I ran to her, aware Brother Qown was running too. “Never mind Tamin. Your people are safe. Possibly they are the only ones who are.”

“I don’t understand—”

“I have to mark this blessing on your forehead,” Brother Qown gasped as he caught up with us. “Quickly. The blue smoke kills anyone not wearing this sign.”

Ninavis looked over Qown’s shoulder toward the front gate. She blanched. The witch-smoke was inside now, spreading fast. Already, the sound of choking echoed as the cursed air found new victims. Ironically, the vapor smothered the fires meant as a distraction while Kalazan rescued Ninavis; the flames died as soon as the witch-smoke rushed in and replaced all the air.

“What—?”

“No time,” I said. “Lower your hood, my Kalazan.” I used a possessive I had no right to use. My Kalazan, my loyal man. I had just declared him my vassal, taking up the offer Kalazan had made the night before, when he called me his lord.

He inhaled, but then, perhaps because he saw the smoke rushing at us from across the courtyard, he did as I ordered.

Brother Qown finished the glyph on Ninavis and moved on to Kalazan.

The smoke enveloped us. Kalazan closed his mouth, shut his eyes, pinched closed his nostrils. The smoke tried to force its way inside, but Brother Qown finished the line, connected the last points, completed the glyph. The tendrils snapped back, pushed out by the pocket of clean air around Kalazan’s head.

“Find as many—” I started to order Brother Qown, but he needed no orders to do what came as instinct. He’d already gone to a serving maid on the ground, wide-eyed, choking, gasping for breath. He painted the glyph on her forehead.

But the witch-smoke was in her lungs. She died while we watched, powerless to help her.

They all died.

Kalazan gained his voice first.

And lost his wits first too.

“What just happened? What is this?” He looked at us wide-eyed, crazed. He had the hostile anger of someone who didn’t understand what they’d just witnessed but damn well intended to find someone to blame.

I almost felt sorry for him, but this wasn’t the time for sentimentality.

“You mustn’t use up your air.” I turned to Ninavis. “Calm him. We have much to do and little time in which to do it.”

She looked a bit wide-eyed herself, but she squared her shoulders and put both her hands on Kalazan’s arms. “We’ve come this far. Just come with me a little further.”

“What happened?” He didn’t want to be quiet.

“Witchcraft,” I snapped. “The real kind, and not the stories people use as an excuse to kill old mares with too many warts on their chins. We need to leave, Kalazan. Sooner, not later. Now. I swear to you I will explain all once we’re away from here.”