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t," Thomas said quietly to Dubell. He knew which he favored.
The old sorcerer sighed. "There are no coincidences."
Thomas watched him thoughtfully. "I would have thought it difficult for a wizard to hex another wizard, especially someone like Dr. Surete. He was the Court Sorcerer for two decades."
"If a sorcerer is in fear for his life, he might test every object he is about to touch with a sprinkle of gascoign powder or some other preparation that reveals the presence of magic." Dubell made an absent gesture. "But Surete and Milam were not in fear for their lives. The spell could have come to them on anything--a forged letter purporting to be from a friend, an apple sold to them by a street vendor..."
As Dubell stood lost in thought, Thomas watched the sorceress. Kade Carrion was pacing around the remains of the stage which the servants were dismantling. As she walked around the painted panels scattered on the floor and the stacks of singed planks, he had two distinct impressions of her. The first was that she was only a young girl with a tangled mop of hair and a tattered red dress, not oblivious to the consternation she was causing but not particularly worried by it, either. The other was that here was a creature ephemeral yet solid and real, who walked with the night and the wild hunt. Dubell is the only one who really knows her, Thomas thought. And even he isn't certain what her game is now.
If she hated her brother and the rest of the royal family as much as she claimed, she wasn't without motive. Their father Fulstan hadn't been much use as a king: he had neither Ravenna's head for finance and diplomacy nor the ability to listen intelligently to advisors who did. The fayre queen Moire had drained him of what vitality and strength of character he possessed, leaving him bitter and old before his time. He had taken out his anger at Moire's abrupt departure on anyone in his reach, especially on Moire's daughter. No one directly in his power had mourned his d