This time the man was tempted enough to rush them. And he was faster, a lot faster, than anyone Mags had fought before.

For a moment his mind raced in panic. But then, a curious calm came over him.

Don’t attack. Just evade. He didn’t have to fight back—the other four would do that for him. All he had to do was to keep from getting hit. And with his mind open to the others, he could sense what they were going to do, where they were going. All he needed to do was to move with that.

And then, as he ducked and sidestepped, used his sword to deflect an oncoming blow and slid under it, he saw what Dallen had been talking about.

A door in the rear of the building slid stealthily open, and through it came—

Barrett.

Barrett and his gang of pranksters, one of whom without a doubt must have been good enough to pick that lock.

Mags did not allow himself to get distracted, but as he danced his way out of the man’s reach, he got glimpses of the gang slowly hauling Bear, chair and all, toward the door.

Meanwhile it was all he could do to avoid the whirling maelstrom of blades that the man had become. He knew, instinctively, that he had to keep the killer’s attention; that if the man got sight of Bear being taken out, it would be all over. So he danced and capered as he never had in all of his life, allowing his terror to show on his face. He sensed that terror was a better lure than defiance or bravado. Which was just as well, because he was so frightened now that he couldn’t have squeaked out a single challenge or boast.

And then—at last—the gang reached the door.

A forest of arms reached forward, grabbed them all, and yanked them out of sight.

The door slammed.

The killer whirled.

“It’s over, mate,” the redhead said. “You might as well—”

Give yourself up, was what the Guard was probably going to say. But he never got the chance to finish the sentence.

With a scream of outrage, the killer threw away all his weapons, turned, and ran himself onto the redheaded Guard’s sword.

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

“I C’N think’a better ways t’ get a holiday,” Mags said “I C’N think‘a better ways t’ get a holiday,” Mags said weakly.

Bear nodded as a servant girl handed him a dose of his medicine. “Wouldn’t have been my choice either,” he replied.

They were not in the Collegium; they had been set up in a luxurious suite of rooms in the Palace. The very rooms, in fact, that had been occupied by the arrogant foreigners.