Page 34 of Silvercloak

The curse landed true on the illusion’s chest—and flew straight through, smashing against the wall behind her with achink. Shards of stone scattered on the cobbles below.

The illusion smiled sweetly at the Bloodmoon.

The Bloodmoon swung around in confusion, gaze flicking between Saffron and her curious apparition.

Sweat beaded on Saffron’s forehead at the effort of holding it. She couldn’t cast anything else to disarm her enemy—the magical well, with its infuriating single bucket—but the moment of disorientation allowed her space in which to bargain.

“I can be useful to you in more ways than one,” she said through gritted teeth. “I can find Zares, and I can also manipulate the Silvercloaks as you need. And as you can see, I cast some fairly convincing illusions.”

Her last vestige of power withered and died, and her illusion vanished.

The fated Bloodmoon shot her a brief glare, then a disaffected shrug, but she could tell she’d rattled him. “You’ve shown your cards too soon. Someone in the Silvercloaks can help us find Zares. Now wetorture each member of your old cohort in turn until one of them squeals.”

“That Saints-damned integrity would never give for the likes of you. The approach needs to come from me.”

The Bloodmoon’s eyes narrowed, and he took a few steps toward her. “Do you take me for an imbecile?”

“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

His eyes were blank, unblinking, and somehow that was more terrifying than hatred. It was like he feltnothing.“This all reeks of Silvercloak work. Your sudden presence, your neat solutions …”

Frustration bursting its banks, Saffron snapped, “I’m not a Silvercloak anymore. You can give me all the truth elixir in the world and that answer will be the same.”

“I don’t have any more truth elixir on me. Wasted it on the Brewer, not knowing he’d swallowed an antidote. Segal?”

Segal, the accomplice, looked rather intrigued by the whole thing, and simply stared at Saff as though he’d forgotten something that he was trying desperately hard to remember.

As Saff met his gaze properly for the first time, recognition slammed into her chest like one of Nissa’s wielded gales.

He was one of the Bloodmoons who’d killed her parents.

The short, stout figure. The low, heavy brow. The scratchy voice, like a rat’s claws against a slate. Twenty-one years had not been kind to him—everything sagged and snarled in a way it hadn’t back in Lunes—but Saff would recognize him anywhere. Hatred pulsed through her, white hot and roiling, expanding outward so fast it might decimate the alley walls in an instant.

But she couldn’t let it show. Aspar had advised her to keep that particular aspect of her history hidden, lest her captors become too suspicious of her willingness to join them. She couldn’t let thisSegalknow that she wanted to flay him alive, wanted to pour acid into his wounds, wanted him to suffer as she had suffered.

Segal shook his head, still watching Saff intently. “No truth elixir on me.”

He shouldn’t be able to place her—she’d stayed hidden in that pantry all the while he was in their house—but Saffron had spent enough time staring wistfully into mirrors to know that she was the perfect blend of her parents. Mellora’s tumbling curls and heart-shaped face, Joran’s high, aquiline nose and mirthful eyes. Hopefully he’d taken enough lives in the last two decades that they all blurred into one faceless victim.

Saffron faced her fated lover with as much courage as she could muster. She was only an inch or two shorter than him, at nearly six feet tall.

“So brand me, then.”

The very air in the alley seemed to solidify, as though struck byeffigias.

“Brand you,” he repeated slowly, scarred lip curling. “You’d bind yourself to the Bloodmoons—the decades-old enemy of the Silvercloaks—just to save your skin.”

“I said my cohort’s integrity wouldn’t give. Not mine.”

He made apfftnoise. “You’re more cowardly than I thought.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to die for the simple crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The Bloodmoon stood perfectly still for a moment, as though calculating a complicated chess line.

“You could have killed me,” he said evenly. “When I had my back turned, chasing down that illusion. Segal was distracted. You could have killed us both and fled, but you didn’t. Why?”

Because the mission requires me to take you alive.

---