She looked startled. “Laryn is still alive?”

Realizing they hadn’t discussed it, he nodded. “In custody, but alive, awaiting your judgment. At least, that was the case when I left.”

“I figured you’d killed her.”

“I wanted to, but I wanted to decide with you more.”

Her smile lit up her face. “This is why I love you.”

He rather wished it were for other reasons, but he’d take it. With a thought—and very little effort, he was so replete with magic—he extruded chains to bind Sabrina, leaving her to weep there on the rug.

“Should we move her to another room?” Nic ventured, averting her gaze from Sergio’s bloody corpse.

“Let her remain here,” Gabriel answered, “and sit with the results of Sergio’s actions.”

Nic didn’t protest, accepting his hand and going with him to the back kitchen, where the door to the cellar stood open. If he’d hoped that Lord Elal hadn’t been able to follow the information he’d extorted from Nic, that faint hope was dashed. They moved quietly down the rickety old stairs, finding the door to the tunnel had been hacked apart.

Gabriel paused to examine the destruction. “What magic did this?”

“A spirit manifestation. It takes a lot out of him to produce this much physical damage, but he has Maman’s magic and the promise of a glut of more from our arcanium,” she answered quietly.

“Do you sense any sentry spirits guarding the way?”

She shook her head. “No, but I might not. Or,” she considered, “Alise might’ve dealt with them.”

“Wouldn’t your father sense that?”

Nic cocked her head doubtfully. “It very much depends on how focused he is on what he’s doing.”

“He’s doing something.” Gabriel had sensed it from the other side of the lake. It was even stronger her, the arcanium keening inaudibly, the embedded magic vibrating on some other plane he couldn’t quite define clearly.

“Yes,” Nic agreed, confirming that she sensed it, too, “though I can’t tell what.”

“Me neither. We approach carefully.”

“And here I was all for charging down the tunnel, waving a bloody sword like an avenging angel.”

“You can’t have my bloody sword,” he replied, not understanding the black humor they shared in this moment but beyond grateful for it. He squeezed her hand, then let it go. “Stay behind me.”

“No, this time you stay behind me.” She stepped in front of him on the narrow strip of flat walkway in the round passage. “My father won’t attack me, because he still thinks to use me. You, he’d go after without hesitation.”

“I’d welcome that, in truth,” he growled but held himself back.

She gave him a brilliant smile over her shoulder. “Thank you for agreeing not to kill him.”

“Not on purpose, anyway,” he qualified under his breath, and she shot him a stern look, then proceeded onward. He truly would make an effort not to kill Elal, for Nic’s sake, but if it came down to it… Well, he wouldn’t grieve for the man who’d done so much wrong.