"I was just about to get breakfast started," Ellie said. "Will three eggs be enough to fill a dragon-sized hole, do you think?”

"Hmm, make it four-and fry up some sausages and a dozen of those corncakes of yours while you're at it. I'm going to be working late again today." Sol bent to curl an arm around his wife's waist and kiss her until the tight clench of her jaw relaxed.

"Papa! Papa!" Heralded by the sound of clattering feet, Lillis and Lorelle tumbled downstairs, raced across the small home's main room, and leapt into their father's arms. Mink-brown curls hung in unbrushed tangles down the backs of the twins' matching white cotton nightgowns.

Sol hugged them both and bussed their soft cheeks. "Good morning, my sweet kitlings. Aren't you both the prettiest sight a papa could ever wake up to?" He set the twins back on their feet and smiled down at them. "Go put on your frocks, and have Mama brush your hair, then you two can help me set the table while Ellie cooks.”

"Yes, Papa," the girls chorused.

Ellysetta gave her father a grateful smile when Mama herded the twins back upstairs, thankful for the reprieve even though she knew this wasn't the end of her mother's interrogation.

Whatever had happened last night-whether a Mage had attacked her as Rain suspected, or a demon had possessed her as Mama feared-one thing she knew for certain: The Shadow Man, who'd haunted her dreams all her life, stalking her, calling her night after night as she slept, had finally found her. Who he was and what he wanted with her, she didn't know, but she couldn't shake the fear that the real danger was only just beginning and that things were about to get much, much worse.

A thousand miles to the north, hidden deep beneath the dark forested surface of Eld in the subterranean fortress of Boura Fell, the High Mage Vadim Maur, leader of the secretly reconstituted Mage Council, walked down a long, wide, sconce-lighted corridor.

Here, the raw, dark earth was richly veined with sel'dor, the black metal of Eld, one of the few elements capable of disrupting Fey magic. That earth had been carved to smoothness, the floors, walls, and ceilings of the corridors covered with sel'dor plating seven inches thick, then finished with mosaic tiles set in continuous, intricate patterns of power.

This was one of three levels in Boura Fell designed to house Vadim's most dangerous and magically gifted guests.

He stopped before one of the many sel'dor-clad doors, inserted a heavy black key into the lock, and whispered a Feraz witchspell. Magic rippled across the door. He turned the key in the lock and waited as the series of tumblers inside the door clicked open, retracting a dozen heavy sel'dor bars that penetrated two full handspans into the surrounding rock wall.

The door swung inward, and Vadim stepped into an impenetrable magical prison disguised as a noblewoman's luxurious bedroom. Furniture, delicate and beautiful, was arranged in comfortable groupings-a library filled with books in one corner, cushioned divans in another, and in the far corner of the room, a wide bed draped with swaths of brightly colored silk that hid the sel'dor manacles he rarely used anymore except when cruelty suited his mood. Beneath the outward beauty of the furnishings, every inch of wood, metal, paper, and cloth in the room was threaded with sel'dor.

A woman lay on the bed. She sat up as Vadim entered. Long, spiraling coils of flame-red hair tumbled down over slender shoulders and across the thin silk covering her br**sts. Large, heavily lashed golden eyes, the elongated pupils lengthening to catlike slits, regarded him without expression.

Despite the sel'dor infused in every item in the room, despite the ten sel'dor rings piercing her ears and the barbed manacles piercing her ankles and upper arms, even despite his own vast powers, Vadim could feel the draw of her magic tugging at him. She was enchantingly beautiful. Just the sight of her unveiled face could send kings to their knees, begging to do her bidding-and that even before she wove the first hint of her formidable magic.

He took a step towards her. She flinched and inched back before she caught herself.

As if to make up for that brief show of fear, her chin lifted. "You had a bad night, Mage?" Her eyes flicked contemptuously over the seared skin on the side of his face. Ellysetta Baristani's magic had proved so powerful last night that the burst of Fire she'd woven in her dreams had actually scorched him in the physical world.

"On the contrary, my dear, it was a very good night. Though I doubt you would agree." Vadim smiled. Coldly. The temperature in the room dove towards freezing. He took a step towards the woman, and his smile widened as her spurt of mocking defiance faded and her already pale face lost all color.

"Elfeya, my pet, you've been keeping secrets."

CHAPTER Two

At the guard barracks adjoining Celieria's royal palace, Rain found Belliard vel Jelani and the other warriors of Ellysetta's primary quintet still sleeping off the excesses of the previous night. They had not escaped Ellysetta's weave either, and the last Rain had seen of them, they’d been running for the brothel district.

Rain rousted them with a few well-aimed kicks.

"Tairen's scorching blood," Bel muttered. The leader of Ellysetta's primary quintet and Rain's oldest friend rolled to a sitting position and rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Rumpled black hair slid over his face and shoulders in tangles. Bleary cobalt-blue eyes blinked, then squinted against the light. "Be gentle, Rain. There's neither a bone nor a muscle in my entire body that doesn't ache.”