“Where did you learn this?”

“If I said it’s from a certain witch and a certain spirit from the beyond, would you believe me?”

The cat shooed away by Bożyczko meowed. For a moment, Bożyczko fixed Reynevan with his steely gaze.

“I would,” he finally replied. “For what could the source be if not the beyond or witchcraft? I know something about that. Like you, I am an adept of the Secret Arcana. It’s no discredit, since it was three sorcerers who were the first to greet Jesus in Bethlehem, bringing him gold, frankincense and myrrh. Thanks for the information, we shall use it without any dubium. But it is not enough. Not nearly enough. I want to know—”

He broke off, stood up straight, raised his head and hushed Reynevan with a glance. Reynevan listened hard, but heard nothing except the meowing of the cat, the hubbub of the nearby cloth hall and the rattling of the wooden clappers from the Church of the Assumption. He sniffed, for he thought he could suddenly make out the faint smell of rosemary amid the stench in the yard.

“What is it? Bożyczko?”

Instead of answering, Łukasz Bożyczko grabbed Reynevan by the sleeve and tugged hard. Reynevan lost his balance, tried to grab a post, but instead of that he caught hold of a person. The person—completely invisible in the dark and as lithe as a shadow—shoved him away hard. Before he fell, he saw the flash of a blade and Bożyczko lunging at the person. A blade grated against the wall, there was the sound of a blow and immediately afterwards a furious curse, a second blow, then the clatter and crack of planks breaking. There was an intense flash like lightning, and for a moment the courtyard was lit up and the air howled; the intense smell of ozone and turpentine revealed Goethic magic. Reynevan had no intention of waiting to find out who had cast the spell. He leaped up from the ground, bounded onto a woodpile, cleared the fence and rushed towards the town through the neighbouring courtyard. He was fast, but not fast enough. He suddenly felt somebody landing on his back, knocking him down and pinning him to the ground.

“Lie still,” a soft, melodic female alto voice murmured in his ear. “Lie still, Reynevan.”

He did as he was told. The grip weakened. The rosemary-scented woman with the alto voice helped him to his feet.

“The Inquisitor has fled, unfortunately,” she said, barely visible in the gloom. “Pity. I might have managed to extract from him where Miss Apolda is being kept.”

“I doubt it,” he said, overcoming his amazement and the resistance of his dry throat. “I doubt you would.”

“Perhaps you are rightly doubtful,” the woman said. “But at least I gave him a good scare. And thumped him twice, hard, because I’m wearing brass knuckles inside my glove. I heard his teeth ring! He used magic to escape, bloody sorcerer.”