Seregil lunged after it and caught it one-handed just as it tipped over the edge. At the same instant two large hands clapped around his and Seregil found himself fetched up painfully against one of the footlights, looking down at Micum Cavish’s pale face.

“You take her,” Seregil gasped, releasing the bottle very carefully into his friend’s hands. Micum pressed it to his lips with a gasp of relief. It held Illia’s ring.

Seregil got to his feet clutching his wounded shoulder and looked back at Brader, expecting an attack. But the man was on his back in a pool of blood, one of Alec’s arrows protruding from his heaving chest. Seregil scanned the theater and Alec waved to him from one of the boxes—the one they’d been sitting in with Kylith a few short months ago—and started down for the front of the theater. The front doors stood open now, explaining how Alec and Micum had gotten in while he and the others had been distracted.

Grimacing in pain and feeling a little dizzy from blood loss, Seregil picked up his poniard with his left hand and stood over Atre. The man coughed out a spray of bloody spittle; it reminded Seregil of the black poisoned blood running down Thero’s cheek, and he resisted the urge to kick the remaining life out of Atre.

Instead he knelt beside the dying actor, placing the needle-sharp point of the poniard to his throat. “How do we restore Illia’s soul? Tell me!”

Atre let out a wheezing laugh. “Or what? You’ll kill me?”

“Slowly.”

“Too late for that, I’m afraid. Unless you let me drink.”

“Those are swallowtail arrowheads,” Alec informed him as he climbed onto the stage to join them. “They have to be cut out, and even then you probably won’t live.”

“Let me drink,” Atre rasped again. “If you do, then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“I’ll get it,” Micum said.

“You’re not serious!” Alec gasped.

Micum regarded him stonily. “It’s my girl’s life. And you know the ones in the bottles with the completed seals are already dead.” With that, he climbed onto the stage and disappeared behind the scrim.

“He’s right,” said Seregil.

Alec picked up the fallen chain and examined Elani’s jewels. “Seregil, there’s a stone missing from the brooch.”

“My pocket,” Atre gasped. “Take it. I haven’t hurt her.”

Seregil searched him none too gently and found the loose stone. It fit the mounting on the brooch. “All right. Is Brader still alive, Alec?”

Alec bent over the other man. “Yes.”

Brader raised a bloody hand, motioning him closer. Alec went to one knee and bent over him. “What is it?”