The Purloined Heart

The Purloined Heart

I knew she was trouble the moment I saw her walk into the bar.

She was tall, with long, red hair tied neatly back in a ponytail, wearing leathers cut to reveal her curves without interfering with her movements. Her short-sleeved shirt exposed a hint of cleavage and two tanned and muscular arms, one carrying the scars of an adventurer’s life. A sword hung from her belt, an expensive pistol resting right beside it.

She looked around the bar, saw me, and walked toward me with the air of someone who wouldn’t be denied. A drunkard grabbed her arse, and she punched him out without even looking at him. I guessed she had knuckledusters under her gloves. Or magic.

I studied her thoughtfully as she sat down facing me, her eyes studying me with equal interest. There was a tiny hint of magic surrounding her, far less than I’d have expected from a female adventurer. They tended to have magic of their own, or paid a sorcerer to layer protection spells over their bodies, or their adventures would come to a short, sharp, and humiliating end when they encountered a rogue magician. The basilisk scales woven into her leathers would give her a certain degree of protection, true, but any capable magician could easily work around them to swat her like a fly. Or turn her into one.

Her voice was calm and focused. “Quinn?”

I looked back at her. “Who wants to know?”

“My name is Starlight,” she said, “and I want to hire you.”

I raised my eyebrows.“Starlight” sounded silly, the type of nom de guerre an innocent or inexperienced child would adopt before having the naiveté knocked out of them. I’d have laughed, except she didn’t move like an inexperienced kid. The way she held herself, her awareness of everything around her, spoke of a person with as much experience as me, perhaps more. It was hard to place her origins, but I’d have bet good money she was noble-born, perhaps on the wrong side of the blanket. That would certainly explain how she had enough money to go adventuring, and the freedom to do so.

“I see.” I cast a privacy ward. The rest of the customers turned their attention back to their drinks and stopped pretending they weren’t trying to listen to us. “What can I do for you?”

Starlight eyed my drink, then shrugged. I passed the glass to her. I don’t know what the bar put in its alcohol, but I had a sneaking suspicion they should’ve poured it back in the horse. If there was another bar in town that served magicians, I’d have been drinking there, but magic and alcohol rarely mix. A drunk magician is a danger to himself and everyone within a mile or two.

“I’ve been hired to rescue a kidnapped girl,” she said. “I need your help.”

“And why do you need me?”

“The girl was kidnapped by Lord Dragon,” Starlight said. She looked down at the table just long enough for me to notice. “I need a magician to help me rescue her.”

My eyes narrowed. I’ve never met Lord Dragon personally, but I knew him by reputation. Most independent sorcerers adopted a nom de guerre of their own—they were just as bad as mercenaries and adventurers when it came to renaming themselves—yet their names were often talismans. A man who called himself Lord Dragon was almost certainly a pretentious git, a complete idiot, or a dangerously unhinged maniac. The fact that he was still alive after taking over a tiny lordship for himself suggested very strongly he was the latter.

The stories about him didn’t make the prospect of facing him any more attractive. He lived on the fringes of magical society, doing things most magicians would shun him for doing, and his isolation from his own people made him all the more dangerous to anyone who crossed him. If the stories were true, Starlight was asking me to take a horrendous risk.

“I was offered five hundred crowns for the girl’s safe recovery,” Starlight said quietly. “I’ll split it with you if we rescue her.”

“Five hundred crowns?” I stared at her. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. I was astonished. That was enough money to buy a house, or the magical education I’d been denied since my expulsion from school.

My mind raced. If someone was willing to pay that much, the girl couldn’t be a commoner. An aristocrat’s daughter? I felt a stab of pity. Lord Dragon was reputed to be a slaver, crafting slave collars to keep his victims in helpless bondage for the rest of their lives.

I suppose that explained why the girl’s father had hired Starlight, rather than asking for help from a magical ally. If word got out that the girl has been held prisoner by a slaver, even briefly, she’d be unlikely to make a good match. She might never marry well. Or at all.

