"Then take it, you bitch!" a woman shrieked from downstairs, interrupting the flow of the story once more. Ah, the Queen of Silent Tongues was yielding to

Lanthe.

Sabine's skin prickled as the air began to sizzle with power. The sorceress jailed downstairs was surrendering her root ability. Lanthe would be able to talk telepathi-cally to whomever she addressed, within a certain dis-tance.

"No, don't fret," Sabine told her antsy humans. "Have you read any of the halfpenny novels, the ones with bank robberies? That's all my accomplice is doing now. Except she's stealing something equivalent"-she made her voice dramatic-"to your soul!"

At that one woman began crying, which pleased Sabine because it reminded her why she so rarely took humans as pets.

"Who killed her the next time?" Brazen Mortal asked. "Vrekeners?"

"No. It was other Sorceri bent on stealing her goddesslike power. They poisoned her." The Sorceri so adore their poisons, she thought bitterly. But then she frowned at the memories. "It did things to the young girl's mind, this repeated dying. Like an arrowhead forged in fire, she was made sharp and deadly from con­stant pressure and blows. And she began to covet life as no other before her. Whenever she felt hers was in danger, a mindless fury swept through her, the need to lash out undeniable."

When some of their eyes widened, Sabine realized her pensiveness had made the cell appear to be choked with mist. She often unwittingly displayed illusions that mirrored her thoughts and emotions, even when dreaming.

As she swiftly cleared the air, another patient said, "Good miss, wh-what happened after the poisoning?"

"The sisters just wanted to survive, to be left alone, to amass a fortune in gold through just a bit of sorcery. Was that too much to ask?" She gave them an "hon­estly ?' look.

"But the Vrekeners were unrelenting, tracking them by the girls' sorcery. Especially the boy. Because he hadn't reached his immortality by the time he made that leap, he didn't regenerate. He'd been broken, scarred and deformed from his injuries forever."