The doctor seemed about to argue, but then something else, some determination, flitted over his face. “I don’t want to defend myself. I’m just trying to warn you. The Justice may not be a mage, but he has tricks of his own. Not just his informants throughout the city, but other things … During his army days, he would sometimes take delivery of certain … devices.”

Constance blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Dr. Thorn said, the frustration evident in his voice. “He wouldn’t let anyone see them. But I’m sure they were weapons. Weapons powered by magic, but which ordinary people are able to use.” He shook his head. “He hated magic. And yet he desired its power. Perhaps his hatred was born of envy.”

But Constance was only half listening now. Devices … magical weapons … This stinks of Lord Chatham. If the Justice was capable of turning a mage to his purpose, despite his hatred of magic, it was also entirely possible that he had been involved in testing some of Chatham’s more controversial inventions. And that meant it was possible he had commissioned or acquired one of his own prior to his appointment in Duke’s Forest.

“You think he is using one of these devices now?” Constance asked.

“Using it or planning to,” Thorn replied. “I cannot tell.”

“And you have no idea what this device might be?”

Dr. Thorn shook his head again. “No. I just wanted to warn you. He might not be as devoid of magic as he appears.” He shut his eyes, as if suddenly overcome by tiredness. “Now that it’s all over,” he whispered, “I mean to do everything I can to bring the Justice down with me.”

Constance stared at him for a few moments. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said coldly.

*    *    *

The castle was dark and quiet, and Constance was curled in her covers, sleep clinging to the corners of her mind: Dreams of her father, of the funeral, of forgotten corridors below the earth that drifted into lost halls of stone. Dreams of a spell’s heart somewhere, hidden in the depths.

The fire in her grate had faded to cold ashes.

Slowly she started to awaken, although she’d barely slept. Her mother’s book lay on her pillow, the pages ruffled and stuck to her cheek. She’d been searching for clues.

Her eyelids flickered, then snapped open. Had she dropped off again for a moment?

Distantly, she heard a high-pitched wail: the creak of a hinge, perhaps, or an owl’s screech … But no—the owls had long fled the diseased air of Duke’s Forest. Yet again the sound rang into the night, and Constance sat bolt upright in bed. She knew what it was: a scream.