I considered it, unwilling to admit to myself I’d already made up my mind. On one hand, trying to break into a magician’s home was a good way to get killed, or worse. On the other, two hundred and fifty crowns would go a very long way. I had some money stashed away in a safe place, but the life of an adventurer doesn’t offer many chances to save. And in truth, I didn’t want to leave a young girl in a slaver’s hands. The magical community shunned enslavers. It was just a shame they couldn’t be bothered to actually do anything about them.

“Very well,” I said after some haggling. “I’ll do it for half the reward money.”

Starlight looked relieved. I guess she’d been having trouble finding a magician to accompany her. It wouldn’t be easy to find a magician willing to burgle another magician, and most of those magicians would be reluctant to risk challenging a dark wizard on his home turf. I hope she wasn’t planning to try to cheat me of my reward, if I did as she wished and helped her save the girl. It would be the last thing she ever did, if so. She had so few protections against magic, I could strike her down with a wave of my hand.

“We need to move quickly,” she said. “When can you leave?”

“This place?” I stood, brushing down my tunic and trousers, and picking up my knapsack. I carried everything I owned with me. Travelling light was a lesson I’d learnt the hard way. “Now, if you want.”

Starlight smiled, then stood and led the way outside. I had to admire her movements as she walked. They spoke of very real experience; experience gained the hard way. She was attractive, no doubt about it, but she was attractive and alluring as a tiger. I knew better than to try my luck, not with someone like her. I’d already seen how she handled unwanted male attention.

“I have a horse,” Starlight said. “You can ride behind me?”

I nodded. I knew how to ride, of course, but I’ve never been particularly fond of horses, and I’d never bothered to purchase one for myself. If I needed to ride somewhere in a hurry, I’d rent a horse or simply travel by stagecoach.

Starlight, by contrast, looked like the kind of aristocratic girl who’d have grown up surrounded by horses, and who’d been put in the saddle almost as soon she could walk. I’d often thought those girls silly, but they did have their uses. A girl who’d consider washing dishes to be beneath her would have no qualms about mucking out a stable.

Starlight’s mount was a small warhorse, another sign she came from serious money. The beast eyed me sardonically, but made no objection as I scrambled up behind her. Starlight reined the horse out of the stable and onto the road, the beast picking up speed as we cantered north. I carefully kept my hands to myself, mentally considering what I’d need to break into a magician’s house. I hoped to hell the girl hadn’t been enslaved already, even if she hadn’t been sold on to her final buyer. A slave collar could be removed, but the former slave would never be quite the same afterward.

“You never said,” I said. “Who is she?”

“Lady Carolina Lacy,” Starlight said. “A daughter of Lord Lacy of Alluvia. Under the circumstances, her father has very limited choices.”

“And far too many enemies who’d pay good money for his enslaved daughter,” I said, trying not to shudder. “If it becomes public that she was enslaved…”

I scowled. It was worse than that. The Alluvian Revolution had shattered the established order, slaughtering most of the aristocrats and sending the remainder running for their lives. A handful had been smart enough to send their children and disposable wealth out of the country, and Carolina’s father might have been one of them, but even if he’d saved some money, he wouldn’t have the resources to hire more than a handful of adventurers to rescue his daughter. If word got out, it would be impossible to marry her to a foreign nobleman who might use his influence to assist her family.

Probably. One could overlook anything if the dowry was high enough, but Lord Lacy probably didn’t have enough money to convince someone to overlook that.

Poor girl.

We rode for hours, found an inn to spend the night, and then travelled onward. Starlight was a good conversationalist, I discovered, although she was reluctant to talk about herself. I’d have admired that in her if it didn’t make it harder to understand why she’d chosen the adventurer’s life. She was young and pretty, and clearly of good family; she could’ve been almost anything, and yet she’d chosen to be an adventurer. I supposed I couldn’t really hold it against her. I’d never been keen on talking about myself, either. Far too many people assumed I’d been expelled for being a dark wizard, not being scapegoated for another student’s behavior.

