The Purloined Heart

That puzzled me as I inched forward, carefully probing the mansion’s defenses. There was a cluster of heavy spells around the back door, and I guessed there were more around the main entrance, but far fewer around the windows. I glanced at her—she looked pale, yet determined—and darted forward, crossing the lawn and inching up to the wall.

The charms around the window were nasty, yet weirdly independent, as if the designer had never seen the need to weave them into a single pattern. I touched the wood gingerly, carefully channeling my magic into the window frame.

“Odd,” I muttered. Lord Dragon knew wood channeled magic. He’d set up a defense network that relied on wood to channel power from his victims into his spells. I couldn’t help wondering if I was being tricked, lured into a trap. It was a very strange oversight. There was a reason most magical households were built of stone. “What in the world is he doing?”

“Hurry,” Starlight hissed. “We don’t have much time.”

I nodded curtly, although I refused to risk speeding up. It would’ve been impossible to try this if he’d woven the spells together, and it was quite possible he had an inner network monitoring the outer spells. It would be astonishingly paranoid, but even paranoids had enemies.

If he’d kidnapped an aristocratic girl, I was entirely sure he’d taken girls from the neighborhood first. It wasn’t as if the local gentry would’ve cared as long as he left their children alone. No one would pick a fight with a sorcerer over a commoner.

I shoved the thought out of my mind as I worked my way through the network, disabling his spells one by one. There was no alarm. I built my spells up carefully, then opened the window and scrambled inside. The air was heavy with magic, pressing down on my senses and making it hard for me to feel anything beyond a few meters, but there was no alarm. Starlight followed me into the room, one hand on her sword. She’d have been better off with the gun. She didn’t seem to be a blademaster, and it was rare for a magician to be killed by a swordsman.

“Be careful where you put your hands,” I said. “Don’t touch anything unless I check it first.”

Starlight nodded, keeping her hands to herself.

Lord Dragon appeared to have scattered traps everywhere, even within his own home. There was no shortage of cautionary tales of magicians who’d accidentally killed themselves after booby-trapping their own house, but our unwitting host didn’t appear to have heard any of the stories. I wondered, idly, who’d taught him. There were more efficient ways to defend his territory than scattering hexes seemingly at random.

I sent a handful of recon spells moving through the door and into the corridor beyond and waited to see the results. The corridor appeared to be empty, although the spells couldn’t reach very far beyond the door. I opened it carefully and peered into the corridor.

Portraits lined it, the eyes charmed to follow us as we walked out of the room. They didn’t seem to be linked to any defensive spells, but it was hard to tell. There was so much magic in the air that it was growing increasingly hard to pick out Lord Dragon’s charms. He had to be damaging his own spells.

I shivered, my earlier thoughts mocking me. Perhaps he was a necromancer after all. If he’d found a way to make necromancy practical…

Something moved ahead of me. A door opened, and a serving girl—naked, save for the collar around her neck—stepped into the corridor. I stared, distracted for a few vital seconds.

I was torn between astonishment at her perfect body, her nakedness drawing my eye, and horror at the spells woven into the collar. Looking at them was like looking at something fundamentally wrong, something so horrific, it shouldn’t exist. I’d seen the aftermath of mercenary raids, or the twisted remnants of people who wandered into wild magic regions and came out changed, but this…

The girl raised her eyes, saw me, and screamed. And charged.

I swore and cast a freeze spell. The slave collar was designed for a single purpose. The wearer would follow instructions given to her by her master, including standing orders to attack intruders on sight.

Her eyes were wide with horror even as she stopped in her tracks. I could sense the slave collar struggling against my spell, pushing her to keep fighting even though she was hopelessly frozen. She had no magic of her own, no way to free herself.

I leaned forward, trying to find a way to remove the collar. I’d never made a slave collar myself, but I knew enough to be wary. The slaver might well have keyed the collar to kill the wearer if someone tried to free the slave without the owner’s consent.

Starlight hit me.

I jerked forward, twisting automatically, since she’d hit my shoulder.

I turned and saw her staggering toward me, her fist swinging at my jaw. She wasn’t moving like herself. She moved as if she were drunk—or as if she were being puppeted by an outside force.