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Prologue

Gray Waters Lunatic Asylum, London Fall 1872

Whenever you have a sorcerer betwixt your thighs, your powers tend to disappear," Sabine told her sister as she scanned the faces of the frenzied, caged humans "It&039;s merely a fact of life"

"Maybe in the past," Lanthe said as she dropped the unconscious guard she&039;d been toting by his belt "Things are going to be different with this one" She busily tied thehis arms, which had the same result and didn&039;t waste rope "You still haven&039;t seen her?"

Her-the sorceress they careed to convey her powers to Lanthe in exchange for her freedom

Sabine slinked down the darkened corridor "I can&039;t tell when they huddle like this" She plucked a cell door off its hinges and tossed it away, her heels clicking as she entered the cage Up close, she could tell the inhab­itants all looked verymortal

Naturally, they cowered froarh she&039;d donned a mask, her eyes were kohled black in a swath from the sides of her nose to her temples

Her clothes were constructed more of strips of leather and chain metal than of cloth and thread She wore a th of her ar her hair&039;s riotous braids was her elaborate headdress

Typical garb of the Sorceri feh more than the wearer, then one was underdressed

By the ti the next cell down, Lanthe had finished with the knots "Any luck?"

Sabine tore free yet another cage door, peered at pale faces, then shook her head

"Do I have time to check the smaller cells in the basement?" Lanthe asked

"If we&039;re back at the portal in twenty ht" Their portal back to their hoh dank London streets

Lanthe blew a jet-black plait frouard and keep the freed inaze flitted over the unconscious male sprawled on the squalid floor, and her lip curled in dis­gust She could read the minds of humans, even when they were blacked out, and the contents of this one&039;s were giving even Sabine pause

"Very well But hurry with the transfer," Sabine said "Else we&039;ll attract our foe"

Lanthe&039;s blue eyes gazed upward out of habit "They could be here at any second" She hastened to the stair­well oncecycle: Steal a neer, flee ene Sorceri male, steal a neerSabine allowed it to continue

Because she&039;d ruined Lanthe&039;s innate ability

When her sister was gone, Sabine uard Very well"

Lifting the man by his collar and belt, she tossed hireild at the violence, howling, pulling their hair The ones who&039;d been eyeing the main exit scuttled back

Shush the huuard and stepped up onto his back, opening her arms wide "Gather round, mad human persons Gather! And I, a sorceress of dark and terrible powers, will reward you with a story"

So curiosity, soood, quiet pets, I&039;ll even show you a tale" The cries and yells she&039;d ignited were ebbing "So sit, sit Yes, come sit before e You, there, sit"

Once they&039;d all gathered before her, she crouched on the guard&039;s back She gave the up her skirt to fiddle with her garters, then adjusting her custo, you have two choices You can hear the story of awith horns and eyes as black as obsidian In ages past he was so honest and upstanding that he lost his crown to cun­ning evil Or, we have the story of Sabine, an innocent young girl as forever getting murdered" Who would one day be that deirl, please," one resident whispered His face was indistinguishable through the curtain of his matted hair

"An excellent choice, Hirsute Mortal" In a draan, "Our tale features the intrepid hero­ine, Sabine, the Queen of Illusions-"

"Where&039;s Illusions?" a young wo her own forear to be narrative inter­rupters "It&039;s not a place A &039;queen&039; is someone who is better at a particular mystickal skill than anyone else"

Sabine could cast chiuish­able fro that could be seen, heard, or i&039;s htmares No one was her equal

"Now the ridiculously beautiful and clever Sabine had just turned twelve, and she adored her soon-to-grow light-skirted sister, Melanthe, aged nine Sabine had loved little Lanthe with her whole heart since the first tiirl had cried for her Ai-bee&039; over their ownand forgotten race Not very exciting story fodder, you ht think Compared to a vampire or even a Valkyrie," she sniffed "Ah, but listen on and see"

She raised her hand to weave an illusion, drawing froy of the inht beyond the asyluainst her opened palm, a scene was projected onto the wall beside her Gasps sounded, a few stray whi Sabine died was on an eve much like this, in a decrepit structure that trembled from thunder Only instead of a rat-infested asyluh in the Alps The dead of winter was upon the land"