“This town is the nearest one to Lord Dragon’s territory,” Starlight said as we looked for another inn. “Do you need anything?”

“I should have everything I need here,” I said, tapping my bag. “If we need specialist tools, we can come back and purchase them.”

That wasn’t a pleasant thought. Lord Dragon had had plenty of time to fortify his territory against intruders. The simple fact that the aristocrat who owned the land hadn’t managed to evict him was clear proof his territory was well defended, or—I supposed—that Lord Dragon had an agreement with his overlord. It was rare for a magician to pledge himself to a feudal superior, but Lord Dragon had already discarded so many customs, I couldn’t imagine him being reluctant to discard one more. He was a slaver, after all. I could easily imagine him trading a handful of spell-controlled slaves for territory and freedom.

We spent the night in the inn, then set off on foot the following morning. The landscape was rough and patchy, dominated by tiny farms run by peasants eking a living from the soil, but it grew wilder as we made our way toward his territory. There were fewer and fewer peasants living close to the magician—a bad sign. The road was surprisingly decent, for a place so far off the beaten track, but the trees grew so thick, it was hard to see a path through them.

I spotted the beggar’s mark on a stone at the edge of the territory, and frowned. The mark was a clear warning—to those with the eyes to see—not to cross the line. I guessed something bad had happened to the first beggar to visit the magician, and the others had taken heed.

“We need to get off the road,” I said. Any magician worthy of the name would have dozens of spells woven into the road to sound the alarm when unwanted guests entered his territory. “Stay with me.”

Starlight snorted. “What do you think I was planning to do?”

I smiled—I’d had a few partners who’d gotten themselves into trouble by wandering off—and led the way into the thicket. It was difficult to pick a path through the trees. They were so close together, I had no idea how they survived.

I stopped as I sensed a flicker of magic ahead, and reached out with my senses, parsing out the first set of traps. Lord Dragon wasn’t taking anything for granted. There were dozens—no, hundreds of spells littering the landscape, from simple repulsion spells and nightmare hexes to change and paralysis curses, the latter designed to inflict as much pain and agony as possible.

I had no idea how he powered them all. Constantly replenishing the spells would be an utter nightmare, even for an entire team of magicians, and it should’ve been impossible. The area wasn’t known for being tainted with wild magic, and only a fool would risk trying to use wild magic to power regular spells. There were easier and less painful ways to commit suicide.

We inched forward, careful not to touch any of the spells. Some were relatively harmless, even to a powerless mundane; others would’ve killed me as easily as they’d have killed her or any wanderer who took a wrong turning and found himself walking blind into a magician’s territory. I could feel a web of magic flickering through the trees, powering the charms—

A nasty thought crossed my mind, and I pressed my ear against the nearest tree, looking back in shock as I heard a psychic scream. Horror washed through me as I realized what Lord Dragon had done. He’d turned every intruder who’d entered his territory into a tree, their life force and magical potential channeled into the defenses. I’d seen some horrors in my time—man’s inhumanity to man was always shocking—but this… Lord Dragon might not be a necromancer, but he was still a monster. I shuddered to think how many people had been sacrificed to power his defenses.

“I think we’re nearing the house,” Starlight said. She’d been so quiet that her voice almost made me jump. “Can you get inside?”

“We’ll see when we get there,” I said.

So far, I hadn’t seen much to impress me. Lord Dragon had a surfeit of power, but he didn’t seem to be using it very imaginatively. I could think of several ways to improve his defenses, to make it impossible for anyone to get inside without sounding an alarm. Our path through the deadly network of traps was a winding one, but so far, we’d avoided triggering any alarms or being turned into frogs. Or trees. The forest came to a dead stop, revealing a mansion hidden within the trees. It was smaller than I’d expected, although that was meaningless when magic was involved. Whitehall was far bigger on the inside, and I’d seen other magical buildings that were very similar. Lord Dragon certainly had enough power to craft a pocket dimension and keep it from collapsing indefinitely.

