Besides—the plan had been half Kemper’s idea, or at least it inspired by the card sharp’s offhand comment the night of their carouse. Kemper had asked him why he didn’t just go in and ask for the crown back. He had, of course, been joking. Yet when Malden sobered up he realized that he did in fact have the perfect cover story to get him inside the sorcerer’s house. And casing the place was essential if he was to steal the crown back.

“I can see no other way to resolve my difficulties,” he’d told Kemper. “Will you help me?”

“Aye,” the intangible scoundrel had said at last. Together they formulated a scheme for it. Kemper could walk through normal walls like a ghost, but the wizardly wall surrounding Hazoth’s villa would keep him out as well as if it had been made of solid silver. The wall had to be dropped, however, every time someone came in or out of the grounds. When it was lowered for him, Kemper would have a chance to sneak in as well.

After the fact, Malden was deeply glad they had worked the thing so carefully. The wall didn’t just immobilize those who tried to cross it. It searched him with invisible fingers, combing through his pockets and his clothes with studied precision. Had Kemper been caught in that wall even for a moment, the jig would certainly have been up—Hazoth would have known the game they were playing and would have destroyed them both in the time it took him to blink an eye. It had been a major risk anyway, since they had no way of knowing just how aware Hazoth was of who was in his house at a given time. They had proven, Malden decided, that it was possible to enter the house without immediately alerting Hazoth to one’s presence, and that was a major step forward in the plot. Something to be grateful for anyway.

“I could tell, o’ course, when it came down,” Kemper said, leaning forward to suck drink through his reed. “I could feel it in me bones, smell it in the air. I knew I must be quick, so I dashed in through the garden, while the guards weren’t payin’ close watch. I think they was watching you up front, mostly, and I learned long ago how t’keep low and out o’ sight. The door hard by the kitchens was closed, but ’twas no problem for the likes o’ me. I slipped through neat as eel pie and found the stairs what servants use afore the wall was e’en up agin.”