to, ah, die suddenly,” he said, “I trust I could count on you to repair her body.”

  “Huh,” Malone said, without breaking pace, “Never figured Bryant’s spider for a stupid man.”

  Rook waited for him to elaborate.

  “You don’t really think Bryant is going to let that girl, dead or alive, out of his castle once she’s in there, do you? He only needs her blood, the rest of her doesn’t need to be in there.”

  Necromancers always thought that necromancy was the fix for everything, as though every problem were so simple it could be solved by pouring soul from place to place, like children poured water between cups. Malone saw the carefully bland expression on Rook’s face and spat.

  “You can’t destroy her, not now you’ve talked to me. You knew that when you came here, though.”

  “She’s Irida’s daughter,” Rook said with a touch of reverence, “I have no desire to ‘destroy’ her. Did you know that she isn’t a subtle mage? Quite a powerful physical one, though.”

  Malone missed a step.

  “I thought you’d find that interesting.”

  “So, what, you want me to help you figure out how to get the girl, and her blood outside of the castle – without implicating you, or revealing your little friends – and without destroying her in the process. It’s crazy.”

  “We both know that you want to help me, and why, so I trust you'll think of a way,” Rook said, “We both know you’re the man to ask. You don’t spend the better part of three decades as the crown healer without having a sense of what happens to bodies in the castle.”

  Malone rubbed his face. Ether, help him.