I peered forward, looking for possible traps or watching eyes.

There were none.

The lawn was overgrown, and the flowerbeds crammed with herbal ingredients. I couldn’t help thinking no one was bothering to take care of the gardens.

That puzzled me as I inched forward, carefully probing the mansion’s defenses. There was a cluster of heavy spells around the back door, and I guessed there were more around the main entrance, but far fewer around the windows. I glanced at her—she looked pale, yet determined—and darted forward, crossing the lawn and inching up to the wall.

The charms around the window were nasty, yet weirdly independent, as if the designer had never seen the need to weave them into a single pattern. I touched the wood gingerly, carefully channeling my magic into the window frame.

“Odd,” I muttered. Lord Dragon knew wood channeled magic. He’d set up a defense network that relied on wood to channel power from his victims into his spells. I couldn’t help wondering if I was being tricked, lured into a trap. It was a very strange oversight. There was a reason most magical households were built of stone. “What in the world is he doing?”

“Hurry,” Starlight hissed. “We don’t have much time.”

I nodded curtly, although I refused to risk speeding up. It would’ve been impossible to try this if he’d woven the spells together, and it was quite possible he had an inner network monitoring the outer spells. It would be astonishingly paranoid, but even paranoids had enemies.

If he’d kidnapped an aristocratic girl, I was entirely sure he’d taken girls from the neighborhood first. It wasn’t as if the local gentry would’ve cared as long as he left their children alone. No one would pick a fight with a sorcerer over a commoner.

I shoved the thought out of my mind as I worked my way through the network, disabling his spells one by one. There was no alarm. I built my spells up carefully, then opened the window and scrambled inside. The air was heavy with magic, pressing down on my senses and making it hard for me to feel anything beyond a few meters, but there was no alarm. Starlight followed me into the room, one hand on her sword. She’d have been better off with the gun. She didn’t seem to be a blademaster, and it was rare for a magician to be killed by a swordsman.

“Be careful where you put your hands,” I said. “Don’t touch anything unless I check it first.”

Starlight nodded, keeping her hands to herself.

Lord Dragon appeared to have scattered traps everywhere, even within his own home. There was no shortage of cautionary tales of magicians who’d accidentally killed themselves after booby-trapping their own house, but our unwitting host didn’t appear to have heard any of the stories. I wondered, idly, who’d taught him. There were more efficient ways to defend his territory than scattering hexes seemingly at random.

I sent a handful of recon spells moving through the door and into the corridor beyond and waited to see the results. The corridor appeared to be empty, although the spells couldn’t reach very far beyond the door. I opened it carefully and peered into the corridor.

Portraits lined it, the eyes charmed to follow us as we walked out of the room. They didn’t seem to be linked to any defensive spells, but it was hard to tell. There was so much magic in the air that it was growing increasingly hard to pick out Lord Dragon’s charms. He had to be damaging his own spells.

I shivered, my earlier thoughts mocking me. Perhaps he was a necromancer after all. If he’d found a way to make necromancy practical…

Something moved ahead of me. A door opened, and a serving girl—naked, save for the collar around her neck—stepped into the corridor. I stared, distracted for a few vital seconds.

I was torn between astonishment at her perfect body, her nakedness drawing my eye, and horror at the spells woven into the collar. Looking at them was like looking at something fundamentally wrong, something so horrific, it shouldn’t exist. I’d seen the aftermath of mercenary raids, or the twisted remnants of people who wandered into wild magic regions and came out changed, but this…

The girl raised her eyes, saw me, and screamed. And charged.

I swore and cast a freeze spell. The slave collar was designed for a single purpose. The wearer would follow instructions given to her by her master, including standing orders to attack intruders on sight.

Her eyes were wide with horror even as she stopped in her tracks. I could sense the slave collar struggling against my spell, pushing her to keep fighting even though she was hopelessly frozen. She had no magic of her own, no way to free herself.

