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if one of my other hopefuls has enough will to create a pet, too.”
    Macerio led Ward, still trapped under his arm, with Celia following a step behind, back inside to the strange sitting room with the heavy door and star-shaped keyhole. They stepped into the dark hall, passed the parlor filled with men and women in intimate embraces, to the end where a pale glimmer of light cut across the rough hewn wall. The sweet aroma of Susain smoke and something else drifted toward them, and the light brightened.
    Inside, fifteen people with Lyla at the center, stood along the back wall before a raised dais filled with red and gold cushions. Most were dressed as nobles—even if their features said they weren’t—and radiated danger as if she’d just walked in on an assassins’ gathering. The others, those standing slightly behind the nobility, were servants.
    She didn’t want to enter the room, and she certainly didn’t want Ward to, either. It was too perilous. But they had no choice, so she stepped across the threshold, fighting to keep her expression calm.
    At the center of the room stood a long table in the middle of an octagon carved into the floor with alternating open and closed goddess-eyes. Towering candelabras on either side offered the only illumination. There wasn’t any other furniture. The walls were rough-hewn granite, and save for the door they’d entered, the only other potential means of escape was a plain door behind the line of people.
    “Take your place,” Macerio said, gesturing to the right of the table.
    Celia nudged Ward into position as Macerio took a seat on the cushions on the center of the dais. He turned to Lyla. “I thought I told you to assemble the family and call for the other apprentice-hopefuls.”
    Lyla bowed her head but didn’t look in the least contrite. “The messenger isn’t as quick as I’d hoped.”
    “I told you to do it. If I’d wanted someone else, I would have given them the instructions.”
    “Yes, my lord.” She started to cross the room when the apprentice-hopefuls arrived, led by Allette. Rodas glared at Ward with beady eyes made small by his too-round face. While Enota focused on Macerio, the only indication she was feeling anything was the trembling of her arthritic fingers by her sides. Ward’s competition didn’t look any more impressive now than they had an hour before. Neither seemed dangerous from a martial perspective. Celia doubted the woman could hold a dagger and strike a blow with any force with those hands, and Rodas, with his excessive weight, wouldn’t have the agility for an attack. That didn’t mean they weren’t potent necromancers…or rather Innecroestris. Even then, power didn’t mean much. It came down to determination. She and Ward were proof, although she couldn’t deny she’d sensed something powerful within Ward when they’d faced that Innecroestri in Brawenal.
    The other two took up positions on the opposite side of the table. Rodas shifted from one foot to the other, his impatience swirling around him like the purple Susain smoke in the room. The woman stood immobile. Celia had seen that stillness in fellow assassins and reevaluated her assumptions about Enota. She might not be able to stab anyone, but there were other ways to kill, and this woman wouldn’t hesitate.
    The narrow door at the back of the room opened and someone Celia thought she’d never see again entered, carrying the bloody bounty hunter’s corpse over his shoulder. Val Rous.
    His gaze traveled from Macerio to the table, to her, and her heart skipped a beat. His dark eyes widened, the only indication he was surprised to see her. She had no idea how to explain her presence. Although, what in the Goddess’s name was Val doing here? They both belonged in the prince of Brawenal’s court. Not in the middle of nowhere at an Innecroestri’s mansion.
    The last time she’d seen Val, she’d turned down another of his marriage proposals, and he’d left Brawenal