“I know,” Malden said. He scratched his head and thumped the table with his fist. “All right, let’s go through it one more time.” He pulled the map of the villa’s ground floor and the garden toward him. “The magic barrier comes this far, very close to the fence. I’ll be here, and you’ll be . . . here,” he said, pointing out a spot with his finger. “You can hide in these bushes. The guards relieve each other at midnight.” It had taken some dedicated spying to learn that much, but it seemed to happen the same time every night. Hazoth didn’t seem to rely overmuch on his retainers, and hadn’t trained them with military discipline. Malden had even seen one fall asleep at his post one night. It was too much to hope that they would all fall asleep at once, though. “When the night’s sentries come out from the barracks, here, the relieved guards head inside, ready to fall into their bunks and sleep. It will take some minutes for the fresh batch to reach their stations. While they’re all in front of the villa, we’ll get Cythera to lower the barrier. It will be down only for a moment, just long enough for us to run up here, to the preparatory door.”

Kemper nodded. “And where’ll yer titled friend yonder be, then?”

Malden looked over at Croy, who was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He had barely moved from the spot all day, and then only to pass water. “Him? I’m not counting on him at all. When we brought him in on this I thought he’d be useful, but I’ve seen now he’ll never be one of us. He’s wounded and can hardly run, and anyway, he makes too much noise even when he’s trying to be quiet. He did his part by helping us contact Cythera. Now that’s done. Forget him.”

“Just the twain o’ us, then,” Kemper said, sounding doubtful. “ ’Tis much work for two, in the time we got.”

“I know. We’ll just have to be fast. Once we’re inside, you’ll head to the front hall. There’s likely to be a guard inside—I’m counting on it, in fact. You’ll make yourself seen and he’ll sound the alarm, drawing the rest of the guards inside.”

“I must say I like this bit not,” Kemper grumbled.

“You have nothing to fear. None of the guards has so much as a silver boot knife that we’ve seen—and even if they do have some way to hurt you, you can just slip through the wall and be gone before they catch you.”

“Mayhap Hazoth’s got some charm ’gainst spectral folk,” Kemper said, shaking his head. “Some spell or other t’trap me.”