It’s just the storm cloud, she told herself sternly, already picturing stepping out of her corpse-stained clothes and into a hot bath. She quickened her pace again, close to panting with exertion as the path narrowed and steepened. The cloud was thicker in the lower town, but—senselessly—Constance had felt safer in the gloom below. Up here, she felt the bubble of unease spreading wider across her chest. Someone is watching.

And then by some instinct, she stopped about ten paces from the portcullis. The echo of footsteps continued, stuttering to a halt a little late.

“Who goes there?” No reply. “Come on. I know you’re hiding,” she added, her voice low with warning. She waited a few moments, half wondering if she’d imagined the whole thing. And then, slowly, a figure stepped out from the darkness.

Her eyes combed the face part-muffled in a fine silk scarf, the dark hair tied beneath. The eyes glittering green in the intermittent flashes cast by the lightning as familiar hands lifted a pair of shield-eyes. He didn’t speak, but challenged her with his gaze.

“Xander?” she breathed, unbelieving. And her heart sank as she ran through everything he might have witnessed. How long had he been watching her? “What are you doing?” she hissed, suddenly angry. “Why have you been following me? We’re supposed to be on the same side!”

He stepped closer, his expression strangely unreadable. “The night we met in the gardens, you refused to tell me the truth—and so I decided to find out for myself. I watched you slip into the great hall again. I watched your cane light up. I watched you descend into the crypts. And it was then that I knew you were hiding something … terrible. I’ve been trying to understand ever since.”

She stared and stared. How much did he know? “You followed me into the crypts?”

“Yes, just now, to the peril of my own soul. I had to know. And still I don’t quite understand. I know you’re looking for something.” His eyes flickered to her cane. “And obviously I know you’re a mage.”

“Xander … I…” The thought of him hating her, despising her, pierced her heart with a pain so pure and intense that it burned. Guilt was heavy on her shoulders. She shook herself mentally. How had he turned this around? He was the one following her!