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fever last month. Clowns were traditionally good luck in Adera, if not in Ile-Rien, and having one of them die unexpectedly had shaken the other performers. Gods and spirits, no more omens before this of all performances, Baraselli prayed.
"Maybe it's a good omen," the new Columbine said, selecting an apple out of the bowl on the table and watching the worried actors with oblique amusement. "Some people think fire is."
Dark smoke streamed into the night sky.
* * *
They rode through St. Anne's Gate and into the cobbled court between the high walls of the Mews and the Cisternan Guard Barracks. The facades of the two buildings were almost identical, though time and weather had scarred the dressed stone in different ways. Each was entered by three great archways that faced one another across the length of the court. Now torches threw reflections up onto the mist-slick stone as grooms and stablehands hurried to take the horses or curious Cisternans wandered out to see what the excitement was.
Thomas dismounted and handed the reins to one of the grooms. He took off a glove to rub the horse's nape, then let the man lead her away. This was Cisternan Guard territory, but it was also the closest entrance to the palace, and he wanted Galen Dubell within a warded structure before Grandier made another attempt on the old sorcerer.
The palace wards repelled fay, sendings, and any other form of magical attack. They were fitted together like the pieces of a puzzlebox, or a stained glass window, and drifted constantly, moving past each other, folding over each other, wandering at will over their domain. They would prevent the sorcerous abduction that Grandier had used to snatch Galen Dubell from his home in Lodun, and the palace's other defenses were more than adequate to hold off hired swords.
As Thomas crossed the court toward the two sorcerers, the Cisternan Commander Vivan joined him. The Cisternans were the regular guard for the palace, their ranks drawn from the fami