Apparently, Elend couldn’t even walk down the street without getting captured these days.

  The Martials were bad enough. Who could have guessed some Novices would have the strongest material in the known universe? In hindsight, he should have tested these cuffs before he put them on. But no, he’d tried to help the Martials and prove he wasn’t a threat.

  Ironically, he might have killed fewer people if he’d resorted to violence from the start.

  But this time wasn’t Elend’s fault. He’d thought about it all night, suspecting everyone from Arturo to the guards outside Costa Liberta. Any of them could work for the Dragonlord in theory, but Elend had sensed no deception.

  Besides, If Arturo had wanted to betray him, the lad would have lured him into a proper trap. Not some random city street filled with witnesses. And if the Dragonlord had known about things in Costa Liberta, he would have struck there first.

  Elend’s reputation would still suffer, though. After this, he’d be known as that absent-minded professor who kept stumbling into his enemies’ traps. Irina would never let him live it down.

  He sat cross-legged in his cell now, gathering mana in his palms. The cell was a simple room with steel and impedium walls, polished to a mirror shine. A bed sat in one corner, with a toilet, a sink, and shower on the opposite side. It wasn’t so bad as far as prison cells went, and they’d clearly meant to detain someone important.

  Elend pushed more mana into his palms, ignoring the pain of his cuffs and collar. This would be the most expensive technique he’d done since he woke from the ice chamber. It would be painful, but it was also the best way to gain an advantage over his enemies.

  Besides, he’d been alone for the past four hours, and he could use the company.

  Elend stretched out his arms, and blue light streaked through the air, taking the form of a young woman in the bathroom mirror.

  “Good morning, Glim.” Elend forced himself to his feet and strode over.

  Glimmer was, for lack of a better word, an imaginary friend. Some people called her a mana spirit, but that phrase never sat right with him. She’d started her life as a consciousness inside Elend’s head, not so different from himself. Now, she just happened to have a mana-based form today.

  Elend had been twelve years old the first time he’d made her. Such things were supposed to be impossible, even among the strongest dream artists, but he’d been too young to know any better.

  Glim stared at her own hands for a moment. She was made entirely of pale blue mana, from her shoulder-length hair to her knee-length dress. Slowly, her transparent face rearranged itself into a scowl. “What the hell is this? Some mana battery you are!”

  “My apologies.” Elend held up his wrists, showing her the cuffs. “I’m rather impeded at the moment.”

  She made a grand show of crossing her arms. “So that’s why you’ve been ignoring me all this time?”

  Elend raised an eyebrow. “You can tell how long it’s been?” She’d made comments like this before, expressing her discomfort with nonexistence. Elend didn’t blame her for that, but he also doubted her ability to sense time.

  “You look old,” Glim said.

  “Aye.” Elend waved a dismissive hand. “You’ve been saying that for forty years.” She’d aged with him until his mid-twenties, then she’d stopped. Quite stubbornly, he might add. Who was she trying to impress?

  “Well, I mean it this time.”

  Elend nodded, then he gave her the short version of their predicament. He told her about the island, the Martials, and the two new students he’d picked up during his escape. Finally, he told her about the Shipwreck, and the Dragonlord.

  “Wow.”Glim flashed around the cell, appearing on every reflective surface. “You’re so screwed.”

  “We’re so screwed,” Elend corrected. “I can’t conjure you properly without mana.”

  “Yeah.” She raised her hands to her temples. “Is that why I feel drunk?”

  “Impedium is painful,” Elend said. “And it suppresses ninety-nine percent of my power.”

  “Cry me a waterfall.” Glim crossed a pair of slender blue arms. “Thought you could ignore pain?”

  “Pain serves a purpose. It tells us when we’re pushing our bodies too far. Or channels, in my case. Permanent damage is a real possibility.”

  She huffed, but she didn’t press the matter. “So where are Relia and the new kids?”

  “That’s what I need to know.” Elend pointed a finger to the air vent above his head.

  She perked up. “A spy mission, huh?”

  “Aye. The first priority is making sure the kids are safe. After that, I’ll take any advantage we can get.”

  “Okay,” Glim straightened. “But I need more mana than this.”

  Elend frowned. “You’ve worked with less before.” In fact, she’d worked with less for a good portion of her life.

  “I already feel like I’m drunk.” Glim made a show of stumbling around inside the mirror. “And that grate looks like impedium. I’ll lose even more mana when I go through it.”

  “You’ve still made do with less.”

  “The stakes are higher this time. What happens if I’m caught because I’m too slow and stupid? They’ll plug up that vent, and then you’ll really be screwed.”

  Elend scratched the stubble on his chin. “Fair point. This will take a few hours, though.”

  “No worries! I’m not the one who ages!”

  Elend ignored that comment and opened his palms. “Come on.”

  Glim took the shape of a Missile as she leapt from the mirror and landed in Elend’s outstretched hands. He spent the next few hours cycling his mana into her, increasing the density of her form.

  ‘Much better,’ Glim said in his mind. ‘Now I feel like I could enslave humanity.’

