Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(57)

Arxis rolled his eyes. “Ileni’s not big on courtesy.”

“I know. It’s one of the things I like about her.”

“How nice for both of you,” Arxis said. “Before this becomes predictable, I propose we find out if Evin can use this spell to get us out of here.”

“You don’t know?” Ileni said.

“I’m almost sure I can do it,” Evin said. “There’s no way to know for certain until I try.”

“He’s almost sure,” Arxis said. “My certainty is at a far lower level than almost.”

Ileni looked away from Evin, which was a relief, to focus on Arxis. “Then why did you come and risk being trapped here?”

“The confidence you both have in me is truly inspiring,” Evin said. His habitual half-smile was back, his eyes light and dancing. “If you would be quiet a moment and let me concentrate, I’ll do my best to exceed it.”

Before Ileni could apologize, Evin held out a large silver key and focused on it.

He clearly didn’t need to concentrate too hard. He lowered his hands, and the key floated in midair before him, ordinary looking but humming with power. Evin murmured a single word, then released that power with a casual motion of his hand.

Ileni felt the spell unleash, a sizzle that shot through her body from scalp to toe, making the world dissolve into chaotic fragments. Then her feet hit solid ground, and she lurched forward, hitting her hip on the corner of a desk that hadn’t been there a moment ago. When she reached out blindly to break her fall, her hand knocked over a stack of papers. They flew sideways and scattered, a frantic flutter of white sliding across the stone floor.

“Don’t vomit!” Evin said. “We can’t leave any sign we were here.”

The warning was just in time. Ileni clamped her lips shut. She fought her instincts, kept her mouth closed, and—with a whimper of revulsion—swallowed. The bile burned its way down her throat.

“A little late for that, don’t you think?” Arxis said as the last paper fluttered against the far wall.

“We can clean that up,” Evin said. “Karyn is disorganized. If they’re out of order, she’ll assume it was her fault.”

That didn’t sound like Karyn, but Ileni was in no state to argue. Her mouth hurt. Power tingled in the air, tantalizingly distant, and she reached for it and drew it in. Karyn’s office must be just close enough to the testing arena. She could use magic to . . .

No. She stopped herself. Not this magic. Never again.

But she remembered the helplessness of falling through the air, of lying trapped in the dark, and she didn’t let the magic go.

They were in a square, windowless chamber, its white rock walls lined with an assortment of bookcases, boxes, and large statuelike objects whose purpose Ileni couldn’t begin to guess at. Boxes and papers and food-stained bowls were piled around the walls and filled much of the floor space.

“I’m sorry,” Evin said. “Transportation is exhausting, even for me. I should have made it smoother.”

Ileni swallowed hard before attempting to speak. Her mouth tasted foul. “Since your transportation spell also saved my life, I’ll forgive you.”

He grinned, which sent a surge of unexpected gladness through her. “I assume that comes with an offer to help clean up? We have some time, but not much—Karyn is in the city fixing the sandstorm shields.”

Arxis was already collecting and stacking papers, with the same efficiency assassins used to spar—or kill. Evin joined him, slow and lumberish by comparison. A zigzag pattern of glowstones near the ceiling lit the chamber brightly. High on one of the walls, across from Karyn’s desk, hung a large parchment map.

Aware that it was rude not to help clean up, Ileni walked to the map. There were no words on it, and she couldn’t tell what the symbols meant, but she could see that it covered a vast territory. The Empire?

She lifted a hand toward the map, then snatched it away when the parchment’s surface shimmered and changed. Another map, filled with curving lines and angles that seemed oddly familiar, covered the parchment.

The sudden stillness made her aware that the cleaning had stopped. She wasn’t surprised when Arxis stepped up beside her. But there was something so predatory about his movement—as if he had dropped his mask—that only her fascination with the map kept her from stepping away from him.

“What is this?” Arxis asked. His voice was light and nonchalant, at odds with his grim expression.

“I don’t know.” Evin, still behind them, couldn’t see the fierceness in Arxis’s eyes. He sounded as casual as the assassin was pretending to be. “The first map is the Empire, of course. This one shows whatever specific area Karyn’s been looking at most recently.”

Of course. Those curves, those lines—they were familiar to Ileni because she had memorized them, once.

It was a map of the Assassins’ Caves.

Karyn had mapped them when she was there. And now she was using what she knew to plan an assault.

This map was of the inside of the caves, not the mountains around them. Karyn must have gotten farther into the caves than anyone had realized, back when she had been posing as a trader.

But Sorin knew about the river entrance now, which meant he would be guarding it— or, more likely, had blocked it off entirely. Whatever attack Karyn had planned was no longer feasible. I’m right back where I started, she had told Ileni.