Wyrga turned and looked at Senera, smiling sharp-toothed and vicious. “Is that so, little girl?” The old woman motioned for Senera to come forward with a crooked finger.

That smile made Qown pause. He recognized it. He looked from Janel’s sleeping form back to Wyrga again. How much time hand Janel been spending with Wyrga, anyway? But he had no time for that distraction.

Senera straightened her back. “What do you want, Wyrga?”

Wyrga grabbed Senera by the neck and brought the Doltari woman down to her eye level. “You’ve always been one of mine, haven’t you? Fake marriage vows may fool the men, but I know one of my daughters when I see her.”

Senera ground her teeth. “Let me go.”

Wyrga grinned. “Call me Mother, darling.”

“Let me go, ‘Mother,’” Senera repeated.

Wyrga released her.

Senera walked forward. She had the Name of All Things in one hand, filled with ink, and her brush in the other. “This will just take a moment.”

Wyrga cackled.

Wyrga knew the duke hadn’t “forgotten” to have Senera protect them against the poisons in the caves. Indeed, the duke didn’t know such magical protections existed.

Brother Qown shook his head. “This isn’t necessary,” he whispered as Senera approached. Senera didn’t know the dangers had already been neutralized.

“Shut up,” she said, looking over her shoulder toward Wyrga. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you?” Qown looked at the pale-skinned woman and wondered just how much this would cost her. He also wondered if she was attempting to save their lives for Relos Var’s benefit or because she didn’t want to see them die herself.

She marked the air glyph on everyone’s forehead and then added an unfamiliar second glyph. Qown studied the new sigil, memorizing it.

When she finished, Senera said, “All right, let’s go.” Evidently, she’d no intention of staying behind.

Which meant she too had caught the loophole in the duke’s orders to Wyrga.

The old woman scowled but didn’t protest. The group continued until they reached the tunnels underneath the palace. Wyrga clearly knew the way.

Senera took one look at the large monolith in the main cavern and turned back to Janel’s sleeping figure. “She removed the sigil from her back.”

“I did,” Brother Qown confessed. “She mostly just lay there.”

Wyrga smirked at him.

Brother Qown felt himself turn red. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

The old woman walked around the room, seeming to stand straighter with each step. She tsked at the bodies on the ground even as she swept her gaze from side to side like an industrious maid with a broom. “The razarras ore is gone. The smoke is gone. Who’s been cleaning my house?” She set her cub down—Cherthog, Qown reminded himself—and the little beast immediately began chewing on a corpse’s thigh bone.