Taking up the candle again, he crossed to the bed, then stopped, frozen in shock at the sight of the open elixir case sitting in the middle of the counterpane. Trembling, he placed the candle on the stand by the bed and grabbed the case. Two bottles were gone. Two!

He lit more candles and threw open the wardrobe doors. Everything appeared undisturbed, but he knew better. Tossing shoes and boots aside, he wrenched up the hidden panel beneath and pulled out the locked casket. It wasn’t locked anymore, and the phial containing Duchess Eona’s powerful soul was gone.

Brader!

Not bothering with a candle, he went to his cousin’s room and knocked softly on the door. After a moment Brader opened it. He was in his nightshirt, but his dark eyes were sharp and alert.

“Come with me,” Atre whispered.

He waited until they were safely in his chamber with the door locked, then rounded on the man, who was already taking in the disorder.

“How could you be so careless?” Atre hissed, shaking with anger. “If you needed to drink so badly, why didn’t you say something before we went to the theater?”

Brader’s expression was eerily calm. “It wasn’t me.”

Atre’s disbelief was fleeting, giving way to a cold jolt of fear.

He clenched his fists in rage, fighting down the urge to scream. “No one has ever gotten close enough to find my cache before. No one! And some of the elixirs are gone!”

“I told you we should have moved on sooner.”

“And I told you to kill them!” Atre snarled, pulling a battered old pack from under the bed and dumping the contents of the jewel casket into it.

“I’d have to have found them, wouldn’t I?” That chilling calm was giving way to anger. “Damn you, Atre, you’ve brought this down on us again. On my children, my wife!”

“What? For providing for all of you? For taking a third-rate pack of country mummers and making them the toast of Rhíminee? Or is that your conscience pricking you again? Tired of eating the souls of children, Brader?” Atre sneered as he pulled on a fresh shirt and sat down to pull on a pair of old boots. “Your precious family will be safe once we’re gone.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Get dressed, for hell’s sake! We’ve got to go.” Atre took an old brown tunic from the back of the wardrobe and pulled it on.

“No.”

Atre looked up in disbelief. This was a first. “How long do you think you’ll last without me to sustain you? Don’t tell me you finally mean to give up?”

“Better that than deserting them. I can’t do that. Not like this.”

Atre resisted the urge to cry out What’s so special about this family? But he knew better. He’d feared this day since Merina’s first child was born, perhaps even before that, from the way Brader looked at her. The man had abandoned other children, other wives, but it had changed him a little, every time, until he’d come to loathe the very thing that kept him alive to enjoy his women and brats.