Climbing down again, she reached into her belt pouch for her comb and looked around for a mirror, but there wasn’t one.

No mirrors, and no metal. Or rather, no polished metal, she amended. The various buckles on her belt and sword belt were dull.

Nothing shiny, she thought, walking slowly around the room to make certain she hadn’t overlooked anything. Reaching the window, she ran a hand over a pane of glass, but it was slightly rough under her hand, rather than smooth. So, nothing shiny …

Nothing that reflects!

She retrieved the gorget and hid it away inside her shirt, then lay down in her clothes and stared at the flickering candle Zella had left on the stand near the bed.

“Thero, my love, don’t despair,” she whispered. “I’ll get back to you.”

Chapter 17: The Grey Land

SEREGIL checked the marks Thero had painted on the backs of his hands as he and Alec wandered around the palace together, using lightstones to guide them. Micum and a sergeant were off doing the same in a different direction. It had been a long night.

“I hope these still work,” Alec muttered, inspecting the one on his right hand more closely. “This one is starting to wear off.”

“Roll back your sleeves so they don’t rub.”

Just as they reached a T where their corridor intersected another, Alec suddenly looked sharply to the right.

“There!” he whispered, pointing down the pitch-black corridor.

“What?” Seregil whispered back, reaching for his sword. “That light! Come on.”

“What light?” But Alec was already bolting down the corridor, sword drawn. As Seregil started after him, the glow of Alec’s lightstone disappeared as suddenly as if a heavy curtain had fallen across the passageway. In fact, Seregil thought that’s what had happened until he ran to where Alec had disappeared and found nothing but more corridor stretching away into the darkness. There was no sign of Alec.

Had he gone through one of the open doorways that lined the corridor? This wing of the palace had not been refurbished. Some of the rooms didn’t even have doors, or they were broken or hanging by one hinge. One after the other proved to be dark and empty. The corridor dead-ended in a blank stone wall.

Seregil turned and looked back the way he’d come, expecting to see a glow from a doorway farther back, but all was dark.

“Alec, where in Bilairy’s name are you?” he shouted, stomach already in a knot.

An echoed are you, are you, are you was the only reply.

The light seemed to recede down the corridor as Alec ran toward it. It didn’t have the color or glow of a lightstone, or one of Thero’s orbs. It was ruddy and flickered …