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Of course the guards let Leander through—though he had beenhe was certainly not banished, and they took Aerie for a plaything he had brought home It was sih the upper rooreat brass locks Suddenly, the Prince stopped

“Wait,” he whispered, and disappeared behind one of the heavy doors It was his own bedrooh he had never seen it before He was not the man who had slept here; what he knew could not live in these velvet walls He shook his head, trying to hold to his purpose

“It is the function,” he told himself silently, “of a Prince to kill monsters If the derivative of a Prince is set to zero, the kingdom survives”

He straightened his spine and opened the carved teak table beside his brocade bed He had what he had co silver knife with a curving handle of bone It shone noith a pure light; it gli He had taken it as a child for a toy, froers and stilettos in the vaults It had called to him, and in the blade he felt uneasily that he had no choice in the story of this night, that he had strained towards it all his life, and never of his oill

“Co to take on the panting sheen of the hunt, “ill go to the Wizard first”

They slipped through the door that led into the Wizard’s quarters—easily picked, easily entered It should not be so easy, he thought Killing should be hard and horrible work, not like this, less effort than draater fro and blood and cries But there was no sound save the heavy breathing of Aerie behind her brother She saw the knife glinting at his belt and had already resolved to steal it She could wait

The Wizard O white furs, his lips still full and fire swiftly as a knife slides through ribs Leander had seen this man nearly every day of his life, but now he sa deep the lines and wrinkles ran, how terrible the sores were that strange, hidden experiments had inflicted on his flesh He re him, and he remembered the tale his mother told him, how Oht as baiting a hook He reached for the knife, certain that he could do the deed

But the blade was gone

Aerie sat perched on one of the high tables with its gnarled wood She breathed in long, sighing gasps, and in her pale fist was the bone-handled knife She must have known it frorandmother’s blade It ether, knife and woman, and Leander could not stand before them

With a soft cry, noits flock in the distance, she fell on the sleeping for the knife into him The old man opened his rheu, skin flushed with fury and triu to kiss his rasping lips, and whispered sinuously in his withered ear:

“Death has found you”

Oht in her skull

“I knew!” he breathed, choking as she twisted the knife in him “I knew she could do it! The Witch, she lied, but I knew!”

Slowly, Aerie touched his face, gently, like a child Her nails parted his flesh easily, as though it ater She put her fingers to her reedily at his blood

“Slave,” she hissed, “always a slave, whispering in the dark, stealing what isn’t yours”