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uncomfortable, like a puppy that knew it had done something wrong and was waiting to be kicked. He’d been pretty happy to hear I’d had no intention of enthralling him again. “I’m not saying it’s the best answer. Maybe just for a little while. They wouldn’t know any different—and we need the manpower.”
    “No. Not an option.”
    I missed Luce. She’d made a great head of security. As Leandra I’d hardly had to think of such things before, she made everything run so smoothly. And now she was trapped in Alicia’s camp, bound by magic to my worst enemy. Or maybe my second-worst enemy. I had a few to choose from.
    Not only did I miss her advice and her strong, capable presence, she was now actively working against me. In fact I was more afraid of Luce than of Alicia. Luce would be hatching some diabolical plot while we flailed around here.
    “Goblin magic,” said Garth. “If we bought a seeming, we could get close enough to Alicia to get rid of her, and then Luce would be free. Problem solved.”
    Well, it was a nice idea, if not quite as simple as he made out. Goblin magic was complex stuff, and there weren’t too many mages around with the necessary skills. It couldn’t be any old seeming. Valeria’s pet griffin Nada had used a seeming to sneak into the Presentation Ball and bomb Monique into tiny little pieces, but that had been a big, busy occasion, and the seeming had only been a general one, designed to disguise her real features, but not make her look like anyone else in particular.
    To get close to Alicia we’d need a particular seeming, and for that we’d need hair or fingernails of an actual person in Alicia’s camp. With that, an experienced mage could make a disguise that looked exactly like the targeted person—except for their aura. The spell couldn’t disguise auras, which made it a lot less useful, since Alicia would immediately see a problem if, say, one of her leshies suddenly turned up with the orange aura of a werewolf.
    “The problem is finding a clan willing to deal with us,” said Ben. “Most of them don’t have a powerful enough mage, and the ones that do are sitting out the proving.”
    “I know a guy,” Garth said.
    “Right. You know a guy.” Ben looked supremely unconvinced. “A goblin mage.”
    “Yes. Blue Munroe.”
    “I thought he was dead?” said Steve.
    “Nobody’s seen him in months,” said Ben. “Not even the heralds know where he is.”
    “I do. Or at least, I did.” Garth shrugged. “I reckon I could find him again.”
    Last time I’d had dealings with Blue he’d still been living with his clan. He’d done the security work on this house and the Arcadia property for Leandra, nearly a year ago. After what happened to Monique at the Presentation Ball, Luce had insisted on a security upgrade. She hadn’t been too impressed with him, though, and had given him the third degree.
    “So the security system is only triggered when a hostile crosses the property boundary?” she’d asked once he’d finished his explanation of the magical defences he’d put in place. For an exorbitant price, I might add. Not that he’d see much of the money: the clan chieftain who’d negotiated the fee would probably keep most of it.
    “That’s right.” He was a skinny guy with big round glasses and a floppy orange fringe that made him look a little like a red-haired young John Lennon, and nothing at all like someone capable of working complicated magic.
    “So what if someone fires from an adjoining building?”
    “Well … nothing, I guess.”
    “Or if they land on the roof? Does the protection extend above the ground?”
    “Ah … Not as such.” He pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, looking as though he’d rather be anywhere else.
    She folded her arms and gave him her trademark glare, eyes narrowed. Luce was built like a delicate Chinese doll, so tiny that she had to look up at him to do it. “So basically this spell of yours is pretty