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prefer not to trust solely in Dev’s collaring charm tonight.” He cast a jaundiced glance at me.
    “Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him. Not yet. But once we rode out into the wild, I sure as hell didn’t mean to let them get me within spitting distance of Tamanath.

    * * *
    “Welcome to Tamanath,” Talmaddis announced, in a voice so bright I wanted to hit him. My fists clenched as our carriage passed under a freestanding stone arch patterned by crystalline swirls that reminded me all too well of the wards on Alathia’s border gates. Behind us, unadorned black carriages waited in a patient, orderly line to undergo inspections just as thoroughly nosy as those at the border. We’d bypassed the line and gotten waved through after a quick exchange between Talmaddis and an officious young mage. Aiyadaren had slept through the whole thing, propped against the carriage window with her mouth slack and her breathing heavy. She hadn’t so much as twitched since we exchanged our horses for the carriage at a guard outpost a mile back.
    Shaikar take her, and Talmaddis too. For ten days they’d stuck closer than river leeches, traded off shifts watching me day and night, and worst of all, they’d done something to my snapthroat charm so it strangled me unconscious the moment I got more than ten feet from the one on duty. Bruises still ringed my throat from the last time I’d tried.
    Beyond the arch, rolling fields changed over to whitewashed houses half-hidden by trees and neatly trimmed hedges. I slumped in my seat and fixed my gaze on the shining, jagged line of peaks barely visible above the eastern hills. Longing and frustration twisted my heart. The Whitefires had never felt further away.
    “No need to look so sour,” Talmaddis said. “Tonight, not only do you get to sleep in a real bed, but you’ll be spared the pleasure of our company while you do it.” He flicked a hand at himself and Aiyadaren with a wry little grin.
    “Khalmet’s hand, you mean you’ll actually let me alone for two heartbeats? You’re not worried I’ll slink through your border the moment your back’s turned?”
    “Not from a properly warded room, you won’t,” Talmaddis said. “Preferably one far from me. You snore like a rock bear.”
    “You’ve got me confused with her.” I jerked my chin at Aiyadaren, who chose that moment to let out a bench-rattling snore. Talmaddis laughed.
    My mouth twitched, despite myself. Aiyadaren’s glacial reserve would’ve fit right in among Jathon’s coal haulers—the whole trip, she’d spoken to me only in terse orders—but Talmaddis was different. His dry, easygoing humor seemed completely unfeigned, and he had a repertoire of outrageous campfire stories that rivaled a convoy man’s. He’d said he spent some years with the Alathian embassy in Ninavel before ending up as Captain Martennan’s second lieutenant. His time in Ninavel might explain both the stories and the lack of a stick up his ass.
    Friendly or no, I never forgot he was my jailer—and neither did he, damn him. I scowled out the window as hedges gave way to tidy storefronts with flowers trailing from windowboxes. If I couldn’t slip my leash to cross the border, I needed a new plan to get myself free of this mess.
    We’d had three more quakes on the journey here. None of them as strong as the one in Cheltman Gorge—the last tremor had been hardly enough to rattle a cup—but I’d seen the grim glances Talmaddis and Aiyadaren exchanged afterward. They were worried.
    So was I. If the Alathians got desperate enough, I figured all the Council’s sanctimonious talk about refusing to bow to demands from foreign mages was worth less than mule piss. Bargains or no bargains, they’d toss Kiran and me to Ruslan in an eyeblink if they believed the alternative was Ruslan raining magefire down on Tamanath. I thought of Ruslan’s cold, cruel smile, and shuddered.
    Our carriage turned into a broad square with a central