In his mind’s eye Thero was surrounded by a greasy black cloud. But as he’d suspected, it was simpler and less weighty; there was no trace of the necromancer’s dark god. No, this was something else entirely, and as alien to him as the magic of the Retha’noi had been. He concentrated harder, trying to get past the initial sensations to something solid.

Atre owned this. He’d owned it for a long time. A very long time. He’d handled it, filled it, sealed it many times. And drunk from it. Thero had a fleeting sense of the tall actor Brader drinking, too, but none of the others. He tried to catch a clearer memory of what Atre actually did with the phials, but it wouldn’t come, perhaps because of the magic itself.

While the physical sensations he was getting from it were mildly unpleasant, he felt nothing malevolent. Trusting that, he cut the wax at the neck of the phial with his ivory knife, then carefully worked the cork free.

Nothing happened, but a bitter smell rose in his nostrils. It wasn’t a physical scent, but rather a magical emanation.

“I’m not certain what it does, but I think they are elixirs of some sort,” he told the others as he poured it into one of the silver cups.

“You’re not going to drink it?” exclaimed Alec. “What if it’s poison?”

“I doubt that. I saw Atre drinking from it.” Thero swirled the milky liquid around in the cup. “Still, I wish I had some creature to test it on.”

“You’re not using my cat,” said Seregil.

“I could check the rat trap in the kitchen,” said Alec.

Thero nodded. “A rat would do nicely.”

Alec hurried out, and returned a few moment’s later with the wire trap; there were three sleek brown house rats inside.

“Good, I’ll use them later, after I’ve looked at the second bottle.”

He set the bowl aside and cut the seal on the other bottle, the one without the central symbol.

As soon as the cork was out he felt a powerful surge of energy flow through his fingers. Startled, he managed not to drop the phial as a white mist shot up from the mouth of it and whirled around his head in a windless tempest, caught in the magic circle. It was cool and moist and in it he saw a child’s face, like a shape seen in a cloud. It was a young boy and he looked terrified. Thero also thought he sensed some more familiar magic, but he couldn’t be certain.

“It’s all right,” Thero whispered, but the face remained drawn with fear and the mist swirled more quickly. “Who are you?”

Mika.

Thero blinked in surprise. He didn’t have experience with ghosts or spirits—it wasn’t his area of expertise—and hadn’t really expected an answer.