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two of you have me to make offerings for you. I figure it can’t hurt.”
    A deep rumble inside the castle walls quickly became a roar, shaking the ground beneath Blaine’s feet. Blaine drew his sword, and Kestel had knives in each hand, ready for the worst. Blaine spotted Piran running toward the disturbance, shouting for Niklas. A cloud of dust rose where part of the castle’s inner wall had stood just moments before.
    “Let me through,” Blaine ordered, shouldering past the guards, with Kestel just a step behind him. “Someone give me a report!” Blaine shouted as they halted just paces away from the damage.
    Piran picked his way across the rubble and scowled at Blaine. “The guards were supposed to keep you where it’s safe,” he said, running a hand over his bald head in frustration. He was covered in rock dust, and there was a smear of blood from a cut on one cheek.
    “ ‘Safe’ is a relative term,” Blaine replied. “What happened?”
    Piran muttered a potent oath. “The area’s been getting pounded by storms, each worse than the one before. It weakened the wall. That blast from the mages was the last straw.”
    “Casualties?”
    Piran grimaced. “One man broke a leg, maybe some ribs. The battle healer is with him. No one dead, thank the gods.”
    Blaine looked up to find Dillon heading toward them with a young man behind him. “I’ve found someone you need to meet,” Dillon hailed him. “This is Jodd,” he added, with a nod toward his companion. “He was one of the master butler’s helpers.” He met Blaine’s gaze. “He knows his way around the castle, and he’s agreed to give us a hand.”
    “My mates and I sprung all the traps we could find in the tower,” Jodd volunteered. He was a half-grown lad, perhapsabout fourteen summers old, with a shock of dark hair that poked up at all angles. He looked intelligent and wily, and the grin he shot Blaine was confident and full of mischief.
    “Are you certain?” Blaine asked.
    Jodd shrugged. “We didn’t find no more than what we sprung. Had a right good time of it, too. The blokes who were here before left some real puzzlers, I’ll say that for them.”
    “What kind of puzzlers?” Blaine asked.
    Jodd did his best to look nonchalant, though it was clear he was quite pleased with himself. “Trip wires. Parts of the floor rigged to give out when you step on them. Walls set to collapse if you opened the door wrong. We got banged up good, but no one died.” From his triumphant grin, it was clear that Jodd and his friends had considered it a fine lark.
    “Why would Reese and Pollard bother with traps?” Piran asked. “If they had what they wanted, why not just bring down the walls and be done with it?”
    “Because they didn’t find what they were looking for,” Jodd said with a conspiratorial glance toward Dillon. “They just found enough to make them go away.”
    Blaine looked from Jodd to Dillon. “I don’t understand.”
    Dillon glanced toward the ruined portion of the castle, and his expression grew somber. “After the Great Fire, when the king and the nobles died, the mages vanished. Seneschal Lynge rallied the servants to salvage what was left,” he said. “Then Lord Penhallow came, and Bevin Connor.”
    “They’re friends of ours,” Blaine said. Connor had traveled with Blaine’s group and earned their trust. Lord Penhallow, an immortal
talishte
lord, was an ally, if not exactly a friend.
    “They were looking for the disks that helped forge the magic,” Dillon went on. Blaine, Kestel, and Piran exchanged a knowing look. The disks had been critical to raising the magic,and had nearly cost Blaine his life. They were safely locked away at Blaine’s manor, Glenreith.
    “We know Connor found disks here at the castle,” Blaine said.
    Dillon nodded. “Aye. When Connor and Lord Penhallow left with the disks, Lynge took me aside and had me work with Sir Alrik. Lynge told me that with Geddy gone, someone else needed to