Renna stabbed hard into the wood demon, twisting the blade up into its heart. Next to her, Arlen had wrestled the other one to the ground, holding it prone while the killing wards all over his body did their work.

There was a growl, and Renna looked up to see a third demon appear in the branches above her. She twisted as it dropped, but caught the hilt of her knife on the ridged armor of the first demon. The coreling fell dead, and the weapon was twisted from her grasp.

“Demonshit,” she said, dropping to her back and coiling her legs as Arlen had taught her. She caught the wood demon’s branchlike arms and pulled them aside as she kicked out, using its own momentum against it. The demon landed right in front of Arlen, who crushed its skull.

“You’d let me paint my knuckles, I could do that myself,” Renna said.

“Ent no need to ward your skin,” he told her. “Knife’s good enough for now.”

Renna went over to the wood demon, pulling her knife free. She held it up for Arlen to see. “Din’t have the knife.”

“You handled it well enough without.”

“Only because you wern’t still wrestlin’ that other one,” Renna said. “Ent looking to use a needle, only a brush and some blackstem.”

Arlen frowned at her. “Feedback’s different when the wards are on your skin, Ren. Strong enough to lose yourself in. I was lost a long time after I started doing it, and I ent myself even now. Don’t want to see that happen to you. You mean too much to me.”

“I do?” Renna asked.

“Good to have someone to talk to other than Dancer,” Arlen said, oblivious to her sudden interest. “I…get lonely.”

“Lonely,” Renna echoed. “Know what that’s like. Apt to lose yourself there, too. World’s full of things to lose yourself in. Don’t mean we should spend our whole lives behind the wards.”

Arlen looked at her a long time. Finally, he shrugged. “Can’t tell you what to do, Ren. You want to ignore me and paint your hands, it’s on you.”

The coreling prince observed the courting for several more minutes, amused by human mating rituals. It was clear the one barely understood his magic, oblivious to the mind demon’s presence or the extent of his own powers. He had the potential to be a unifier, but here in the wilderness he was no threat and could be safely observed.

The demon let go the female’s surface thoughts, probing more deeply into her mind for information on the one, but there was little of value. It planted a question on her lips.

“How’d you bring back the lost wards?” Renna asked, surprising herself. She knew Arlen hated to talk about what had happened to him after he left the Brook.

“Told you. Found them in a ruin,” Arlen said.

“What ruin? Where?” she pressed.

“What does it matter?” Arlen snapped. “It ent some Jongleur’s saga.”

Renna shook her head to clear it. “I’m sorry. Dunno why I got so interested. Dun’t matter. Ent lookin’ to pry.”

Arlen grunted and headed off toward the keep they had spent the last few weeks warding while he trained her to hunt demons.

The coreling prince hissed as the one refused the question. Logic said to kill them both, but there was no urgency. The number of wards around their shelter suggested they would not leave soon. It could observe another few cycles.

As the humans crossed the wards, the mind demon was cut off from the female’s mind. A moment later the mimic landed in a clearing and turned to mist, guarding the path as the coreling prince slipped back down to the Core to consider.

CHAPTER 28

THE PALACE OF MIRRORS

333 AR SUMMER

IT WAS WELL AFTER dark by the time the council meeting ended. As Leesha expected, they had voted unanimously against her going back to Rizon with Jardir, and had all been appropriately shocked when she reminded them their votes meant exactly nothing.

Leesha was without the benefit of her warded cloak for the walk back to her cottage, but Rojer layered a protective field of music around the group as potent as any wardnet. His powers seemed to have increased tenfold with his new fiddle, but Wonda and Gared kept their weapons ready as they escorted Darsy and Vika.

“Still say you’re out of your skull,” Darsy growled. She was as intimidating as Wonda—wider if not as tall and every bit as homely, though without the scars to account for it.

Leesha shrugged. “You’re welcome to your opinion, but it isn’t open for debate.”

“What’re we s’posed to do if they take you?” Darsy asked. “Ent like we can mount a rescue, and you’re what holds this town together, especially with the Deliverer gone off to Creator knows where.”

“Prince Thamos and the Wooden Soldiers will be here soon,” Leesha said.

“They ent gonna come for you, either,” Darsy said.

“I don’t expect them to,” Leesha said. “You’ll just have to trust me to take care of myself.”

“I’m more worried about the rest of us,” Vika said. “If you marry this man, we lose you forever, and if you don’t…We’ll likely lose you that way, as well. What are we to do?”

“That’s why I brought you here tonight,” Leesha said. Her cottage came into sight, and they were barely inside before she signaled Wonda to lift the trapdoor to her basement workshop.

“Everyone but Vika and Darsy stays up here,” Leesha ordered. “This is Gatherers’ business.” The others nodded, and Leesha escorted the women down the stairs, lighting her cool chemic lamps on the way.

“Creator,” Darsy breathed. She had not seen the cellar in many years, since Bruna had dismissed her as an apprentice. Leesha had expanded it greatly since then, and it now covered the whole underside of the cottage and most of the yard as well, an enormous space. Painted support pillars ran along the walls of the main chamber and the many offshoot tunnels.

Where once Bruna had stored a handful of thundersticks for removing unruly stumps from the ground and a couple of jugs of liquid demonfire, Leesha had what seemed like an endless stockpile.

“There’s enough flamework here to turn the Hollow into the face of the sun,” Vika said.

“Why do you think I’ve kept my cottage so far from town?” Leesha asked. “I’ve been brewing demonfire and rolling thundersticks every night for a year.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Vika asked.

“Because no one else need know,” Leesha said. “I won’t have the Cutters or the town council determining how this should be used. It’s Gatherers’ business, and you’ll dole it out sparingly while I’m gone, and only when it will preserve lives. And I’ll have your words that you’ll keep the same silence or I’ll dose your tea so you don’t remember being here at all.”

The two women looked at her as if trying to determine whether she was serious, but Leesha was, and knew they could see it in her eyes.

“I swear,” Vika said. Darsy hesitated a moment longer, but finally nodded.

“Swear by the sun,” she said. “But even this won’t last, you don’t come back.”

Leesha nodded, turning to a table piled high with books. “These are the secrets of fire.”