The air sparked with the perfect cooling season temperature. And a perfect contrast to the fire in my heart. I wanted to scream at the crowd to move. Kiki, sensing my urgency, stepped up her pace and nudged the dawdlers out of our way.

A few curses followed us. Kiki startled the guards at the Keep’s entrance when she refused to stop. She headed straight to the infirmary and even climbed the stairs, stopping only when we had reached the door.

I slid from her saddle. Racing toward Tula’s room, I feared the worst when I spotted her guards lying in the corridor. I jumped over them and burst into her room. The door slammed against the wall. The noise echoed off the cold marble, but failed to rouse Tula.

Her lifeless eyes stared at nothing. Her bloodless lips were frozen in a grimace of horror and pain. My fingers sought a pulse; her skin felt icy and stiff. Black bruises ringed her neck.

Too late, or, was I? I placed my hand on her throat, pulling power to me. In my mind’s eye, I saw her crushed windpipe. She had been strangled. I sent a bubble of power to reinflate it, sending air into her lungs. I focused on her heart, willing it to pump.

Her heart beat and air filled her lungs, but the dullness refused to leave her eyes. I pushed harder. Her skin warmed and flushed. Her chest rose and fell. Yet, when I stopped, her blood stilled and she failed to take another breath.

He had stolen her soul. I couldn’t revive her.

A heavy arm rested on my shoulder. “There is nothing more you can do,” Irys said.

I glanced around. Behind me stood Cahil, Leif, Dax, Roze and Hayes. They crowded the small room and I hadn’t even noticed their arrival. Tula’s skin cooled under my fingers. I pulled my hand away.

A sharp, bone-crushing exhaustion settled over me. I dropped to the floor, closed my eyes and rested my head in my hands. My fault. My fault. I should never have left her.

The room erupted with sound and activity, but I ignored them as tears poured down my face. I wanted to dissolve into the floor, mixing myself with the hard stone. A stone had a single purpose: to be. No complicated promises, no worries and no feelings.

I lowered my cheek to the smooth marble. The cold stung my fevered skin. Only when the noise in the room faded did I open my eyes. And saw a scrap of paper lying under Tula’s bed. It must have fallen off when I had tried to put life into her body. I reached for it, thinking it had been Tula’s.

The words written on the paper cut through the fog of my grief like Moon Man’s scimitar.

The note said: I have Opal. I will exchange Opal for Yelena Zaltana at the next rising of the fullmoon. Send Tula’s grief flag up First Magician’s tower as a sign of agreement and Opal will notbe harmed. More instructions will follow.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“We’ll send Tula’s grief flag up, but we’re not exchanging Yelena for Opal,” Irys insisted. “We have two weeks until the full moon. That should give us enough time to find Opal.”

Again, loud arguments echoed through the magician’s meeting room. Zitora had returned from her mission for the Council so all four Master Magicians were there, as well as Tula’s family, Leif, and the Captain of the Keep’s guard.

Leif had tried to ask me about the Sandseeds before the meeting started, but I cut him off with an angry response. I still couldn’t look at him without seeing his eight-year-old face in the bushes, watching my kidnapping and doing nothing.

The events that had occurred after I discovered the ransom note felt as if they happened in a dream. Once everyone settled down, the killer’s movements prior to attacking Tula were uncovered.

He obtained a position with the Keep’s gardeners. Unfortunately, the people he worked with couldn’t agree on his facial features and Bain had drawn four completely different men from their descriptions. They also failed to remember his name.

With ten magical souls, Ferde obtained enough power to equal a Master Magician. He concealed his presence in the Keep with ease and confused those he worked with.

Tula’s guards were shot with tiny darts dipped in Curare. They could only recall seeing one of the gardeners delivering some medicinal plants to Hayes before their muscles froze. The fact that Ferde had infiltrated the Keep had put the Keep’s guards in serious trouble.

“He was living in the Keep and we had no clue,” Roze said. Her powerful voice rose over the din. “What makes you think we can find him now?”

Tula’s mother and father drew in horrified breaths. They had arrived the day before. The news of her passing had shocked them to their core. I could see in their drawn faces and in their haunted gazes that knowing the same man held Opal made their lives a living nightmare. Just like mine.

“Give him Yelena,” Roze said into the now quiet room. “She was able to animate Tula. She has the power to handle this killer.”

“We don’t want anyone else harmed,” said Tula’s father. He wore a simple brown tunic and pants. His large hands were rough with calluses and burn scars; evidence of a lifetime of working with molten glass.

“No, Roze,” Irys admonished. “She doesn’t have full control of her magic yet. Probably the main reason he wants her. If he stole her magic, think how powerful he would then be.”

Bain, who had translated the markings on the killer’s skin, told the group in the meeting room that the purpose of the man’s quest was written in his tattoos. Bain’s information matched what Moon Man had told me.

Ferde performed an ancient Efe binding ritual that used intimidation and torture to turn a victim into a willing slave. When all free will had been surrendered, the victim was murdered and her soul’s magic was directed into Ferde, increasing his own power. He had targeted fifteen– and sixteen-year-old girls because their magic potential was just beginning.