*Hello?*

Lucivar looked toward the stables where the slaves were quartered. The guards would make their nightly check soon. He’d take another minute to savor the night air, even if it smelled hot and dusty, before returning to the filthy cell with its bed of dirty, bug-infested straw, before returning to the stink of fear, unwashed bodies, and human waste.

*Hello?*

Lucivar turned in a slow circle, his physical senses alert, his mind probing for the source of that thought. Psychic communication could be broadcast to everyone in an area—like shouting in a crowded room—or narrowed to a single Jewel rank or gender, or narrowed even further to a single mind. That thought seemed aimed directly at him.

There was nothing out there except the expected. Whatever it was, it was gone.

Lucivar shook his head. He was getting as skittish as the landens, the non-Blood of each race, with their superstitions about evil stalking in the night.

“Hello?”

Lucivar spun around, his dark wings flaring for balance as he set his feet in a fighting stance.

He felt like a fool when he saw the girl staring at him, wide-eyed.

She was a scrawny little thing, about seven years old. Calling her plain would have been kind. But, even in the moonlight, she had the most extraordinary eyes. They reminded him of a twilight sky or a deep mountain lake. Her clothes were of good quality, certainly better than a beggar child would wear. Her gold hair was done up in sausage curls that indicated care even if they looked ridiculous around her pointed little face.

“What are you doing here?” he asked roughly.

She laced her fingers and hunched her shoulders. “I-I heard you. Y-you wanted a friend.”

“You heard me?” Lucivar stared at her. How in the name of Hell had she heard him? True, he had sent that wish out, but on an Ebon-gray thread. He was the only Ebon-gray in the Realm of Terreille. The only Jewel darker than his was the Black, and the only person who wore that was Daemon Sadi. Unless…

No. She couldn’t be.

At that moment, the girl’s eyes flicked from him to the dead man in the boat, then back to him.

“I have to go,” she whispered, backing away from him.

“No, you don’t.” He came toward her, soft-footed, a hunter stalking his prey.

She bolted.

He caught her within seconds, heedless of the noise the chains made. Looping a chain over her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet, grunting when her heel banged his knee. He ignored her attempts to scratch, and her kicks, while bruising, weren’t the same kind of deterrent one good kick in the right place would have been. When she started shrieking, he clamped a hand over her mouth.

She promptly sank her teeth into his finger.

Lucivar bit back a howl and swore under his breath. He dropped to his knees, pulling her with him. “Hush,” he whispered fiercely. “Do you want to bring the guards down on us?” She probably did, and he expected her to struggle even harder, knowing there was help nearby.