“Yes, please.” The man spoke absently as he studied theteapot.
The woman set a coin on the table, but the man didn’t even look at it as his hands glowed a pale salmoncolor.
Angelique felt the faintest tang of alteration magic and watched the teapot menditself.
It was then that Angelique realized she stood in amagic market. Here, people bought charms, goods, or even services in exchange for coin or barteredgoods.
Angelique almost sat down in her shock at the foreignidea.
Most Conclave Mages weren’t allowed to sell their services—all requests went through the Veneno Conclave. The only ones who got away with it were high-level mages who aided people at their discretion but still had to accept the majority of their assignments from the Conclave, or craft mages who could sell wares—but there were plenty of special rules and regulations to coverthem.
I don’t think Zancara is ruled by mages—black or otherwise. But I had better try to figure out how much magic is used before I loosen my trackingspell.
* * *
Angelique spenta week poking around Zancara before she felt secure enough to loosen her trackingspell.
She hadn’t uncovered much about Zancara’s methods of operation, except that the country as a whole seemed oddly intact. It was still ruled by a royal family, who seemed to keep the country well-regulated without beingtyrannical.
Mages, it seemed, were considered regular citizens and were allowed to do what they pleased with their lives. Although, Angeliquehadlearned that the uniformed men and women were calledescolta—and they were not soldiers but were hired by the royal family to protect and guard the people of the city they livedin.
It was the presence of the escolta that made Angelique realize there was little chance the black mages—or whoever was trying to wreck the continent—had set up camp in Zancara. The borders were too tight for black mages to easily slip through, and the escolta would jump on a black mage in a moment if he or she used their magic, given that a fair number of the escolta themselves hadmagic.
In fact, it is very likely an escolta will feel what I’m about to do and track me down.Angelique nervously rubbed her hands together and checked one last time for any feeling of magic or sound of humanity in the forest in which she washiding.
She had spent the week traveling east across southern Zancara and had made the calculated decision to release her spell in the wild, which meant traveling until she came to spot overgrown and rocky enough that it was not hemmed in by pastures andcrops.
There was a smallish town to the north—it had the same magic market that most cities seemed to have, as well as a few escolta—but it was far enough away that Angelique was almost certain her pre-made spell would be able to slither past withoutdetection.
Also, she wasn’t too terribly far from one of the lower pieces of wall that Neely had described. (It was low because the frothing river that ran from Swan Lake in Kozlovka down to Farset flowed fast on the other side of the wall, but if things got ugly, a river was hardly the worst thing Angelique wouldface.)
“Now I’m just making myself worry,” Angelique scoffed. “I need to act, or I’ll be here allday.”
Her hands shook as she carefully slid the wooden heart from her pouch. After all of these years, it hurt to hopeagain.
Which was stupid—judging by the state of the country, Angelique knew the chances of Evariste being hidden in the rocky country wereslim.
But I’ve searched everywhere! He has to be here—where else could they have hidden him that my magic couldn’t find? How much power could they have to be able to hide him—not just from me, but Lord Enchanter Clovicus, Sybilla, Lady Enchantress Lovelana—all ofthem!
Her fingers trembled so badly, she almost dropped the woodenheart.
Angelique took a deep breath andtriedto clear her mind of her thoughts, but she couldn’t entirely dampen the feeling of hope that made her ears ring and her stomach turnsummersaults.
She extended a finger—summoning thetiniestbit of magic that wrapped around her fingertip in a swirl—then tapped the carving, releasing thespell.
The heart glowed a soft pink color, and the spell dripped down from the pointed bottom, almost making it resemble a bleedingheart.
The spell detached from the carving and hovered in the air for a moment—a churning, glowing orb—then it sped off through thetrees.
Angelique returned the carving to her pouch…andwaited.
Her magic curled around her feet—tempting her to draw upon it in case someone felt the spell and traced it back to her—but she forced herself to ignoreit.
She checked to make sure her hair was secure in a loose bun—she didn’t want it flopping in her face if she had to run—fixed her boots, then paced to keep warm, for it was colder this farinland.
She expected the spell to take at least an hour—if not an afternoon—to search Zancara. (She had gone for a more powerful and precise spell even though it risked drawing more attention to herself because she didn’t know if she’d ever get a chance to loosen a secondspell.)
But only half an hour had passed before Angelique felt the spell fizzle and dropoff.