I leaned forward, trying to find a way to remove the collar. I’d never made a slave collar myself, but I knew enough to be wary. The slaver might well have keyed the collar to kill the wearer if someone tried to free the slave without the owner’s consent.

Starlight hit me.

I jerked forward, twisting automatically, since she’d hit my shoulder.

I turned and saw her staggering toward me, her fist swinging at my jaw. She wasn’t moving like herself. She moved as if she were drunk—or as if she were being puppeted by an outside force.

I swallowed hard as I realized she was no longer in control of her own body. Her face was a rictus of pain and regret, and something else, as if the force controlling her was not wholly used to manipulating her body.

She took another swing at me, telegraphing her move so openly, I had no trouble dodging it.

My magic sparked, casting a spell to stop her. The magic flickered and died before it even touched her bare skin. I gritted my teeth and punched her in the nose. Blood stained my hand, but she kept coming. I guessed whoever was in control of her had made sure he wouldn’t feel her pain.

Starlight drew her sword and hacked at me. I turned and ran, moving down the corridor as fast as I could. I was completely confused. I hadn’t sensed any spell capable of taking her over so completely, so quickly, yet she was clearly not in control of herself.

I could hear her chasing me, the magic in the air making it difficult to cast a spell to slow her down. A dozen options ran through my head, all certain to work, but at the cost of hurting or even killing her outright. I wasn’t sure what to do. If she wasn’t in control of herself…

I glanced back and saw her face, twisted unnaturally. What the hell happened to her?

I shaped a spell—the most powerful cancellation spell I knew. It would disrupt, if not destroy, every spell within reach—including the one controlling her. There’d be no hope of hiding our presence if a sizeable chunk of Lord Dragon’s spells vanished in a single catastrophic moment, but I suspected our presence was no longer secret, anyway. The serving girl had screamed, and something had overwhelmed Starlight.

I grabbed all the power I could muster, channeled it into the spell, and—

Something wrapped around my ankles and yanked hard. I fell to the ground, the magic dissipating as I landed badly. I could feel something slithering over my body and realized, to my horror, that wooden vines were growing out of the floorboards. They grabbed my hands, pulling them behind my back and wrapping around my wrists to keep me immobile.

I heard a grunt and looked up. A middle-aged man was looking back at me. I knew without a shadow of doubt that it was Lord Dragon.

“I wouldn’t try to cancel any spells,” he said in an oily tone that made me want to hit him. He spoke like a man so assured of his own superiority that he could play with his captives all day. “I’ve got your friend’s heart.”

I stared at him. Lord Dragon was surprisingly fat—unusual in a magician—with greasy black hair, a fleshy face, and beady dark eyes. He wore a purple toga long enough to cover everything below the neckline. A single jewel hung around this neck, glowing with magical power. His fingers rested on the gem as he stared down at me, magic glittering around his fingertips. Up close, I could see threads of magic linking the gem to Starlight.

I glanced at her and shuddered. She was standing there helplessly, slumped over like a man-sized puppet whose strings had been cut. I swallowed hard as it dawned on me what had happened to her. Lord Dragon had warped his power into her heart, taking her so completely that he could do anything to her. I didn’t know if I’d ever met the real Starlight. The person I’d met might be—

No. That couldn’t be true. Starlight had presented herself as an experienced adventurer, and I didn’t think that could be faked. She’d been real, and yet… she’d also been under his control. How much of the story she’d given me had been true? She hadn’t come across as a liar, yet most unsuccessful liars tended to be killed very quickly. I wondered, suddenly, if she’d been sent to bring a new victim to her master or… or what?

Lord Dragon kept speaking, prattling on like a man impressed by the sound of his own voice. I knew the type. It wasn’t enough to be rich or powerful, handsome or strong; they wanted to gloat, to make sure you knew you were screwed, and how badly you were screwed. I’d met mercenary captains who were happy to boast about the number of towns they’d sacked, or women they’d taken.

