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“That’s my concern, not yours.”

Wizardry? Emperor? This conspiracy was beginning to sound much larger than I’d originally thought. A suspicion formed in my mind, although I very much hoped it was an incorrect one.

I leaned in closer, pressing my ear against the panels, when the sharp PAAAAARP of an enormous fart issued from Yudit’s direction. A mephitic smell filled the air.

Behind the door, the conversation went silent.

That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all.

I’d just started moving away from the door when it exploded in a deafening burst, showering us with wooden fragments and bright red sparks. I was knocked backward by the blast. Winifred tackled Yudit out of the way as broken planks scythed through the air. All three of us were left sprawling on the ground, staring up at the figure in the doorway. I wasn’t particularly happy to have my suspicions confirmed.

A Red Empire wizard.

Shit.

Chapter Three

Winning by a Nose

When Yudit and I were children, tales of the wickedness of Red Empire wizards kept us awake at night. We would clutch each other and shiver, our resentment over having to share a bed momentarily forgotten, while Gruoch, our eldest sister, terrified us with vivid descriptions of villages set afire and castles blasted to ruins. I wasn’t old enough to remember the Red Empire’s war of conquest, but Gruoch was over a decade our senior and had witnessed the conflict’s final spasms. I’d have nightmares for weeks after hearing those stories, dreams of grinning wizards stalking me across a blackened countryside, a blighted landscape where nothing would ever grow again.

Not only had they caused widespread devastation and destruction, but they’d delighted in it. Because Red Empire wizards possessed the most dangerous possible combination of traits.

They were immensely powerful. And they were assholes.

I didn’t have a single doubt that one of them was standing before us. He looked exactly like the wizards described in the stories. The scarlet robe stiff with mystical sigils embroidered in gold thread. The caramel-colored mustache and goatee, both neatly trimmed and oiled. The wand with the glowing ruby at the tip. A wand that could incinerate us with a single incantation.

Behind the wizard, in a windowless entry chamber lit by a few torches, a half dozen assorted Tailliziani noblemen were drawing their weapons. A pair of double doors at the far end of the room shuddered. Our sisters were no doubt attempting to shoulder them open from the outside, but the doors were solidly built—locked tight, barred, and braced with iron bands. Even Alexandra’s extraordinary teeth would need a good while to chew through that. Rescue wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon.

The glow of the ruby on the wizard’s wand intensified as he chanted a mystical phrase with far too many consonants. I scrambled out of the way, narrowly avoiding the crackling bolt of blood-red lightning that struck somewhere in the stairwell behind me. Stone crashed on stone as a length of the spiral stairway shattered and collapsed.

From her position on the floor, Yudit spat a golden poison frog at the wizard. He batted it aside with the sleeve of his robe before it could hit his face, but at least that interrupted his chanting. The tiny frog landed on the floor and hopped about obliviously. Great. Now it was a danger to everyone.

“Don’t clutter up the room with those!” I growled at her. “Not like last time.” She gave me an aggrieved look as the three of us regained our footing, but she didn’t hawk up any more death frogs.

While Yudit’s abilities were dangerous here, mine were totally useless. If I tried to pull something up from the stone floor, the fight would be over by the time it broke through. And there wasn’t much Winifred could do in a room without windows.

We hadn’t been so stupid as to come armed only with our fairy gifts. The wizard took a step away as we pulled our swords from their sheaths and brandished them in his direction. But we were outnumbered by more than two to one. I wouldn’t have liked our chances if we were up against a normal group of cutthroats, much less one with a Red Empire mage at their side. A mage who was already starting a new incantation. If we weren’t able to change the odds in our favor soon, I didn’t think much of our chances.

The only idea that popped into my head was insanely stupid and would probably get me killed. To be fair, that wasn’t any worse than the current situation.

“Distract the wizard!” I shouted to my sisters. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Winifred looked puzzled, but she slashed at the wizard’s knee nonetheless. As he danced aside, his spell fizzling out, Yudit vomited a stream of toads, frogs, and the occasional newt in his direction.

I slipped past him while he was wrenching a yellow-spotted climbing toad out of his beard. Six Tailliziani noblemen watched me warily as I passed through the doorway. All of them were clustered at the far end of the entry room, well out of the fight, not daring to approach. Good. I’d been counting on that. They were terrified of the queen’s magical knights and their deadly powers. Not my power, of course, since an attack by a vicious buttercup seldom resulted in serious injury. But I doubted they knew exactly which knight they were facing.

“Hello there, you treasonous dickheads,” I said, baring my teeth in a grin. “Which of you wants to die first?” I locked eyes with Trebalh. “Baron? Care to volunteer?”

He flinched, but managed not to actually piss himself. “You won’t kill us.” He almost kept the shakiness out of his voice. “Not even our mad queen wants six dead nobles.”

The doors shook under the assaults from outside, the repeated thumps adding a drumbeat to the growing chorus of ribbits and croaks. “Six dead assassins,” I corrected him. “I doubt anyone would protest much.” I sidled around the edge of the room, sticking close to the wall. It’d be best if I could make it all the way to the other side, but I’d take what I could get. “So, how would you like me to do it?” I asked. “Shall I shatter your bones with a touch, perhaps?”

So many rumors had flown around about the most powerful magical knights that few people knew fact from fiction. And Baron Trebalh, whom I’d met at least twenty times at court functions, had never been able to tell me apart from my sisters—no matter that the rest of them had longer hair—or even remember my name. He wasn’t likely to realize that I couldn’t break all his bones any more than I could fly to the moon.

I kept the battle against the wizard in the edge of my vision. With a harsh, grating word and a flick of his wand, most of the amphibians were thrown back as if swept by an unseen broom. Another flick, and Winifred’s sword went flying out of her hand. They were keeping him occupied for now, but it was clear my sisters were badly outmatched.

“I think I’ll flay your skin off, Trebalh,” I said, raising my voice to make sure the wizard heard me as well. “It’s very painful. Like a full-body paper cut.”