He inclined his head. He would send the guard away, and we would leave the treasury as we found it. At least we would not have to worry about alerting the king. Though there was a twinge of disappointment in my stomach. More than a twinge. I’d felt so certain that the talisman was here—that we were close to escaping the rancid stasis of Balar Shan.
The bumbling in the hall continued. Was the guard drunk?
A soft yelp echoed off the walls.
I grabbed Garrick’s arm. He let me nudge him aside so that I could see?—
The person who’d followed us was not ahim. And it certainly was not a guard.
She wore a long, silken silver skirt and a stylized doublet complete with epaulets on the shoulders. But that was where the similarity ended.
Her mask was silver as well, made of metal to look like chain mail. But even with it on, I knew who she was. It was the woman who’d thrown the salt. Her name appeared from the recesses of my memory. Cala.
My hand was still on Garrick’s arm. “That is not a guard.”
He frowned in confusion, trying to move around me. But Cala was nearly to the treasury doors. She was weaving on her feet, but even a drunk was unlikely to miss the fact that the treasury had been breached.
I didn’t hesitate. Unlike the woman Maura had tortured and killed, Cala had already proved herself dangerous. She’d followed us down here. She was putting all of Velora in jeopardy.
It was an easy decision. Maybe I’d become a bit too comfortable with the darkness inside of me.
I’d already encased her with ice once. But that was too distinctive. She’d know it was me who attacked her. I had to be subtler.
It took only a few seconds for her movements to become even more uncoordinated. She lurched to the side and tried to grapple for the wall, but it was too late. She lost consciousness, her head colliding with the brick wall on her way down.
She crumpled to a heap on the floor.
There was no more need to hide in the treasury.
“Did you kill her?” Syleris asked, nudging her with his foot. He looked only vaguely interested in my answer.
“No. I froze her blood to a slurry. It is moving so slowly that she could not maintain consciousness.” I was rather proud of the application of my power.
Garrick had the presence of mind to close the treasury doors behind us. His blood had been absorbed into the gold locking mechanism. There was no remaining visual evidence of our visit—other than the prone woman on the ground. The one that my Lifebind was staring at with an intensity usually reserved for me.
“What is it?”
Garrick’s frown deepened. “You should not have been able to see that.”
I looked down at the woman, trying to figure out what he meant. Her guard’s costume was a little less obvious at this angle, but she was still clearly female.
“What do you mean? It was plain as…” But Garrick had not seen a woman in a costume. He’d seen a guard. “Oh.”
“It was a glamour,” I said, understanding clicking into place.
“Yes,” Garrick said slowly, looking between me and the prone woman on the floor. “I was only able to see it once she was unconscious and lost control of her magic. Do witches use glamours? Is that how?—”
I shook my head to stop him. Garrick watched intently as I slipped my fingers down the front of my bodice and withdrew the tiny green stem, perfect despite the fact that I’d had it stowed away between my breasts where no one could see.
A disbelieving laugh bubbled out of his chest. “How?”
“Someone slipped it into my cell with the tea leaves when I was imprisoned in the bathhouse.” I’d kept the four-leaf clover on my person ever since. Garrick had said that most of the courtiers would use glamours at the Winter Tithe, but I’d easily recognized everyone—not because of my own astute awareness, but because of the clover.
“I have never actually seen one,” Garrick admitted. “You don’t know who gave it to you?”
“Not Alize,” I said. Garrick made a face; she hadn’t even been a possibility in his mind. “Auri, maybe. I haven’t asked her.” I nodded back to where Cala lay. “What are we going to do about her?”
Syleris nudged her again, harder than was strictly necessary. She did not stir.
