Seregil took up the pen and began to write. As much as he hated including Malthus’s name on the list, he knew better than to omit it. The man had brought this on himself, but that didn’t make Seregil feel any better about it.

Korathan took the list and scanned it, scowling. “My truth knower is going to be busy. Is there anything else you haven’t told me about them? Any other names?”

“No, you have it all.”

“What about husbands and wives?” Alec asked softly.

“We have no evidence that any of them are involved,” Seregil put in quickly.

“I’ll take that under consideration. That’s all.”

Dismissed and disgraced, they bowed and took their leave.

* * *

“You might have warned us,” Seregil grumbled as the three of them left the Palace.

Thero rounded on him, pale eyes flashing, and whispered, “I didn’t know until I got there! If you two had paid more attention to the problem at hand, instead of haring off through the slums for Valerius, it might not have come to this. Who knows how many conspirators will escape now?”

“We did all we could! And were we just supposed to abandon Myrhichia and Eirual?” Seregil retorted angrily, but deep down the wizard’s accusation struck home. Had they missed something important, all that time chasing ravens?

Thero glared at him, then turned on his heel and collected his horse from a groom who was goggling at the argument. As he mounted, the wizard looked back and said, “I was going to send word. You should speak with Miya at the House.” With that he urged his horse into a trot and went his way.

“Miya?” asked Alec.

“He mentioned her that day at the Yellow Eel Street temple, when Korathan first began shoving the sick into the Ring. She’s old Teleus’s successor.”

“I think we should go see her now.”

Seregil shrugged. “Oh, I think we’re finished here, don’t you? Come on. Maybe we can be useful to someone.”

Hearing her described as “old Teleus’s successor,” Alec was expecting Miya to be Thero’s age, but the wizardess was three hundred and fifty if she was a day, stooped and slack-breasted in her rose-colored silk robes. A fourth-degree thaumaturgist, she lived on the fourth floor of the Orëska House in a set of rooms much less impressive than Thero’s.

“Ah, Lord Seregil,” she greeted them with more resignation than pleasure. “And this must be Lord Alec. Lord Thero said to expect you.”

Leading them through a small, smelly workroom filled with cages of animals, she settled them in the sitting room beyond, which also smelled of animals. A young dragon the size of a cat sat on a perch overhead and hissed at them as they came in.