Mistress of the Night by Don Bassingthwaite, Dave Gross Read Free Book Online

after arranging for his release by the city guard, Roderio had passed by and simply shaken his head in disgust.
    Keph turned and walked into the north wing of Fourstaves House. As he passed beneath the arch of the hallway, wards brushed against his skin like spider-webs. Through the years, Strasus had woven layer upon layer of protection over his home and especially over the dangers of its north wing. No one who wasn't supposed to be there could enter the wing. Strasus and Dagnalla had encouraged their children's curiosity, however, and Keph, like his brother and sister, had always been able to enter freely. Even after his lack of magic had become blatantly apparent, wards throughout the house continued to permit him passage, as if his parents secretly hoped it was just some phase he could still grow out of.
    At the door to Roderio's laboratory, he paused again.
    The door to Strasus's study was at the end of the wing.
    For a moment, Keph considered changing the target of his vengeance. Part of the reason Strasus had been so angry at having to bail him out of jail was that it had pulled him away from the research that had occupied his time of late. The stone cliffs that surrounded Yhaunn were laced with old tunnels and crevices, another legacy of the city's quarry origins. Not a month before, explorers had pulled some ancient treasure out of one of those tunnels and brought it to Strasus. Keph hadn't been allowed so much as a glimpse of it, of course, but whatever it was, it had become an obsession to Strasus, an obsession that had spread to Dagnalla and Malia as well—and that left Strasus resenting every moment spent apart from his research.
    Sprinkling a little of the magesbane around his father's study could be very satisfying.
    Keph wrinkled his nose. No, he thought, Roderio first. Let's see what this dust does.
    He pushed against the door of the laboratory and felt more wards sift over him. When the eerie sensation passed, he stepped through and closed the door.
    Cool flames sprang to life in bowls around the room. In an open-sided case of glass, a lizard striped in bright green and blue stirred at the sudden light. Roderio's familiar. Keph hurried across to the case as the lizard lifted its head drowsily from the magically warmed rock with which Roderio pampered it. Before it could do more than look around, Keph drew a cloth of dark velvet over the case, plunging it into shadow once more. He heard a slow, reptilian sigh of contentment as the lizard sank back into sleep.
    He let out a sigh of his own and looked around the laboratory at workbenches, vessels and braziers of various
    kinds, books, scrollsHis eyes fell on a rack of jars and
    pots, ingredients for the potions that Roderio was fond of creating. Books and vessels lay open on the workbench nearest the rack—Roderio was getting ready to brew some new concoction. Keph smiled to himself, went over to the rack and selected one of the jars at random. Setting it on the workbench, he popped off its lid and peered
    inside. The jar held some kind of dried, crumbled moss. "Perfect," he murmured.
    He pulled the crystal vial out of his pocket and worked out the stopper, then carefully sprinkled a measure of the magesbane dust into the jar. It seemed to meld into the moss—he had to look closely to be sure it was even there. Roderio wouldn't see a thing. He closed the jar and replaced it on the shelf. He started to replace the stopper on the vial as well, but stopped.
    What if Roderio didn't need the contents of that jar for his potion?
    Cursing under his breath, Keph glanced over the books laid out on the workbench, but they were written in the flowing, elongated script used by elves. He couldn't read a word. He turned back to the rack and grimaced, then pulled down another half a dozen jars.
    When he left the laboratory, less than half of the magesbane dust remained in the crystal vial but the chances that Roderio would be reaching for an ingredient treated with the dust