CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TURGA LOUNGED BACK on his mound of sumptuous silk-covered cushions, a picture of elegant detachment. Or so he hoped. He admired and enjoyed a stirring performance, but was not about to show this fallen dance-mistress just how unsettling and exciting she was.

He thought he had seen her best when she cut loose in the open courtyard. There, the sensuous promise of what she had called the “sniff from the wine bottle” had been married to a breathtaking athleticism that proved her boasts about her past career. Now, though, in his private quarters, she revealed yet another side: provocative, lyrical, intimate. As though all the moods and passions of a lover were turned into dance, he thought.

The musician, on the other hand, was barely adequate. Turga had the distinct impression that the poor fellow was struggling to keep up with Yolenka. At times it seemed the dance was entirely new to him, that he was learning it as he went along.

Perhaps it was so. Yolenka had promised Turga something just for him. Was she inventing this dance on the spot, tailoring it to how she judged his taste? If so, she was a discerning woman indeed.

Too soon the performance drew to a close, and Yolenka kneeled before him in the classical dancer’s courtesy, the bright, fluttering veils and sashes pooling around her.

It was irresistible. He threw detachment to the winds and stood, clapping loud and long. Yolenka tossed her mane back from her face. Her golden eyes caught his as she offered a slow smile of acknowledgment. A sheen of sweat gleamed on her forehead and across her collarbones. Turga pictured himself drying it off with jasmine-scented toweling. Then he pictured himself kissing it off, and a bolt of desire ran through him. What he could do with a woman like this!

But though Turga cared little for law, his personal scruples were ironclad. He would not pressure an artist of her caliber. He offered a hand and raised Yolenka to her feet, turned and poured two generous glasses of wine and held one out.

“Magnificent. It was everything you promised and more. Riko must have been very upset at losing you.” He placed the glass into her hand and waggled the other at the musician seated against the wall. “Here, tell him he is welcome. Though I must say his talent is not a match to your own.”

Yolenka grinned and winked. “I threw him a few surprises tonight. He does well enough when he is better rehearsed.”

She tossed back half the wine, glided over until she was almost—but not quite—touching Turga and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “I thought I might surprise him again, and send him back without me,” she whispered. “I thought we might like to be better acquainted.”

“We might indeed,” Turga agreed. “Perhaps he would like to take his wine with him.”

Another blinding private smile, and Yolenka was pacing across the room to—what was the man’s name? Faylor, Faylon, something like that.

Turga watched the exchange that followed with amused interest. The musician was not happy—that much was clear. He argued with Yolenka, quietly at first and then more heatedly. She tossed her head and spoke sharply. The man spread out his arms in protest or supplication, but Yolenka brushed him off like a serving boy and turned her back on him.

“He’s worried about your man, no doubt,” offered Turga. “Aren’t you?”

“Who, Dominic?” She gave a snort of laughter. “Dom will be deep in his own goblet by now. If by some unlikely chance he isn’t, Féolan will see to it. My husband won’t know if I return at moonrise or sunrise.”

Turga chuckled in approval and slipped an arm around Yolenka’s waist.

The musician gave her one last despairing look. She flapped her hand at him, shooing him off.

And they were alone.

RELUCTANTLY, GABRIELLE PULLED herself away from the silent unseen battle raging in Madeleine’s throat and eased her awareness back into the world. If Dominic did come, she needed to be alert. It wouldn’t do to be caught in a dazed half-trance.

She didn’t like to leave Madeleine, though. The infection had spread, and it was strong. It had taken Gabrielle all this time just to build a ring of protective light around the edges of the darkened patches that marked the boundaries of its encroachment and to push it back the tiniest bit.

And even then, even with the infection contained, Gabrielle could feel Madeleine growing weaker. Some other force was at work that Gabrielle did not understand. The girl’s pulse had become rapid and faint, and she was very pale.

Perhaps she should keep working. There was a good chance Dom would not attempt the rescue tonight anyway.

