It was dark. Ugly.

And it was here.

A deep throb came from the far corner of the room, from a mirror mounted on the wall, framed in dark, rune-carved wood. Hands encased in armor tipped with bright steel claws ripped through the canvas covering. Goblins came through, armed with blades and crossbows. They were between us and the door; we were between them and Carnades’s mirror.

Like I said, ugly.

Nine Khrynsani, two of them mages. That was as accurate a count as I could get or cared to get as I scurried to the left to give myself room to fight. I left the power packers to Mychael and Justinius. I had a sword in each hand and balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to move in whatever direction the closest goblin picked. More Khrynsani poured through the mirror like a black-armored wave, and Piaras’s voice rang out from behind me, a commanding baritone aimed at the Khrynsani. I recognized the quickly cascading notes and words as a spellsong I’d heard Mychael use before. The goblins should have dropped in their tracks.

They kept coming.

With some kind of dark plugs in their ears.

Oh crap.

They’d known spellsingers would be guarding the mirror room.

We’d been betrayed from the inside out. Now our enemies were in here with us and deaf as doornails to any spellsong Piaras or Mychael could throw at them.

“Where’s Tam?” Piaras shouted. I wasn’t the only one who knew we needed to get through that mirror while we still could.

I parried a lunge that came entirely too close to finding its mark. “Good damned question.”

Piaras had a sword in one hand, a long parrying dagger in the other, and was putting both to good use. His opponents lately had had a fatal tendency to underestimate him because of his young age and brown eyes.