. . . and the battle was over. Vihaela and one of the security men were down. One of the constructs had been cut to pieces, its body parts scattered across the floor; the other was thrashing, headless, its remaining arm thumping erratically against the wall.

“Cease fire!” Haken shouted. “Cease fire!”

I looked left and right. The attic room hummed with magic, a dozen shields and protective spells brushing against each other. No one seemed to be paying attention to me. But someone had just nearly killed me. It hadn’t been Vihaela—I’d been watching her. The constructs had been in my field of vision.

That just left the people who were supposed to be on my side.

Whatever had caused the threat on my precognition, it wasn’t around anymore. Trask moved up to the thrashing construct and aimed a hand downward; there was the blue flash of a water spell. The construct went still and silence fell.

“No movement,” someone called.

“Rick, you okay?”

“Yeah,” a muffled voice said. It was one of the security men. “Just tripped.”

“Slate, Lizbeth,” Haken said. “Check her.”

Slate was staring at Vihaela’s still form. The Dark mage was lying facedown, crumpled against the wall. From a glance through the futures, I knew she wasn’t getting up.

“Slate!”

Slate started. “Yeah.” He and Lizbeth moved forward. Even though Vihaela looked out of it, the two of them treated her with wary caution. Lizbeth raised her hand, and I saw the grey flicker of a protection spell, then she cautiously kicked Vihaela’s ankle. Lizbeth frowned.

“Is she out?” Haken asked.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Lizbeth said. She straightened and looked at Haken. “She’s dead.”

“What?”

“As in, not alive.”

“Are you serious?” Haken demanded. “Check her pulse.”

“I don’t need to. Living people do this thing called breathing. You don’t believe me?” Lizbeth nodded at Slate. “Ask him.”

“Slate?” Haken said. There was a dangerous tone to his voice.

“Well, I didn’t fucking do it,” Slate said defensively.

“What are you getting in your deathsight?”

Slate hesitated.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Haken spun around. “Which one of you did this?”

No one answered. The other mages in the room avoided meeting Haken’s gaze. Behind him, the bodies of Vihaela and the two constructs lay still and silent on the floor.

| | | | | | | | |

“I didn’t hit her that hard,” Slate said again.

Lizbeth passed a weary hand across her face. She was leaning against the wall. “Will you stop saying that?”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Trask?” Haken said. “Give me something I can use.”

The security men had all been shooed away, and it was just the mages—me, Haken, Slate, Trask, Abeyance, Lizbeth, and Cerulean. Abeyance was using her timesight, Cerulean had faded into the background, Trask was kneeling over Vihaela’s body and examining her, and everyone else was arguing.

I listened with half an ear. I was less interested in the argument than in what I’d found in one of the walls: a pair of bullet holes. There was nothing especially remarkable about them . . . except for the fact that they were in the side wall, and Vihaela and her two constructs had been against the far wall. By my estimation, from the angle the bullets had entered, the only place they could have come from was the group of Council security and Keepers.