“To the end, did you say? What end is that?”
Sithe’s voice was like a thunder-crack in a sunny summer
sky; not in its intensity, but in its sheer impossibility. Abney
whirled, ripping a curved dagger from the sash at his waist, and didn’t even
see Sithe for a long moment. “Who said that?!” he demanded, his face going a
splotchy, pinkish sort of red. “Show yourself! Intruder! Trespasser! What do
you think you’re doing here?!”
“I said that,”
Sithe murmured, almost gently, as she pulled back her dark hood. “Merely a
colleague, Gregor. Think nothing of my being here.”
“What are you talking about?” Abney demanded. “Who are you?!”
“Come now,” Sithe said, gesturing grandly at their
surroundings. She heard Sythius’s low growl; he hadn’t moved from the top of
the stairs, and Abney hadn’t noticed him. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize
your instruments? I know the mark of you, Gregor.”
“I’ve not given you permission to be so informal with me!” Abney squawked.
Sithe shook her head. “That’s hardly the most important
thing for you to be worried about. Tell me: what do you intend to do with that
little girl? With spell-work as shoddy as this, it can’t amount to much.”
Abney’s face went slack, then reddened further. “You ... mock me?!”
He rushed forward, as ungainly as a drunk man in an alley.
Sithe steeled herself.
The building’s entire foundation shook as Sythius, still
atop his vigil, opened his jaws and let out a roar fit to shake the foundations of Heaven.
* * *
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