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"Who’s Jason Haley?" Leesha interrupted "I never heard of hi a folder from a pile He pulled out a color print, returned, and handed it to Leesha "Dev didn’t have any trouble identifying him from our database of rebels and troublemakers"

To Leesha’s surprise, Jason Haley looked to be a boy about her age, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, with brilliant blue eyes and a sardonic grin

"He shouldn’t present any difficulty for soather, he’s a ed to sneak in here and steal so out from under your nose"

D’Orsay nodded "True And he’s also the boy who teamed up with McCauley in the attack at Second Sister He’s aligned with the riffraff in Trinity"

"Riffraff like…Leander…Hastings…and Nicodemus Snowbeard? Them, I’ve heard of I’d rather not cross paths with theain" Oh, God, no Her forh School parking lot

"That’s the field we’re playing on, one to Trinity?"

"I suspect so"

Too many people knew her in Trinity "What did Haley take?"

Devereaux opened his mouth as if to speak, but D’Orsay cut in "We believe it’s a sefa stone of so center Useless on its oe believe, but, soed

That wouldn’t be easy to find, even in Trinity, Leesha thought glumly

"So," D’Orsay said cheerfully "Send Barber after Jason Haley Perhaps they’ll kill each other and you can collect the stone Meanwhile, do keep in touch about Barber’s whereabouts and we’ll look for an opportunity to eliain?" D’Orsay asked

"That depends Are you going to sign this or not?" Leesha said crossly "I have to take so everyone’s servant

D’Orsay crossed to his desk, found a pen in the drawer, and signed the paperith a flourish, scribbling an addenduins He handed it to Leesha "I’ll have your driver bring the car round for you, then I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship Assu back Jason Haley and the Covenant, we’ll be seeing one, Dev crossed to the shelf next to the fireplace and lifted down the book Haley had dropped in the snow, struggling a little with the weight of it Dev sat down on the hearth and began leafing through They’d both read it two or three tian to read aloud, his blond head still bent over the book "I will bury the Dragonheart stone in the mountain with such protections as I can lend it, in the hope that chance will put it into the possession of one with the heart and desire to release its full power That person will seize control of the gifts that have been given That person will once again reign over the guilds Or destroy them, as they deserve"

He looked up at D’Orsay "So you think Haley took the Dragonheart"

"I think he must have, Dev" D’Orsay felt positively betrayed If Haley found this thing called the Dragonheart in the ghyll, where did he find it? And how did he find it so fast? These were D’Orsay’s ancestral lands, after all They’d been in his faon’s Ghyll If there were ed to him and his heirs

Dev set the heavy book aside, stood, and paced restlessly back and forth "I should have stopped hiet away"

"Dev He’s a vicious street hoodlum Just look what he did to your face"

It was true Jason Haley was little more than an underpowered punk with a talent for illusion, but he and Hastings and McCauley had already brought down a conspiracy that had been years in the

The scene at Second Sister played over in D’Orsay’s head, like the ever-repeating trailer of a bad film He blocked the scenes, picked over and tallied the players on screen

He and Leicester had engineered a uilds and the Wizard Council on the island of Second Sister Leicester’s slave wizards iuilds and the council to sign D’Orsay’s Covenant, na to plan

Haley and McCauleyHaley’s fake dragon appeared, a thirty-foot-tall glamour that dazzled and distracted all the wizards in the hall while McCauley opened fire against Leicester Leicester lured McCauley into the open And then, soirl with the singular name of Madison Moss How she’d come to be at Second Sister, D’Orsay had no idea When Leicester flairl stepped in front and took the hit Leicester went down, his wizard slaves with hiirl? She was not fronized her He’d searched the online genealogies, his agents had inquired As far as they could tell, she was a nobody

Pausing at the hearth, D’Orsay gripped the poker with its e dissolved to ash and sparks fleard

Devereaux spoke, startling him out of his reverie "I don’t understand why you’re dealing with them, Father Barber sounds like a coonheart"