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He turned away from her and with the last decisive action of his life, Moula ran Kithri through, driving his blade straight down into the gravel.

Biri-Daar, a split second later, struck off Moula’s head. At that exact moment, Obek and Remy hacked the unlife from the Road-builder’s body.

A split second after that, the necrotic orb fell among them and detonated in a soundless explosion that was the most violent thing Remy had ever felt.

The vines died and their creator was flung back through the greenhouse wall in a shower of glass. Lucan and Biri-Daar collapsed, and Remy toppled over backward with the bones of the Road-builder falling around him. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t breathe. His heart skipped, stopped, then raced. Obek was driven to his knees, eyes squeezed shut against the terror that necromancy held for the renegade tiefling.

And Kithri spun away, still impaled by Moula’s sword, her body turning over and over as it fell past the Keep’s outer walls up into the sky. The last thing Remy saw was Keverel reaching vainly after her.

Consciousness slowly returned. Paelias came out of the greenhouse, bleeding from a number of superficial cuts. Lucan, looking out over the parapet, wept. Obek poked through the Road-builder’s remains with the point of his sword while Biri-Daar and Keverel headed straight for the stone structure at the end of the greenhouse. “Everyone up,” Biri-Daar commanded. “We have yet to finish this.”

“Finish this?” Obek said. “What’s to finish? The Road-builder is dead. The dragonborn is dead. Let’s get the quill and head for Karga Kul.”

“Phylactery,” Keverel said.

Paelias nodded. “Any guess about what it might look like?”

“No.” Keverel shook his head. “Often they are boxes with small slips of paper in them. But they can be anything. I will be able to tell if we find it.”

“Who cares if we find it?” Obek said. Remy had been about to ask the same thing. They followed Keverel through the greenhouse and into the Road-builder’s study, a shadowed space littered with stacks of drawings and plans, bound books and strange instruments. A single small window looked out in the direction of the keyhole, which hung like a star formation in the earthen sky.

“If we don’t find the phylactery, the Road-builder will reappear. Could be now, could be in a few days or a week. No way to tell. But I’d like to make sure that he doesn’t come back at all.” Keverel started searching, digging through the furnishings in the Road-builder’s study, picking up speed as he went. At first he looked carefully; then he began to tear the study apart. Ancient scrolls and sheaves of vellum spun to the floor, along with surveying instruments, bound books, delicate scale models of bridges, retaining walls, even the Keep itself.

“What would it look like?” Remy asked, several times, trying to get the cleric’s attention.

Keverel swept clear the top of a drafting table, splattering ink across the maps and plans he had already flung down. He stood, shaking, a cut-glass paperweight held in his hand as if it was a rock he could brain an enemy with.

“Stop,” Remy said. “It won’t bring Kithri back.” He caught the cleric’s arm. Keverel dropped the paperweight. It rolled across the floor as the keep rocked in a tremor, perhaps an echo of its keeper’s death.

Keverel looked at Remy. Then he looked down. “Your box,” he said. “The seals are broken.”

“How do you—” Remy looked down too and saw gelid light spilling upward from the pouch where he kept the box.

“The Road-builder’s death,” Keverel said. “Or the second orb. Perhaps a combination of both. The discharge of magic broke the seals.”

“Catastrophe,” Lucan said. “We were hunted before. Now we will be hunted, and all of the hunters will know where we are.” He looked around as if expecting demons to rise from the stones of the Road-builder’s garden. “The Road-builder knew of Philomen. One wonders if the vizier himself might be waiting for us when we return to the shores of the river.”

Lucan’s anxiety infected Remy, whose