Coughing, she rubbed her throat as she stared up at his towering figure. The angles of his face and hands seemed strange and wrong, his fingers tipped with talons and his mouth distorted with fangs.

She had heard of such a thing, but she had only witnessed it from a distance. When they were under extreme duress, sometimes Wyr shapeshifted partially.

Even as she stared, he bared his fangs at Malphas and roared. The sound blasted through the house and shook the floorboards. She felt it vibrate in her chest.

It sounded like a lion’s roar, but it was more than mere physical sound. As he roared, his Power boiled out from him in a raw blast toward the Djinn sitting in the armchair. Malphas’s figure dissipated under the force of it.

This confrontation had dissolved into catastrophe so fast, it sent her reeling. Flipping over to her hands and knees, she pulled into a crouch at Graydon’s feet. Across the room, she saw Ferion do the same.

His expression was filled with the same look of horror she felt twist across her own face. He said telepathically, I would never – I could never —

I know, she told him.

The Djinn’s energy coalesced in the doorway leading to the front hall.

“Now you begin to understand,” Malphas said. “But not, I think, fully enough. Ferion, stop breathing.”

Slumping back against the wall, Ferion’s gaze met hers. His shoulders hunched and his face darkened, as his body struggled.

In a complete panic, she sprang across the room. He clawed at his own neck. She flung her arms around him as she frantically searched for some way to help him. She could find nothing, nothing.

Nothing except an odd frisson buried deep in his body. To her mind’s eye, it felt like a darkened smear across the brightness of his soul.

Graydon roared at Malphas, “Release your hold on him!”

I love you, Ferion said in her head. His eyes reddened as blood vessels burst in the whites.

If she could strike a blow at the Djinn, she would, with all the terrified fury raging in her heart. But while she could fight very well in a physical battle, at his essence, Malphas was not a physical creature. She was considered one of the most Powerful of her kind, but most often, Elven Power was connected to the elements of the earth.

Her Power connected her to wild, living things. It was the kind that ran slow and deep, and took years to build. By working with natural forces like vines, trees and other foliage, given enough time, she could destroy a city. She had an array of other specific spells, like misdirection and cloaking, but she had no real Power to use against a creature of spirit.

The only weapons she had of worth in any conflict against the Djinn were things like connections and political influence. Those, too, were weapons that could be wielded very effectively, but only over time.

In that moment, though, there was only one thing she could think to do that might work quickly enough to save Ferion’s life.

“You want begging.” She didn’t even recognize her own voice. “Fine, I’m begging you. Please stop this. Do you need to see me on my hands and knees? Look, I’m already here.”

Cold satisfaction settled into Malphas’s face. He said to Ferion, “Breathe.”

Instantly, Ferion’s body arched as he sucked in a huge breath of air. Wheezing, he closed his arms around her.

Graydon strode across the room to stand protectively over them. Staring at the Djinn with open hatred, he snarled, “You’ve made a massive mistake.”

“Have I?” said Malphas. He strolled into the room. “Pray tell, how did I do that? Did I force Ferion to come into my establishment to gamble? Did I make him accrue the kind of debt that he cannot repay?” He looked down at her son. “Ferion, did I compel you to ride out here to take part in a game? Answer.”

As she stared down into her son’s face, shame darkened his features. He kept his gaze downcast as he whispered, “No.”

“There you have it.” The Djinn shrugged. “By making a series of choices – not just one – he created a situation where he cannot keep his side of a bargain. I might be a pariah, but that single fact adheres to the very heart of Djinn culture. By Djinn law, I am well within my rights to force a satisfactory conclusion to the bargain by taking some kind of recompense.”

“You preyed on him,” she said hoarsely. “He’s a good man with a bad weakness, but instead of recognizing that, you gave him credit to continue to gamble, when you knew he couldn’t pay.”

“Irrelevant,” Malphas told her. “At any point, he could have said no and walked away, paid his debt and been done with the exchange. Now I’ve called in my markers, his debt has come due, and he cannot pay it.”

The situation had gone so far beyond disastrous, implications reverberated in her mind. Malphas knew about her and Graydon. Of all the creatures to discover them, he was the one who actively wished them harm. And Ferion had accrued a debt so significant, Calondir was sure to hear of it. Life as she knew it began to crumble around her ears.

Maybe I can still fix this, she thought. If it’s more than I can pay, I might be able to borrow money in secret. I have friends who might help.

“How much does he owe?” She looked down at Ferion. “How much debt are you in?”

Pushing out of her arms, he sat, moving quite unlike himself, as if he were an aged, frail human. While he was breathing easily again, his face remained gray, his eyes despairing.

He said, “Too much.”

“I believe you still misunderstand,” Malphas said. “You can’t pay his debt for him. Only Ferion can keep his side of the bargain – and he’s done so the only way he can, with the one thing he owns that is of any worth to me. I’ve placed a lien on his soul.”

NINE

“W

hat do you mean, you’ve placed ‘a lien on his soul’?” Graydon repeated.