Perversely, it was almost a good sign. A man who wanted to gloat was almost always insecure, wanting to hide his lack of confidence under a show of strength. I reminded myself not to take it for granted. Lord Dragon had enough power to be extremely dangerous.

“She thought she could best me,” Lord Dragon said. He walked up to Starlight and grabbed her breast. Hard. She made no visible response, but I’d have bet half my fortune she felt it. “Churlishness like that deserves a special punishment, don’t you think?”

I kept my voice even. If he wanted to talk, I had no intention of stopping him. “What did you do to her heart?”

“I took it out of her and placed it in this gem,” Lord Dragon said. “She’s mine now.”

I forced myself to think. There were a handful of sorcerers who’d removed their hearts and hidden them somewhere on the theory it would grant a kind of immortality, but it never ended well. A single cancellation spell could break the link, killing the sorcerer instantly. I’ve known a few sorcerers who were heartless—metaphorically speaking—but none would actually survive losing their heart. It could easily happen by accident. A sorcerer who walked into the wrong household might discover the connecting charm coming apart, sentencing him to death. If Lord Dragon had done that to Starlight…

My mind raced. He could hold that over her head for the rest of her life. No, he’d done worse. He’d woven his charms into her helpless heart, giving him complete control over her body. I feared he might also have control over her mind… or did he? He hadn’t made use of her undoubted fighting skill when he’d taken over. Could he? I didn’t know. It was easy to use blood to influence someone’s behavior, or to insert suggestions into their head, but to do that with a heart? I couldn’t see why not, yet he clearly hadn’t.

Unless he wants to be sadistic, I thought. A person as individualistic and independent as Starlight would hate the thought of being turned into a puppet, her entire body controlled by a man who wanted to use her and humiliate her. Even standing helplessly would be humiliating beyond words, unable to keep him from playing with her body as he pleased.As long as he has her heart, she’ll be at his mercy.

“I told her to recruit a sorcerer I could use,” Lord Dragon continued. “What did she offer you?”

I scowled at him. “Half the reward money for your captive. Or do you even have a captive?”

Lord Dragon giggled. It was a disconcerting sound. “She brought you to rescue herself. That was a damp squib, wasn’t it?”

He reached out and pinched Starlight’s breast. “As if I would ever let her go…”

I cursed under my breath as a trio of servants arrived, hauled me to my feet, and half dragged me down the corridor. Up close, I could feel the spells keeping them enslaved. They were profoundly unnatural, their mere presence making it hard to concentrate. And yet I had to.

Starlight had been ordered to find a magician, and she’d done so by recruiting one to save an innocent girl… to save herself. Had she hoped I could free her from the ghastly trap, or kill her to spare her from further torments?

If I’d paid more attention to her as we made our way into the mansion, I might’ve realized she was no longer in control of her body before it was too late. No wonder the defenses had been so ineffectual. Lord Dragon had been toying with us, probably watching through Starlight’s eyes. The pervert had probably been disappointed she’d hired me rather than seducing me. And then he’d lowered the boom.

Think, I told myself. I had no idea why Lord Dragon wanted a magician, but I was sure it wasn’t for anything good. Perhaps he intended to add me to his forest of magic sources, or even use my body in a ritual, or…

I didn’t want to know. There has to be a way out of this.

My knuckles ached. I’d hit her hard enough to make her nose bleed, and yet it hadn’t been enough to put her down. Any adventurer would have shrugged off the blow and kept coming, and in her case, she wasn’t even in control of her own body. I could see her blood on my skin, and that meant…

A thought ran through my mind. I could use the blood to link to her mind and… the thought cut off sharply as the servants toss tossed me into a cell. It wasn’t the worst cell I’d ever been in, but I couldn’t move. They left me lying on the floor as they walked away.

