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Nerio looked at Greyson. “I thought there were five of us.”

“The others have bowed out,” Lord Stanton said. Then, as though he realized he had spoken prematurely, he added, “Or so it would seem.”

“The truth of the matter is yet to be discovered,” Lord Greyson responded. “The king desires your presence for individual interviews. You will be summoned before dinner. In the meantime, I recommend you retire to your chambers and prepare for the meeting and the meal to follow.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode over to speak with his majordomo, effectively dismissing us like inconveniently placed children.

I had no intention of returning to my chamber. Not when cretins like Stanton and his like roamed the same estate as Rue and Mela. I headed directly inside, intent on assuring myself that they were protected.

The main hall buzzed with activity. Voices, laughter, and occasional emotive outbursts filled my ears. An avalanche of magic washed over me as spells, both active and passive, pressed in on me, making my skin crawl. I instinctively reached for the steadying presence of the land magic thrumming beneath it all.

I spotted the bodyguard that had escorted Rue away a short time before. He was speaking with a comrade similarly dressed and with a matching impassively neutral expression.

After weaving through the crowd and evading the efforts of at least two females to catch my arm, I strode up to the guard.

“Mistress Rue?”

“Family wing.” He scanned the crowd behind me. “You have a tagalong.” He jutted his wide jaw at something over my shoulder. When I turned to look—spotting Nerio trying to untangle himself from a brownie family’s luggage—the guard took the opportunity to leave.

“Hold up!” Nerio hollered over the crowd, making me flinch.

At least he hadn’t called out my name to everyone around us. Taking a steady breath, I waited as he finally shook off the last grasping hand disguised as an offer of help and stepped into the empty space around me.

His person was now draped in magic, most of it with an oily feel, yet he didn’t appear concerned. A particularly insidious persuasion charm was inching up his tailored coat front toward his ear.

I reached up and brushed it away before it could latch on to him.

He flinched. “What was that for?”

“I just brushed away a nasty spell.” I frowned at him. “You are fairly dripping in persuasion spells.”

Nerio stared down at his jacket front before lifting his arm and inspecting it. “Where?”

The sleeve was dripping in charms. Taking pity on him, I reached out to brush them off but then hesitated. “May I?”

“Please.” He appeared relieved. “I can’t see spells at all.”

I swept the lot off his sleeve. At least one of the nasty pieces of magic tried to sink its sharp little teeth into my hand. I threw it on the ground and crushed it beneath my boot.

“How do you detect magic if you can’t see it?” I asked as I pulled a coercion spell from the top of his head. Nerio blinked at me as it came free.

“Wow! What did you just do?” He shook a bit as though suppressing a shiver. “I can finally hear clearly.”

I grimaced. “That one was a very strong persuasion spell.” Studying him, I tried to recall if it had been there the whole time I had known him. No. It was a new spell. But how new? Unlike the charms and spells I had brushed off his arms, that one had felt different.

“When did you start having a hard time hearing?”

“Sometime yesterday, I think.” He shrugged as though the connection between the spell and the muffled hearing wasn’t a big deal.

I narrowed my gaze and studied him again. Nerio wasn’t usually so dense. The magic of the realm filled my senses as I focused. Only then could I spot a subtle spell attached to his neck beneath his ear.

“Allow me,” I said. Before he could protest or the defense built into the spell could activate, I pulled it free.

“Ouch! That hurt.” Nerio rubbed at the spot beneath his ear where the spell had clung.

The spell tried to latch onto my fingers, but thankfully, my newly bespelled gloves prevented it from finding purchase. Using some of my magic, I attempted to neutralize the thing. It swallowed up my spell and grew.

Panicked, I tried to hurl the burrowing spell away from me. It clung all the harder to my glove. Reaching for the wild magic of the Wood, I formed a fire spell and set it to burning. Flames erupted across my hand—heat and light, but very little else. It did the trick. The invasive spell tried to latch on to the source of the magic and failed, incinerating into acidic smoke.