The next scene she cast showed Sabine and Lanthe hastening down a owns and coats Even as they rushed, they hunched their heads at each new batting of wings outside Lanthe silently cried

"Sabine was filled with anger at herself for not listen­ing to her instinct and taking Melanthe away froer they attracted with their for­bidden sorcery But Sabine had been reluctant because the two girls-though born of iifted with poere still children, which meant they could be killed and wounded as easily asYet now Sabine had no choice but to leave She sensed her parents were already dead, and suspected the killers were loose somewhere in the shadowy abbey The Vrekeners had come for them-"

"What&039;s a Vrekener?"

Sabine inhaled deeply as she gazed at the ceiling Mustn&039;t ers of old, de race as well But since htered evil Sorceri wherever they could find the Sabine&039;s family for all of her life For no other reason than because her parents were indeed quite evil"

With a flick of her hand, Sabine changed the scene, showing the two girls stu flashing through soaring stained glass s, they saw the bodies of their par­ents, curled together in sleep

The headless bodies, freshly decapitated

In the iled scream, Lanthe collapsed

Another illusion showed Vrekeners e from the shadows of the chaed not of hostly wings appeared, and the double rows of horns on their heads glea that she had to crane her neck up to meet eyes across the rooer even than Sabine His gaze was transfixed on little Lanthe, curled unconscious on the floor-one of the adults had to hold him back frorew clearer to her This band of Vrekeners hadn&039;t stalked them only for punitive reasons

"The leader tried to convince Sabine to come peace­ably with them," she told her audience "That he would

put the sisters upon the path of goodness But Sabine knehat the Vrekeners did to Sorceri girl children, and it was a fate worse than death So she fought the it play to the end

Her entire body shook as she began to weave her spells around her enemies She made the Vrekener soldiers believe they were trapped in a cavern, ensnared underground where they couldn&039;t fly-their worst fear

For the leader, she held up her palesture of supplication directed to his htmares, which she then offered up in a display before hi him to relive whatever would hurt him most

These scenes made him sink to his knees, and when he dropped his scythe to claw at his eyes, she snatched his weapon fro it

Hot blood sprayed across her face as his head tuown over her eyes, she saw that her illusions were fading, the Vrekeners able to see where they truly were once more Lanthe had woken and screamed for Sabine ; to watch out

Then timestopped

Or seemed to Sounds di at Sabine, at the blood arcing froular as she collapsed One of these males had slashed her throat from behind, and all the world went red

"Abie?" Lanthe shrieked, charging for her, dropping to her knees beside her "No, no, no, Abie, don&039;t die, don&039;t die, don&039;t die!" The air around them heated and blurred

Whereas Sabine had her illusions, Lanthe&039;s innate sorcery was called persuasion She could order any being to do as she pleased, but she rarely gave coedy

Yet when the litter, sparkling like metal The terrible power she&039;d feared to use she noielded over theht each other to the death"

The roo all around thelass s shattered Lanthe told the boy to jus on the way down Eyes ith confusion, he obeyed, the thick glass slashing over his skin He never yelled as he plummeted to the valley floor

When all were killed, Lanthe knelt beside Abie again

"Live, Abie! Heal!" Gods, Lanthe was pushing, trying to coer beat Her eyes were blank with death

"Don&039;t leaveharder, harderThe furniture began to shake, their parents&039; bed rattling More shiftinga thud as a head rolled to the floor Then a second one

The poas uni itself She blinked open her eyes, alive and even stronger than before

"They ran from that place, out into the world, and never looked back," she told her enthralled audience "All that Sabine would have froht was the scar around her neck, a tale to tell, and the blood ven­detta of a Vrekener boy who&039;d soht, Sabine absently realized that the guard had awakened and was squir under her boot heels She reached down and snapped his neck before she got so caught up with the story that she forgot to doit

One wolee Another breathed, "God bless &039;n keep you, ent of fate for these people on this eve Not an agent for good, nor for bad Just serving fate-which could be either

