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Prologue

Gods willing, she had not left it too late.

She was done pretending they could ever be safe here; too many had fallen, proving otherwise.

Indeed, she had been on the edge of flight two years ago, but she had let Pel dissuade her. Pel, with his strength and his brilliance, and his close ties to the Council and the Warden himself.

It had seemed—truly it had seemed there was nothing that Pel could not bring right.

But even his light had been extinguished by the curse that pursued her bloodline.

If it were only herself, after Pel, she might not have cared enough—to run.

But there were others—innocents—and it fell to her, and her alone, to protect them.

There was no one else she could turn to. No one who would believe her. No one who cared what happened to them.

So she stood up again, after Pel’s death. Stood up to fight for her children.

She had already proven that she would do anything—commit any atrocity—to preserve their lives. If—when—doom found her, they would have only themselves—an indignant protest flickered past her Inner Eyes, of a small plump shape, fur grey-striped and plush. In spite of—everything—Zatorvia felt her lips twitch.

The children would, she amended her thought contritely, have each other, and Eet. As she had Eet, then and now.

There was a sense of mollification. Zatorvia continued to the safe, traced the unlock pattern against the aether, and caught up the bag inside when the door sprang open.

It was by no means all her fortune. She had not dared to access accounts that were doubtless being watched. But nor had she ever been foolish enough to put all of her money into accounts.

They were funded. She had skills. What they needed was to leave this place where every card fell to their enemy’s hand.

They would go tonight. The bargain was made with the trader, their passage secured. The car—the safe car sent from the escort agency—was due in moments. The children were in their room with the small travel cases they had packed, overseen by Eet, who would protect them with his last breath.

She closed the safe, slipped the bag away into an inner pocket of her coat, took a breath.

Something moved in the side of her eye. She turned, crying out as the figure took shape from a swirl of mist and smoke.

The weapon made no sound; the assassin’s aim was true.

She was dead before she began to fall, and the room was empty by the time her body hit the floor.

 . . . not quite empty.

On a shelf by the door, barely distinguishable from the assembled bric-a-brac, was a furry, grey-striped shape. Bright eyes gleamed in the shadow, then vanished.

The doorbell chimed.

And chimed again.


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Framed