  Elend ignored that comment as he pushed a final surge of mana through the cuffs.

  ‘Glimmer Gadriel Darklight,’ she mused. ‘Supreme Empress of the World . . .’

  Elend held up a hand to the air vent and fired the Glimmissle through the grates. She appeared as a blur of blue light against the vent’s inner surface, then she zipped off into the darkness.

  Elend returned to his bed, stretching with his mental senses and seeing the world through Glim’s eyes. Well, metaphorical eyes, at least. She didn’t have optical receptors like a human, but dream mana had a strong light component. Many of his techniques—including Glim’s body—converted light into knowledge mana, and Elend’s brain interpreted that as sight.

  ‘Lots of mating dragons in this tower,’ Glim said as she zipped through the vents.

  ‘Stay on target,’ Elend told her.

  She made a huffing sound. ‘You were way more fun as a kid. You know that?’

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  ‘It’s called ethics. And you’re right. They’re only fun when you’re the one enforcing them.’

  ‘Ooo, never heard that joke before. So eavesdropping is fine, but—‘

  ‘Eavesdropping is an act of war,’ he cut in. ‘Spying on bedrooms is just plain creepy.’

  ‘You’re making up these rules to fit your needs.’

  ‘Aye. We humans do that a lot, don’t we?’

  She made her way through the tower, descending at least twenty floors through the central vents. Bloody hell. How far up were they? They’d arrived late last night, and he hadn’t gotten a good view of the tower’s exterior. The elevator hadn’t been the best indication either. Elend could’ve sensed the whole building at his full power, but he hadn’t been this blind since he was an Artisan.

  Glim stopped above one particular room. Elend couldn’t see much from her vantage, but he heard a familiar voice from below.

  “What about Darklight’s students?” That sounded like Valeria Zantano—The Dragonlord’s sister.”

  “They got away.” The next voice sounded like a younger male.”

  Valeria’s growl was like grinding stones. “How?”

  “We surrounded the hotel, but they escaped through the catacombs. Then they slashed our tires when we weren’t looking.”

  Elend grinned at the last part. That had Akari written all over it.

  “Then the Silver girl killed Enzo. She—”

  “I don’t care about your friends,” Valeria snapped. “Where are the foreigners now?”

  “She stabbed him in the back!”

  “A Silver stabbed an Artisan in the back? It sounds like he deserved it.” Footsteps echoed against the floor as if Valeria were pacing. “And you let a bunch of kids get the better of you?”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. We—“

  “I don’t want your apologies. I want their current location.”

  “They disappeared. We found the truck abandoned on a back road. They were heading southwest.”

  Valeria growled again. “Tell me you saw their faces.”

  An audible sigh escaped the lad’s mouth. “They had their faces covered.”

  “Anything else? Names? Aspects?”

  Silence followed.

  Elend felt the tension pour out of his body. Despite getting captured, this was the best result he could have hoped for. Their fake marks should let them lie low for a few more weeks, but then what? They’d stick out like Aeon cultists at an Angel convention. The bigger cities had more foreigners, but they’d also be teeming with Fangs and surveillance cameras.

  Elend felt a headache coming on, and he leaned back against the cell’s impedium wall. Relia had held her own against the Martials, but she wasn’t ready for this.