After all, the next guard hired ht be worse to them

"What about the second time she died?" a brazen female asked Her head was shaved bald

"She was fighting to defend Melanthe and herself from yet another Vrekener attack They captured Sabine, then flew her to a height, dropping her to a cobblestone street Yet her sister was there once more to heal her broken body, to snatch her from the arms of death"

As if it had happened yesterday, Sabine could still recall the sound of her skull cracking That one had been so close

"The third tiirl couldn&039;t swim, and she drowned-"

"Then take it, you bitch!" a wo the flow of the story onceto

Lanthe

Sabine&039;s skin prickled as the air began to sizzle with power The sorceress jailed downstairs was surrendering her root ability Lanthe would be able to talk telepathi-cally to whomever she addressed, within a certain dis-tance

"No, don&039;t fret," Sabine told her antsy humans "Have you read any of the halfpenny novels, the ones with bank robberies? That&039;s allso equivalent"-she made her voice draan crying, which pleased Sabine because it reminded her why she so rarely took humans as pets

"Who killed her the next time?" Brazen Mortal asked "Vrekeners?"

"No It was other Sorceri bent on stealing her goddesslike power They poisoned her" The Sorceri so adore their poisons, she thought bitterly But then she frowned at the irl&039;s ed in fire, she was made sharp and deadly froan to covet life as no other before her Whenever she felt hers was in danger, a h her, the need to lash out undeniable"

When some of their eyes widened, Sabine realized her pensiveness had made the cell appear to be choked with ly displayed illusions that

As she swiftly cleared the air, another patient said, "Good ?"

"The sisters just wanted to survive, to be left alone, to ah just a bit of sorcery Was that too ave them an "hon­estly ?&039; look

"But the Vrekeners were unrelenting, tracking theirls&039; sorcery Especially the boy Because he hadn&039;t reached his ienerate He&039;d been broken, scarred and deformed from his injuries forever"

They&039;d since learned his name was Thronos and that he was the son of the Vrekener Sabine had beheaded all those years ago "Without the use of sorcery, the girls wer-e starving Sabine was now sixteen and old enough to begin doing what any girl like her would"

Brazen Mortal crossed her arly said, "Prostitution"

"Wrong Co"

"Really?"

"Noooo," Sabine said "Fortune-telling Which pro a witch"

She fingered the white streak in her red hair, the one she hid from others with an illusion "They didn&039;t always burn witches at stakes That&039;s a fallacy No, soe had burned its quota, so they killed secretly, burying a group alive" Her tone grew soft "Can you iirl to breathe earth? To feel it coazed over her silent audience Their eyes had gone wide-she could hear a pin drop

"The humans expired quickly, but not so for Sabine," she continued "The girl withstood the reaper&039;s call for as long as she could, but felt herself fading Yet then she heard a ringing voice frorave So Sabine ainst others&039; dead flesh, blindly stretching, desperate for another inch closer to the surface"

From behind them, Lanthe&039;s voice intoned, "At last, Sabine&039;s hand shot up froround, pale and clenched Finally, Melanthe could find her sister As she hauled Sabine out of her grave, lightning struck all around and hail pelted thery to lose her catch Since that fateful night, Sabine doesn&039;t care about anything"

Sabine sighed "It&039;s not true that she doesn&039;t care about anything She cares about nothing verya metallic blue fro, Sabine," she said, laying the words directly into Sabine&039;sTry to retain it" Gods, she was relieved to see Lanthe acquire another power Her sister&039;s persuasion had been exhausted keep­ing Sabine alive

It seemed that all those deaths hadLanthe-in both ability and resilience

"That sorceress also had the power to talk to ani for your birthday!"

"Oh, bully" One of the least sought powers of all Sorceri The proble with ani­h within earshot to be helpful "I can only hope a plague of locusts isabout when 1 need them" To her audience, Sabine said, "We&039;re finished here"

The long-haired male asked, "Wait, what happened after that burial?"

"Things got much, much worse," Sabine said dis fe so much?"

Sabine dryly answered, "They met Omort the Death­less He was a sorcerer who could never know death&039;s