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Drawing a clean clout up her legs, she frowned at that. Mustn’t let new vipers into their cozy little pit …

She smiled wryly and started thinking up grand tales of secret messages from the palace she’d be bringing him. She’d be … a highknight. Yes, she’d have to be.

“The words I bear are for the ears of Lord Arclath Argustagus Delcastle alone,” she murmured to her mirror, keeping her face as calm as stone. “They are … royal words.”

That sounded good. Almost good enough to get her in.

She grimaced and reached up to fetch the knives she strapped all over herself when being the Silent Shadow.

She had a gods-strong feeling she would be needing them.

“Behold,” Elminster muttered to himself, “in what minstrels are pleased to call ‘the dead of night,’ one Elminster of Shadowdale returns to his chosen abode and battlefield, by one of the few ways he feels able enough to use about now.”

The night-lass he’d just enriched by two golden lions glided to a graceful stop in front of the two duty guards, smiled as she calmly pulled open her bodice, and announced, “Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake has just lost a bet, and by way of forfeit, has paid me well to entertain you two loyal Dragons.”

“Stand back, lass,” the older guard replied sternly, peering warily past her into the night. “We’re under strict orders to let no one pass, not stray from our posts, and keep all who have weapons a safe reach away from us.”

The night-lass stepped back meekly and undid her gown.

“These are the only weapons I have,” she told them slyly, gesturing down at herself.

The younger guard growled wordlessly, stepped away from the door they were guarding, and reached for her.

“I’ll stand watch,” his older comrade growled quickly. “Be quick.”

His resolve lasted long enough for Elminster to begin to think his coins hadn’t bought him passage after all, but the night-lass knew her work. One of her hands had been beckoning the older Dragon all the while, until eventually he growled and strode eagerly forward.

Wherefore Elminster stepped away from the bit of the wall he’d been pretending to be a part of for a very long time, and slipped through the door unnoticed, without a sound or any undue haste.

By the time the younger guard decided it would be prudent to at least look up from the lass—whose name he very much desired to know, for future occasions—and peer around to make sure the street was empty of a patrol or a noble’s coach or two or perhaps a small approaching army, Elminster was several secret passages deep into the palace and descending some old, damp, seldom-used stairs.

He had magic to plunder, a hiding place to find, and a kingdom to save. In short, the usual …

Amarune drew in a deep breath, pulled her cloak more snugly around her—the moon was up, but the night had turned cold—and firmly clacked the knocker of the porter’s door beside the gates of Delcastle Manor. Slowly and deliberately, thrice.

Almost immediately, she heard a soft, sliding sound, as if a plate on the other side of the door had been slid aside to let someone peer at her. In the shadowed gloom, she couldn’t see any change in the door, but someone was there, watching and listening. There was movement behind the high, many-barred gates, too; guards, no doubt, taking up and aiming ready crossbows.

Silence stretched. She worked the knocker again.

This time, the response was a rattle of chain and a louder sliding. A square of heavy, double-layered grille revealed itself in the door at about eye level, a pair of steady eyes regarding her from behind it.

“Delcastle Manor,” their owner murmured. “Your business?”

“I’ve come at the invitation of Lord Arclath Delcastle,” Amarune replied carefully, knowing well what might be assumed about a woman walking alone and cloaked by night, and trying to sound polite, refined, and formal, “to speak with him. I am aware of the hour.”

“I am sorry,” the porter replied, sounding as if he really was, “but the Lord Delcastle is not now at home. Perhaps