“Sorry, Haken,” Vihaela said. “I’m afraid you and Levistus are a couple of steps behind.”

Haken frowned. “What are you—?”

Light flashed from the small of Haken’s back, magic surging at close range. Haken jerked, his spine arching, then collapsed to the ground.

“Fire mages.” Vihaela shook her head, looking down at Haken. “So easy to misdirect.”

Cerulean materialised out of thin air where Haken had been standing, slipping something back into his pocket. His invisibility was flawless: even with my magesight, I hadn’t picked up any trace of his presence. Two figures came marching out of the darkness; they were the same humanoid constructs that had accompanied Vihaela’s decoy in Bank. “Pick that up,” Vihaela said, pointing down at Haken. The constructs moved to obey and she turned to Cerulean. “Where’s Verus?”

“He couldn’t have gated,” Cerulean said. The constructs lifted Haken; focusing on him I could tell that he was unconscious but still alive. “Wards didn’t trigger. Shroud?”

Vihaela frowned. “This isn’t a good time for distractions.”

“I’ve told the team that Haken’s MIA and Verus is the suspect,” Cerulean said. “Should keep them busy a while.”

Well, shit. That was going to make my life a lot harder.

“Find him anyway,” Vihaela said. She glanced around at the gardens. “You know, I might actually miss this place.” Her voice was thoughtful, and she kept gazing around for a few seconds more before turning to walk away. The constructs followed, carrying Haken between them.

I watched the group disappear into the darkness. As soon as they were gone, I backed slowly away, then turned and started hurrying through the trees. I could still hear voices in the distance, and the flicker of lights. I wasn’t worried about any of the men finding me the regular way, but I was pretty sure a slaver group would have more than just torches.

I ducked into another bush and crouched down in the darkness. I pulled out my phone and started to activate it, then frowned. No signal. I flicked through the futures, trying different numbers—all nothing. They must have a jammer of some kind. I looked into the futures in which I used a gate stone. A minute or two to get the spell working, and . . . oh, goddamn it. Cerulean hadn’t been bluffing about the wards either.

I’d suspected that Haken was going to pull something like this—that was why I’d brought the fire-hunger stone and the mist cloak. My plan had been to wait for him to tip his hand, learn what I could, then bug out. Unfortunately, I’d been counting on either being able to gate away, or get a message to Luna and the others.

A sound rose up from the direction of the house, making my head snap around. It was a low-pitched, throaty arrh-arrh-arrh, something like what you’d get if you crossed a dog and a giant crow. I remembered what Vihaela had said about “sniffers” and a nasty feeling formed in my stomach. My mist cloak’s great against magic, but it doesn’t do anything against tracking by scent.