Enough light came in through the partially open skylight and between the cracks in the shuttered windows for him to see Atre standing at the front of the stage, facing him. He was dressed like a peasant and had a pack at his feet. A crude necklace of long pale beads hung around his neck, unlike anything Seregil had ever seen him wear. As Seregil slowly approached, the actor smiled and held up something that caught the light.

A glass phial.

“I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you, Lord Seregil,” he said, giving it a slight shake that made whatever was inside tinkle against the glass. “I’m tired of our game. I think you know what’s in this one.”

“Yes. And you’re not leaving with it.”

“Tut, dear Lord Seregil. You’d better mind your manners. This bottle is rather fragile and it’s very risky, freeing an unfixed soul. You never know where it will end up. Some get home to their bodies. Others?” He made a graceful fluttering gesture. “They just float away.”

Seregil swallowed hard. Thero had warned of this. Perhaps they had just been lucky with Mika.

“Put down your sword, Lord Seregil.”

Seregil laid it on the stage beside him and raised his hands to show the other man they were empty. He was less than twenty feet away from Atre, but he doubted he could close that distance in time if Atre let the bottle fall. Or threw it.

And he noticed something else. Atre was not wearing Elani’s ring.

“Thank you, my lord,” said Atre with mock-deference. “Well, here we are, onstage together at last. No masks or costumes for you this time, though. I knew there was more to you than you let on.”

“I could say the same of you. You know why I’m here.”

Atre smiled and gave the bottle another little shake and Seregil caught a glint of silver in the morning light. “I enjoyed dancing with little Illia at your party that night. Delightful child. Such a shame you and your friends got in my way. I might have left her alone if you hadn’t. Will you tell Micum Cavish that it’s his fault, as much as yours, that his daughter died?”

Seregil took a deep breath and said as calmly as he could, “If you break that bottle, I’ll have no reason not to kill you.”

“But she’ll still be dead. Now surely we can strike a bargain.”

“You give me the bottle, and Elani’s jewels, and I let you walk out of here. Their lives for yours.” Where in Bilairy’s name are Micum and Alec?

“I have your word on that, do I?” Atre asked, and tossed Illia’s bottle from his right hand to his left with a juggler’s flourish.