Just before the valet reached the fireplace, he stopped in his tracks and stood there, motionless. "Brom?" Lord Sebourne stared at the valet. "What's the matter with you, man?"

Before he could say another word, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of something moving to his right. A man. "Ah, come to release me, have you? It's about time." He turned to face the prison master of Old Castle.

But the man who stepped out into the center of the room was not the prison master. A long-bound corner of Lord Sebourne's mind cracked open and spilled a lifetime of suppressed memories into his consciousness. Suddenly Brom's unnatural stillness made perfect sense. Lord Sebourne himself froze as at last he realized it was no draft from the window that had chilled him to his soul.

Lord Bolor—or rather the Elden Mage passing himself off as Lord Bolor—moved towards Great Lord Sebourne with surprising speed. He caught the Great Lord and clamped a hand around his throat before Sebourne could do more than take two steps back and open his mouth in a silent cry.

"Who are you?" Sebourne croaked against the tight hold. "What do you want?"

The Mage leaned close, a cruel curve tilting up one corner of his mouth. "You know who I am—or rather what I am— and you know why I've come. It's time to pay your family's debts, Great Lord Sebourne. Your masters in Eld require your service.”

In a narrow alley across from Old Castle Prison, Gaspare Fellows pulled his gray woolen coat close against the morning chill and waited for Lord Bolor to reemerge from within the prison's old stone walls. His breath made little puffs of fog before his face, and he stepped deeper into the shadows to hide the telltale sign from any observer.

What business, he wondered, could Lord Bolor possibly have in Old Castle Prison so early in the morning?

After Lady Ellysetta had taken Gaspare into her confidence to share her concern that Elden Mages were at work in Celieria City, he had begun looking for suspicious activity. His powers of observation were, in all modesty, considerable — honed by years of noting the smallest details of dress and etiquette exhibited by Celieria's nobles.

So last night, when he'd interrupted Lady Montevero and Lord Bolor in the parlor outside the queen's suites, their behavior had caught his interest. There was something not quite right about the way Lord Bolor and Lady Montevero acted when they were together. Lady Montevero had made a point of squiring the new Lord Bolor about the court, so Gaspare had naturally assumed there was some sort of friendship or other intimacy between them. And at first glance, their meeting in the parlor last night had appeared to be an ordinary romantic tryst. That was until Gaspare glimpsed the fear and loathing in Lady Montevero's lovely blue eyes before she masked her feelings behind a sun-bright smile.

Whatever Lord Bolor was to Lady Montevero, he was neither friend nor lover. On that, Gaspare would wager every last one of his finest silk waistcoats.

Love's reaction to Lord Bolor had only increased Gaspare's suspicions. The kitten didn't like Lord Bolor at all— and never had. She reacted to his presence exactly the way Lady Ellysetta said she reacted to magical weaves.

Of course, a kitten's dislike and a look in a courtier's eyes weren't reason enough for Gaspare to take his suspicions to the king. No untitled man—not even one elevated to the position of Queen's Master of Graces — accused a Lord of Celieria of being an agent of Eld without some sort of proof.

So Gaspare had decided to investigate.

He paid a trusted servant to alert him as to Lord Bolor's movements in the palace, and when word came before sunrise that the lord had departed the palace, Gaspare followed.

"Mrrow." The testy complaint rumbled from beneath his greatcoat.

"Quiet, Love." Gaspare unbuttoned the top buttons of his coat so the kitten could poke out her head and look around. "Now be still!"

Luckily, whatever business Lord Bolor had in Old Castle Prison was soon concluded. The lord emerged from the ancient stone fortress, paused outside the doors just long enough to sweep a cautious gaze up and down the main street, then pulled up the collar of his cloak and walked briskly south, towards the river.

"Time to go. Love. Back in you get." Gaspare hid the kitten again, refastened the buttons up to his neck, and tugged down the brim of his black hat to hide his face. He hurried into the thoroughfare in pursuit of the nobleman, careful to keep a distance between them so Lord Bolor would not suspect he was being followed.

Lady Talisa Barrial DiSebourne closed the book of poetry and set it on the cushioned seat beside her. She tilted her head back and pressed her cheek to the cold windowpane of the small reading alcove in her father's library.

If only she could have heeded the poet Lady Denna's advice, but it was too late for her. Those eternal golden chains had trapped her long ago, binding her heart, her love, her very soul to the Fey warrior she'd dreamed of her whole life.

She'd waited for him until the day of her twenty-fifth birthday. Had she remained unwed a single day more, she would have brought the shame of spinsterhood to her family. Society would have looked at her and wondered what evil curse had kept any good man from offering the honor of his hand in marriage. Her brothers would have found it difficult to find wives of their own. And so she had wed.

And then, when it was too late, he had come. Adrial vel Arquinas. The man from her dreams. A Fey warrior of such breathtaking beauty and fierceness and gentleness that everything within her, every fiber of her being, had known from the instant she'd first laid eyes upon him that he was the purpose of her existence, the soul she'd been born to make whole.