The gears of my brain shuddered, ground, and began to turn. In chasing the carved box, I had lost sight of the fact thatthe treasure was not simply the box itself—but its contents.
Could it be that Baffin had the empty box, and the police had somehow found its separate contents?
I laughed. I had to. There was no other response to the strain and absurdity of the situation.
The assistant looked even more perturbed by my laugh.
“What about the professor’s research,” Pretoria prodded. The knife glittered. “Did the police take all that?”
“No, someone came to collect it, not half an hour ago, from the Grand General, I believe. The unrest, and all. Our sponsor: he expressed concerns about the university’s security.” At this he stared at Pretoria’s knife again, the aptness of his words clearly not lost to him. “And so he had it moved. I do not know where. They do not tell me things.”
“Did this someone from the Grand General also ask where Dr. Maddeson was?” I asked.
The assistant nodded.
“And you told them.”
Another nod.
“Damn.” I met Pretoria’s gaze. “We need to move quickly.”
Pretoria reclaimed her knife and waved it at the assistant. “Get your coat, dear. You are coming with us.”
We stepped back out into the cool of the night to the sound of distant gunshots, somewhere out in the city. We were a grim but determined procession, hastening through starlight and shadow, back through the university grounds and to a side gate.
Pretoria’s threads began to twine in the starlight. They were gentle, pale things, and seemed to pulse with distant light. She lifted her chin with a satisfied sigh and shook out her shoulders, settling into the increase of power.
When the change in the night came, it was subtle. A whisper and a breath. Pretoria must have felt it too, for her magic faltered for an instant, and then—soldiers.
Six of them stepped from the night. Perry raised his pistol in the same instant as Pretoria threw us into a new skew of time.
One soldier stepped right through it, levelling a rifle rightat her face. Pips glistened on the soldier’s collar, above which she wore the same threads as Pretoria. Another Starlight.
Maddeson’s assistant made a strangled sound and raised his arms high over his head.
“Lay down your weapons,” the other Starlight mage demanded.
I barely heard her, because my eyes had landed on the soldier directly before me, his blond hair darkened by the shadows, and his eyes inscrutable hollows beneath the brim of his cap.
Lewis.
I cannot say what possessed me. It was, I think, a momentary madness brought on by recent events, coupled with our need for haste, and an instinctual, desperate need to know whether my erstwhile fiancé, looking at me down the barrel of a rifle, was truly my enemy.
I grasped the barrel of the rifle and pulled it straight out of his hands. He reacted a fraction too late, hands tightening, body lunging. I had already sidestepped. I used his own momentum to throw him into one of his comrades and stepped back with the rifle to my own shoulder.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
He opened his mouth to reply. Then his eyes flicked right.
Pretoria had vanished. The soldier next to Lewis dropped like a stone, his legs kicked out from under him, and chaos broke loose. Perry hurled himself behind the nearest tree. Several soldiers leapt to intervene. The rest cried out in alarm, moving under the Starlit soldier’s instruction to find Pretoria.
For that scattered moment, at least, they left Lewis and I to our own devices.
I stared at him down the barrel of his rifle. I almost repeated my earlier question, but there was no time for explanations.
“Do you require rescue?” I asked.
He faltered in something between startlement and a desperate laugh. Both were gone in a flash, replaced by a raised hand and a warning, “Patterson, wait—”