I gritted my teeth and pushed magic into the wood. It shivered against my skin and splintered. I grunted in pain as I pulled my hands free, then did the same to the bindings around my ankles. My blood mingled with hers, creating a link I could exploit if I had time. The cell was designed to make it almost impossible to use magic, but it was very difficult to suppress a blood link.

I forced my thoughts into the link, trying to reach out to her mind. There was no sense of her awareness, nothing that suggested she was awake inside her own body. I couldn’t tell whether he’d switched her off or buried her so deeply inside her mind that she had no awareness at all of the outside world. My thoughts kept moving, expanding further as I tried to see through her eyes. There were no spells barring my way, as far as I could tell, but I still couldn’t see through her eyes. It took me too long to realize her body was still linked to him through her heart.

Bastard, I thought. I’d never been a healer. I knew the basics, of course, but putting someone’s heart back in their chest was beyond me. I didn’t even know what spells he’d used to keep her heart—and her—alive. They had to be incredibly fragile. The merest disruption would kill her instantly. What did you do to her?

I allowed my thoughts to wander onward, into the spells binding her heart. They were fantastical, and yet they could be broken—if I was willing to kill her in the process. I wasn’t, even though I feared she’d rather be dead than a slave.

And she was a slave, as much a slave as the poor collared girls I’d seen earlier. I had to free her without killing her. I forced myself to stand and staggered over to the door, pressing my hands against the stone. This door wasn’t wood, and the lock was charmed against lock-pickers, but I had no trouble opening it with my tools.

I smirked as I stepped outside. The overconfident ass had thought to relieve me of my knapsack, but he hadn’t bothered to actually search me. It made a certain kind of sense—most magicians relied on their own powers rather than weapons or tools—yet it was still an oversight. A very careless oversight.

My mood darkened as I slipped through the corridors. The building didn’t seem to be bigger on the inside, but I still had no idea where to find anything. The blood link should’ve drawn me straight to Starlight, wherever she was, yet there was so much magic in the air, I was reluctant to go straight there.

I walked downstairs into the basement and looked around, noting the workshop and enough tools to outfit an entire crew of magicians. Did Lord Dragon have apprentices? I found it unlikely, but stranger things had happened. There were quite a few low-powered magicians who had just enough power to know what they lacked, just enough power to make them useful to someone with low scruples and lower morals. I’d met a particularly nasty young man who’d been the brunt of his village’s jokes until he’d developed enough power to make them suffer. They’d stopped laughing when they’d realized how dangerous he’d become, but it had been too late. If Lord Dragon had an apprentice…

It didn’t look as though he did, I decided. There was no rhyme or reason to his layout, suggesting he lived and worked alone. Taking an apprentice would’ve forced him to adapt to the newcomer and lay out his supplies so anyone could use them. I shuddered as I saw the pair of charmed collars on the workbench, the spells emplaced and waiting for a victim. They felt worse, somehow, than the spells I’d seen earlier. If I put the collar on, it would be the end. And I felt a compulsion to do just that.

I ground my teeth, biting my lip to remain focused. The spell was a powerful compulsion. No doubt the slavers salved their consciences by telling themselves the slaves put the collars on willingly. Nonsense. The slaves weren’t remotely willing to go into slavery.

I picked up the first collar and fiddled with the spells, erasing the compulsion text while strengthening the identification charm. I had no idea what sort of security spells Lord Dragon had set up near his inner sanctum, but it should help keep me from being detected if the spells took me for one of the slaves.

I briefly considered walking out of the mansion and escaping into the woods, perhaps going for help, yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave Starlight behind. There was probably no one who would help. It wasn’t as if anyone in the magical community owed me enough favors to come save her, or do something about Lord Dragon.

The collar opened a handful of doors for me. I spotted a number of slaves—all naked girls—but none of them paid any attention to me. That puzzled me for a moment before I worked out that their collars recognized the collar I was carrying and thought I had every right to be there.

I wanted to tell the girls that I’d free them, and I intended to do so, but I dared not do anything to break cover. I didn’t think their collars could read their thoughts, yet it would be child’s play to program a slave to report any attempt to free them or confess to any plans they might have to free themselves. I didn’t think many of them would get so far. The collars would make sure of it.

