The largest of the three nighthunters in the cage had been trying to figure out the simple lock on the cage door for an hour now. Its incentive was close enough to make it fiercely hungry but was still out of reach. Yes, there was a feast waiting for his creatures if they could get free of the cage: the two old witches he had drained of power in order to try this experiment—and the apprentice Inquisitor he’d used to assist him. The youth had been a good choice, an open channel for power but too weak to use it himself. Useless as an Inquisitor because of it, but he’d taken the youth because it was better to control a weak vessel than to have it controlled by someone else. Besides, even the useless had their uses—and it had quieted the doubt that had plagued him since the Gatherer had left him with a dead arm to weave the Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion around the apprentice, to chain another person so completely with nothing but that Gift flowing through his voice.

He looked at the corner of the room where the apprentice lay, staring at him with terrified, pleading eyes. While his voice had rolled over the youth, the apprentice had taken the knife Adolfo handed him and cut out his own tongue—and then opened his own belly with a deep slash of the blade. Now the apprentice lay on the floor, his face smeared with blood, a little more of his guts spilling onto the floor with every effort to move.

The witches were crawling around on the floor, sensing there was danger nearby, but unable to see it, hear it, or scream out of fear of it. No feet to walk on, no hands to guide them. They always thought they were so powerful, but they were nothing more than meat.

He heard a click, saw the cage door swing open. For a few heartbeats, the nighthunters stared at the opening. Then they spilled out, flinging themselves on the blood and fresh meat that flailed desperately to escape the sharp teeth and claws.

Adolfo watched for another minute or two before closing the wooden door over the bars and latching it.

It was a pity he had to leave the nighthunters locked in that cellar room to die, but they were too dangerous to take with him. No matter. Now that he’d mastered how to twist the magic in a specific way, he could create the nighthunters when and where he needed them.