Page 144 of Foul Days

“It doesn’t?”

“No. And the reason is, when the Council went to take Lamia, it wasn’t Lamia they were looking for. It was the Zmey.”

Asen raised his eyebrows. “You think so?”

“Definitely. The way the spell is structured, it builds on the kinetic energy—” Asen’s eyes began to glaze. Kosara waved a hand. “I won’t bore you with the details. The point is, when they were designing the spell, they left a Zmey-shaped hole in it. When they had to make do with Lamia instead, it still worked, but not exactly as planned.”

Asen threaded the surgical needle with practised hands. Kosara did her best not to focus on it as he lowered it to her face.

“What do you mean, ‘not exactly as planned’?” he asked.

Now that the anaesthetic had started working, Kosara had to shape her words only with the right side of her mouth. They came out muffled. “It was supposed to let people cross the Wall this entire time. It was meant to only trap the monsters. How brilliant would that have been?”

Asen nodded slowly. Kosara didn’t let herself continue on that tangent. It had been difficult to concentrate on the spell once she’d figured that out, instead of wasting time imagining what could have been.

“You see, the Zmey is kind of in between a human and a monster,” she said. “I mean, he’s a monster, definitely, but he looks human. He thinks like a human. He takes human brides.”

“Right.”

“Right. So, he’s what the Wall needs to function properly. And the Council knew it. Except something went wrong. The Zmey wasn’t home. They had to make it out of there as quickly as possible. Whatever sedative spell they had prepared was running out of power. They grabbed Lamia…”

“And they embedded her instead. How is that relevant to what we’re about to do?”

“It’s relevant because I now know how the spell was built.”

“I’m sure that’s fascinating from an academic point of view but—”

“Which means I know how to make it work as intended.”

“Oh. I see.”

Kosara knew he still wasn’t completely getting it. He didn’t need to. All he had to do was follow her lead.

“The Zmey wants us to perform the spell to release Lamia together,” she said. “To do what I’m planning, I need him powerless. I can’t complete the spell while he has the witches’ shadows.”

“So, we’ll have to make him give them up.”

“Yes. That’s what I need your help with. I need someone who can sneak into the theatre and borrow a couple of spotlights. They lock it up during the Foul Days.”

Kosara had expected Asen to ask questions. He didn’t. Instead, he kept methodically stitching her wounds shut. He seemed to be fully on board with her plan, no matter what it was.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“I also need your voice recorder.”

“I don’t know, Kosara, this is specialised equipment issued to me by the Belogradean police…”

Kosara gave him a long, straight-faced look.

He exhaled through his nostrils. “I’m joking, I’m joking!” He pulled it out of his pocket with the hand that wasn’t holding the needle and placed it on the table.

Kosara smiled a half smile. “Which button do you press to record?”

* * *

Kosara kept flicking through the pages of Magic for the Advanced User, reading the same couple of paragraphs over and over again, without absorbing a word.

She’d stayed home to catch up on her reading while Asen went to the theatre. She knew the place was shut during the Foul Days, but she was still nervous. What if the guard caught him sneaking about? What if he stumbled upon a monster hiding in a dark corner in between the stage props?

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