I touched the blood link again and let it lead me up to the inner sanctum. Lord Dragon seemed to want to impress, although I had no idea who was visiting. The decor was unbelievably garish, glittering golden statues and artworks scattered everywhere. If there was any pattern, I couldn’t see it. It looked like one of the mansions built by the new rich, a place owned by a man who’d made it and feared he hadn’t, a man who showed off his wealth in a manner that also showed off his insecurities.

I leaned against the door, pressing my fingers against the wood, and feeling at the charms. The collar made it easier. It was literally impossible for one of his slaves to plot against him, so he hadn’t bothered to take any precautions against it. I picked up a piece of wood—let him think me a weak wand wizard if he wished—and infused a handful of spells into the stick, then kicked open the door. I triggered the charms at the same time, steering his magic into harmless spells that were astonishingly distracting. I didn’t care what happened to the magic as long as he wasn’t trying to use it on me.

Lord Dragon whirled around as I crashed into the room, moving with surprising speed for man of his bulk. I saw Starlight right behind him, standing against the far wall like a piece of wood. Her face was slack, utterly blank. I grimaced, then aimed the wand at Lord Dragon, unleashing a hail of spells. He shielded himself with an effort. I guessed he was far too used to drawing on the magic in the wood, the magic I’d channeled elsewhere. The sudden lack of power meant he had to focus his mind on me. I had to admit, despite being caught by surprise, he actually did a pretty good job.

I cast a shield to protect myself, then reached out through the blood link. My magic ran to Starlight and through the link from Starlight to her heart, which was linked directly to Lord Dragon’s magic. He had powerful wards protecting himself, but I was already inside his defenses. There was no time to be clever. I cast a spell that freed her from her trance, covering it with a transfiguration curse aimed at his brain. Turning half his gray matter into stone, even for a few microseconds, would be utterly lethal. He deflected the spell, somehow, and raised a hand to curse me—

His head exploded. Starlight had shot him in the back.

I didn’t hesitate. I dived forward, catching the gem before it hit the ground. The spells around the heart were somehow both complex and surprisingly simple, but I managed to follow their logic and reinforce them—and subvert them—before they collapsed completely. The heart pulsed with a steady thrum… her heartbeat. I held her heart in my hands and felt, for an instant, the utter power of life and death. I could do anything to her; I could make her say or do or believe anything…

“Here,” I said. I held out the gem to her. “I believe this is yours.”

Starlight sagged as she took the gem. I could guess what she was thinking. She could easily have traded one master for another. “I… I thank you.”

I gave her a considering look. “You were the girl who was kidnapped, weren’t you?”

Starlight looked embarrassed. “I thought I could take him. He was kidnapping young girls from the surrounding area and enslaving them, and… it had to be stopped.”

I understood. It was never easy to admit when you were outmatched, particularly when you grew up in an environment where you had to fight for each and every scrap of respect. Starlight couldn’t have backed down from the challenge, even though she’d known how dangerous her opponent could be. I had to admit, she’d found a unique way to escape captivity. She’d hired someone to rescue her, and done it in a manner that gave her plausible deniability if her master asked pointed questions.

A low shudder ran through the building. I swore and turned to flee. Starlight followed me, shouting orders to the stunned and disoriented former slaves as they struggled to collect themselves after a long period of enslavement. The entire building shuddered again, then started to collapse as the magic woven into the walls faded away. I hoped—prayed—that all the slaves managed to get out before it was too late.

Starlight and I barely made it out before the entire building collapsed into a pile of rubble. Something caught fire a second later, and the entire pile went up in flames. I couldn’t bring myself to care. Lord Dragon and all his works would be lost forever.

“So,” I said. “Is there actually any reward money?”

Starlight grinned. “Yes,” she said. “And more jobs, too, if you want them.”

I smiled. “Sure.”