Someone was hammering on their front door. It was the middle of the night, a completely unreasonable hour. She fumbled for her bedside candle, wondering what on earth was going on.

Ignium, she thought, and the wick burst into flame.

The knock sounded again, hard and impatient.

“OPEN UP!” a gruff male voice insisted.

Emry pushed aside the curtain around her sleeping quarters. Her brother stood by their old wooden table, awake and fully dressed.

“Don’t answer it,” he instructed as Emry reached for her shawl, wrapping it around her shoulders.

“Why not?” She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Just stay out of it,” Emmett warned, taking out his wand. His eyes were wide and scared, and his pirate’s grin was nowhere to be found.

“Whose daughter was it this time?” Emry asked tiredly.

Emmett’s face scrunched the way it used to when they were little and he’d done something truly terrible.

The knock sounded again, rattling the windowpanes.

“MERLIN!” their would-be visitor roared.

“It’s a gambling debt,” Emmett confessed, slumping into a chair and putting his head in his hands. “I—I made a huge mistake. I thought I’d be gone by the time they came to collect.”

Out of everything her brother could have done, that was the last thing Emry wanted to hear.

“You’re unbelievable!” she fumed. “We’re barely scraping by as it is.”

Another powerful hammering shook their cottage.

“OPEN UP OR WE’LL BREAK DOWN THE SARDING DOOR!”

Emry didn’t doubt it.

“Help me,” Emmett begged. He looked terrified.

“How?”

“Remember what Father taught us about Corperus magic?”

Of course she remembered. It hadn’t been a lesson so much as a warning of what not to do. No matter how dire the circumstances.

“We could make them forget why they’re here,” Emmett went on.

“You mean mind control,” she said flatly.

“More like memory manipulation.”

“Absolutely not!” Emry bristled. “You know how dangerous that is! The last time you tried it—”

“I got knocked unconscious for a week. I know.” Emmett eyed the door nervously, talking fast and low. “But I have much better control now. And if you have another idea, I’m all ears.”

“Murder?” Emry suggested.

Emmett’s jaw dropped. “There’s three of them,” he spluttered.

“I meant you.”

That was when the door crashed open with a tremendous bang.

Emmett had been wrong; there were only two of them. Two enormous, dangerous-looking brutes, with muscles like boulders and knives that glittered in the candlelight.

“Merlin! You sarding snake!” the bald one thundered.

The other was too busy leering at Emry in her linen shift. She scowled, folding her arms across her chest.

Emmett raised his wand.

“Don’t!” Emry cried, but she was too late.

“Damnatio memoriae! Damnatio memoriae!” Emmett bellowed, desperately sweeping his wand between them.