Title Page

Copyright

Casket of Souls is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Spectra eBook Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Lynn Flewelling

Published in the United States by Spectra, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Jennifer Crow for permission to reprint “The Hour of Blue Leaves” by Jennifer Crow, copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Crow. Reprinted by permission.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53023-3

Map by Virginia Norey

Cover art: © Michael Komarck

v3.1

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Maps

Chapter 1 - An Evening’s Entertainment

Chapter 2 - Night Work

Chapter 3 - Beka Cavish

Chapter 4 - Alec Gets a Bit of Exercise

Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Dark

Chapter 6 - Ulia

Chapter 7 - Wheel Street

Chapter 8 - A Glittering Evening

Chapter 9 - Patrons of the Arts

Chapter 10 - Teus

Chapter 11 - Sin and Sociability

Chapter 12 - Strangers in the Night

Chapter 13 - The Golden Crane

Chapter 14 - Making an Impression

Chapter 15 - Rubbing Shoulders with Royalty

Chapter 16 - Complexities

Chapter 17 - Intrigue

Chapter 18 - Brader

Chapter 19 - Picnics and Partisans

Chapter 20 - Reports

Chapter 21 - How to Burgle a Friend

Chapter 22 - Change of Plans

Chapter 23 - Malthus

Chapter 24 - Spies in the Ranks

Chapter 25 - Inside Work

Chapter 26 - Lord Seregil Distinguishes Himself

Chapter 27 - Valerius Investigates

Chapter 28 - Ruby Lane

Chapter 29 - Accusations

Chapter 30 - An Unexpected Turn of Foul Luck

Chapter 31 - Hunting Ravens

Chapter 32 - Stealth and Stones

Chapter 33 - In the Ravens’ Wake

Chapter 34 - A Night at the Theater

Chapter 35 - From Bad to Worse

Chapter 36 - Honor

Chapter 37 - The Hunt, Interrupted

Chapter 38 - Grief

Chapter 39 - News from the North

Chapter 40 - Basket Street

Chapter 41 - Mika

Chapter 42 - Plenimar

Chapter 43 - Nightrunning

Chapter 44 - Luck in the Shadows

Chapter 45 - Life, Death, and Magic

Chapter 46 - Phoria’s Return

Chapter 47 - Watermead

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Other Books by This Author

Maps

Chapter 1 - An Evening’s Entertainment

SEREGIL hadn’t been sure what to expect—or rather, he hadn’t expected much. This sweltering, run-down little theater in Basket Street used to cater to merchants of middling means with aspirations to culture, but who had neither the purse nor polish for the likes of the Tirari in the Street of Lights across the city. This place had been shuttered last he knew. The proscenium’s faded paint was peeling, its gilt dull, and the footlights flickered in the draft. Only the scrim behind the stage was new, expertly painted to suggest a dark, forbidding forest.