Page 71 of Turncloak

The mage’s onyx eyes shone with a sort of hunger, a naked flame of ambition. “Truthfully, I’ve been watching you for weeks. Months.” A meaningful beat. “It’s not a sin, you know. The power you have.”

The boy bowed his head, thinking of corpses in atriums.

“I was born with it too.”

With a jolt, the boy looked up again. He’d never met another like him.

“Of course, to be bound in deminite so young…your power likely far outstrips my own.” Again shone that crystal-cut gleam in his eye. “It’s possible to master it, you know. To use it for good, for right. You do not have to live like this.”

The fleeting interest in the boy’s belly soured—though that could have been the soup.

This academic might be like him, but he had not killed.

Your compelling is not what killed your mother, he reminded himself.

But then a deeper, darker voice in his mind said, Isn’t failing to save her the same thing?

If he’d had mastery over his power, on the other hand…

No. He would not indulge such thoughts.

Be a ghost. Be nothing.

“I could help you, boy. Give you a home, give you the tools you need to control your gift.” A rueful smile. “Because that’s what it is, you know. A gift. All I’d ask in return is to be able to study you. Call it a two-way mentorship.”

A home. The boy shook his head vigorously, so very afraid of the bubble of want swelling between his ribs.

The academic leaned closer. He smelled of boot polish and old coffee and warm skin. “Allow me to rephrase, then. You will come with me, and I will help you.”

And so, because the stranger commanded it, the boy went with him.

34

• • • •

Pleasure Is Not Pleasure

Almost three weeks after Levan entombed Halant in the crypt, he returned to find the necromancer deep in prayer.

The kingpin spent the walk down to the crypt trying to contact Harrow, whom he had not heard from since the Highcloak had unmistakably foretold a prophecy. The King’s Prophet’s silence was disquieting. Never before had Harrow ignored Levan’s calls, and not only did it crack wider the cavernous loneliness inside Levan, but it also made him fear that something sinister was afoot.

He came to the crypt entrance, withdrew the hourglass from his cloak pocket, tapped it, and uttered “tempavicissan.” The door revealed itself and then swung open.

Levan had been expecting a wall of stale reek to hit him, but Lindelan had done a thorough job of ensuring the necromancer stayed clean and fresh—regular waste bucket disposal, new tunics and trousers, buckets of soap oil and water. The citrus sent a bar of remembered pain slamming into his phantom hand.

A low, intense mutter echoed around the domed ceiling, emanating from one of the side chambers where the loot was stored.

Halant sat cross-legged over one of the seven-pointed stars, eyes closed. Coarse black curls sprung away from the scalp in a riotous tangle, the hollows of his cheeks more severe than ever. Emerald-rimmed glasses rested on a chain balancing on his bony chest, and his cinnabar wand and violet cloak were discarded in a heap. Before him on the tiled ground were a smattering of hand-painted stones, arranged in a circle to represent the Sixteen.

Levan allowed him to finish the Saintly Prayer before he spoke.

“Is this not sacrilege to the faith of your own making?” he asked, trying to ignore the pang behind his breastbone. Saints stones always reminded him of his mother.

“What can I say? I was raised to worship the Sixteen. Old habits die hard.”

“The patron saint of necromancy was called Halandai. You were named for them?”

“No, my parents called me Patyri. I chose Halant when I got to Nomaden.”