“Matthieu,” she said, “keep your ears open. If you hear anything unusual at all—even just footsteps on the stairs—you wake me up right away, all right?”

She could just see Matthieu’s nod in the scanty candlelight. “Is my dad coming?”

“It’s possible,” said Gabrielle. “The time may not be right. But if the plan falls into place, we are going to get you out tonight.”

She did not add that, to her knowledge, there was no actual plan.

“GODS OF THE DEEP, what kept you?” Dominic had been pacing the confines of their room since nightfall. No bells or horns marked the passage of time here, but it seemed to Dominic that Yolenka could have performed three dances since she and Féolan had left for Turga’s chambers.

Dominic peered behind Féolan. “Where’s Yolenka?”

Féolan’s mouth tightened. “Both questions have the same answer, but it had better wait. We should get moving.”

They made their way through the fortress, not sneaking exactly but doing their best to avoid notice. Féolan filled Dominic in under this breath.

“I cannot guess what she is up to,” he concluded.

“You don’t suppose she means to betray us?” asked Dominic. It was his first alarmed thought, but he could not believe it of her. Not after all she had done to help them.

Féolan shook his head. “She will not give us away, I am sure of it. Perhaps she means to deflect Turga’s attention.”

They paused in the shadow of a hallway while two servants bustled past with jugs of wine and a platter of food. Then Féolan continued.

“Dominic—she said if she wasn’t back in time, we should leave without her.”

Dominic did not reply. They were close now to the stairway Gabrielle had described, and his thoughts were all on his children and the task at hand.

“That’s it?” He nodded to the shadowed stairwell at the far end of the hall.

Féolan nodded. “You sure you don’t want me to go up first?”

Only Féolan was light-footed enough to creep up the stairs and take the guard by surprise. But it sat ill with Dominic to send another to do his work, especially work as unpleasant as this. He shook his head.

“No—let’s stick to the plan.”

And they started up the stairs, making no attempt to hide their footfalls.

The guard who met them at the top did not seem overly alarmed. He laid his sword across the doorway to bar their way and spoke to them amiably enough in Tarzine. Féolan replied with the words he had practiced.

“We need to speak to the remedy woman.”

The man shook his head emphatically. Dominic couldn’t follow what he said, but his gestures were clear enough—he pointed behind him, presumably to the room where the children were being held and clutched at his neck and pointed into his open mouth.

Féolan nodded patiently and spoke more words in halting Tarzine. Dominic heard the name “Turga.” Silently he eased back his coat and wrapped his hand around the knife hasp. If the man didn’t buy their story, they would have to overpower him.

The guard stared at Féolan for a long moment and stepped back slowly. He walked them a few steps down the dark hallway and gestured toward a door. He was not about to go closer.

The two men made as if to walk on past the guard. Dom steeled himself as he drew up level to the man. He had never killed in cold deliberation before. He hoped to all the gods he wouldn’t have to this time. But if the technique Gabrielle had suggested didn’t work, and fast, he would have no other choice. His left arm snaked out around the guard’s neck and wrenched the man backward off his feet. His right hand pressed his opponent’s head forward while his left arm squeezed. Pray heaven he was pressing on the right spots, he thought, as the man thrashed and kicked...and then slumped against him. Amazing. Who would have thought a bonemender would know such things?

“Count a slow five once he passes out,” Gabrielle had said. “Much more, and you risk killing him. You’re cutting off the heart paths that send blood to his brain.”

Dominic gave it six-and-a-half. That wasn’t “much” more, and they could not afford for this fellow to recover his wits too soon. Féolan was ready with a gag and rope. Trussed securely, with his mouth stuffed like a goose, the guard would be unable to raise much of an alarm.

It was the work of a moment to unclip the key ring from the guard’s belt, and an agonizing age before he found the right key and was inside at last. And then Matthieu was pressed against him and Dominic bent down and lifted him high into his arms like he had when Matthieu was a little boy, held him tight and close while Matthieu wrapped his legs around his waist and wept into his neck.

“I knew you’d come for us. I told Maddy you’d find a way. I knew it.”