Page 34 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

Father glared back at him. “What are you implying, Alaster?”

“Hang on,” said Gareth quickly, “we don’tknowthat figments were involved here. It could have been anything. A team of particularly talented human beguilers, or even a fae, if one got through the Mist—”

“Is this supposed to be comforting, Professor Fontaine?” Lady Kaetha remarked dryly.

“I don’t much care if what took my daughter was a figment or a beguiler or simply an ordinary human monster,” said Lord Alaster. He rose from his seat, his long face white and pinched beneath his stark beard, and approached my father’s chair. “What I want to know is if a guest in my own house has conspired with villainous forces to do the deed. Or hired someone to do it, which is far likelier. Can’t get your handstoodirty.”

At first, Father was just incredulous. He looked around at all of us, then back at Alaster. “You’re joking,” he said.

“You tried to have my son killed not so very long ago,” Alaster replied. “Why would it surprise anyone if you killed my daughter now instead?”

Shock rippled up the table. I felt eyes on me, looking automatically to me for confirmation, but I was too tired and too horrified to do anything but sit there and wait for disaster to come. To my left, Ryder, who’d been standing alone at the hearth, turned to glare at both scowling men.

“This is a waste of time,” he said shortly. “Lord Gideon didn’t abduct Alastrina, Father. What good would that do him?”

“Gideon Ashbourne,” said Lord Alaster very quietly, his eyesglittering, “won’t be happy until every last Bask is dead. Isn’t that right, Gideon?” He leaned down to look straight at my father. “I don’t blame you, really. We’re men of war, after all. I myself won’t be happy until all three of your daughters’ bodies are spread before me, lifeless and cold.”

Father lurched to his feet and slammed his whole body into Lord Alaster, his sentinel strength bursting across the room like a blast of heat. Alaster went flying back against the wall, but when he crashed to the ground, blood trickling down his forehead, he looked up with a mean grin on his face. My heart sank; he was an Anointed alchemist, and his specialty was converting elements into raw power. I’d never seen him work magic before; I’d only heard my parents tell of it in revolted tones when I was a child, stories at dinnertime that sent me to sleep with hatred of the Basks brewing in my heart.

But Alaster’s alchemical magic was a beautiful sight, or would have been if I hadn’t been so frantic. He cupped his palm and dragged it down as if scooping up the air itself, and with a quick murmured spell, it became a white-hot ball of light hovering over his fingers. Another spell, and then he flung it at my father, who dodged it easily; it went flying over his shoulder and crashed into the far wall. Splinters of light went sizzling up to the ceiling and across the floor, making all our hair stand on end.

They kept going, my father with his punches strong as ten men and Alaster grabbing anything he could find—fire from the hearth, the very air around us, the water from our goblets on the table—and turning it to sizzling energy that he threw like Lower Army grenades.

In seconds, the table was in ruins, and everyone was screaming at them to stop, or cowering behind chairs, or preparing to work their own magic. Gentar Barthel was a fair beguiler, Lord Sesar an elementalwith an affinity for water, and Lady Leva a healer who could mop up the aftermath. But this was not their house, or their fight, and I sensed their hesitation.

Lady Enid held her head in her hands and sobbed. “Please stop,” she said, over and over. “Stop, stop,stop it!”

I didn’t think before I did it. I was too angry and disgusted with them to think. I stood and began to sing. “Willa’s Lullaby”—the folk song I’d been unable to sing in my music room at the Citadel—came to me almost at once. It was a simple melody, tender and lonesome. But in that moment, with all my anger behind it, the song became invective, each word bitten off with a snap.

“Oh, little star, so bright in the sky,

oh, big moon, shining up so high,

can you see the bird’s wing?

Can you hear the bells ring?

Can you feel my heart sing?

Oh yes, come down,

come down, come down.

There’s a world to be seen, oh,

precious little grimlings.

There’s a life to be lived, oh,

precious little grimlings.

Don’t you cry for the stars in the sky.

Don’t you cry for the moon so high.

They can see the bird’s wing,

they can hear the bells ring,

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