  Then again, she was still years away from reaching Artisan at her current pace. Her condition would kill her before that happened, and this might be the push she needed to get stronger.

  ~~~

  Half an hour passed, then a group of armed Fangs led Elend to the tower’s top floor. They crested the staircase and stepped into the most ostentatious room he’d ever seen. Obsidian and jade tiles covered the floor, and everything else gleamed with gold, from the furniture to the crown molding.

  Things grew more extravagant as they passed through an antechamber into what looked like a throne room. A massive glass dome stretched over the top of the building, revealing a vast skyline beyond.

  Tureko. The capital of Creta, and the seat of the Dragonlord. He’d been impressed by the scope of San Talek, but this city was large enough to swallow it whole. Skyscrapers stretched for miles in every direction, and their shapes made jagged silhouettes against the morning sun.

  Something else caught Elend’s eye—a massive dragon stretched its wings over the city, casting black shadows over the rooftops. Its body could rival this building in size, and its wingspan stretched the length of several city blocks.

  Footsteps echoed behind Elend as three more dragons joined him in the throne room. The first was General Dario Zantano, the Dragonlord’s right Wing. His dark features looked more human than the Fangs or Grevandi, and he wore a dark military jacket that gleamed with a dozen metals.

  Spymaster Valeria Zatano followed him inside. She looked even more human than her brother, with waves of long black hair cascading down her shoulders. Human hair would look ridiculous on most dragons, but Valeria made it look natural—even elegant.

  A younger dragon stood a few paces behind the spymaster. This one had an arrogant look about him, and it must have been Valeria’s son.

  A shadow fell over the room as the massive dragon flew over the building, blocking out the morning sun. He hovered in place for several heartbeats, and his wings sent gusts of wind against the ceiling.

  A glass door slid open at the dome’s apex. Mana flashed in a burst of green light, and the dragon transformed before Elend’s eyes. His entire body shrunk, becoming less than a hundredth of his original size. His limbs transformed into human arms and legs, and his tail vanished completely. But even as his body shifted to human proportions, his wings retained a twelve-foot span.

  Finally, Dragonlord Axel Zantano closed his wings and slipped through the opening, falling twenty feet into the room. The Wings saluted as he landed, pressing their fists to open palms. The Fangs all dropped to one knee.

  Elend inclined his head in a more subtle gesture of respect. They might technically be enemies, but there was no need to be rude. They hadn’t mistreated him yet, and he wasn’t supposed to know about that attack on his students.

  Zantano stretched out his wings again when he reached the floor, taking up five times more space than an ordinary man. He wore a black and gold mana artist’s robe that might have been in fashion three centuries ago. The front hung open to reveal a chest of human-like muscles, but his green skin was rough and leathery.

  “Ah, Grandmaster Darklight.” The Dragonlord’s voice filled every corner of the room., and his boots clicked against the tile floor as he approached. “What brings an Espirian professor to my land?”

  “A shipwreck, unfortunately.”

  “A shipwreck,” Zantano echoed. “And I suppose the storm helped you slip past my blockade?”

  “To be honest,” Elend said, “I didn’t even know about the blockade until after I’d arrived.”

  He nodded, stepping around Elend to face his Wings. “What of the students?”

  Valeria’s son saluted again, dipping his head in a bow. “I went to Costa Liberta last night with two Fangs. The students gave us some trouble, but we brought all three back to the tower.”

  The lad was actually a decent liar, and Elend might have fallen for the act if not for Glim’s earlier scouting mission. He could normally read lies like words on a page, but dragons weren’t like humans. They were quick to anger, and slow to feel guilt or regret.

  “Excellent.” The Dragonlord turned back to Elend. “Not to worry, friend. Creta can be dangerous, but I’ll keep them safe until our business is concluded.”

  Elend smiled pleasantly as he faced the Dragonlord’s nephew. “Tell me lad—what do my students look like?”

  “Like humans,” he said with a casual shrug. His mother shot him a warning look, but she was too late.

  “What about their names?” Elend said. “Or their aspects?”

  He didn’t reply, but his yellow eyes narrowed.

  Elend clicked his tongue. “You’ve got a terrible paizho face, lad.” A joke about slashed tires threatened to slip out, but that would be telling. He turned his gaze back to Zantano. “It appears you don’t actually have my students, Dragonlord. But I wouldn’t blame your nephew for that. They’re a slippery lot, after all.”

  The Dragonlord just smiled as if the joke genuinely amused him.

  Elend spread out his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Truly, I’ve no quarrel with you or your family. With your leave, I’ll gladly be on my way.”

  “Good.” He nodded as if they’d just made a deal. “I’ve heard you’re eccentric. I’m glad to find a reasonable man.”

  Perhaps the feeling would be mutual, but Elend wasn’t getting his hopes up yet.

  “Leave us,” the Dragonlord said to the others. The Fangs bowed themselves out, and the Wings followed soon after.

  “I accept your offer,” Zantano said once they were alone in the throne room. “And I’ll gladly see you and your students escorted to the western border. My priest, Lena Cavaco, can remove those cuffs and collar for you. It will take some time—weeks, perhaps—but I’m confident in her abilities.”

  Elend saw where this was going. “In exchange, I suppose you want me to leave the cuffs with you?”

  Zantano’s lips curled as he paced the tile floor. “I know you took a boat out of Vaslana four months ago. You headed southeast into the Inner Sea, where you were captured. You were on your way home when a storm hit your boat.” He stopped pacing, and his smile widened. “You never had these cuffs in the first place. You lose nothing by giving them to me.”

  It was a good deal, and he knew the Dragonlord would seal it with a soul oath. But Zantano was also a tyrant and a conqueror. As a Grandmaster, he was weaker than most Cadrian rulers, but these crystals could shift the scales in his favor. With cuffs, he could overpower a Mystic the way the Martials had captured Elend. And what if his priest turned the crystals into a blade? The Dragonlord could send an assassin to kill one of his rivals. That would throw all of Cadria into chaos, killing millions.

  No . . . Elend would die before he’d turn these over. But he didn’t say that aloud. He had to keep stringing his opponent along, and he couldn’t look too eager or too desperate along the way.

  “We’ll split the crystals two ways,” Elend said.

  Zantano’s leathery brow furrowed “You realize you have nothing to bargain with? I could kill you now and take it all for myself.”

  “On the contrary,” Elend said, “this only works with my full cooperation.” He turned and surveyed the room with its golden furniture. “What happens when news of my death reaches the other rulers? Prime Minister Salerian isn’t your biggest fan. Neither are the presidents of Vaslana or Tretias. They’re just waiting for an excuse to wipe you off the map.”

  He met Zantano’s eyes again. “Now, you could take the crystals and set me free, but they’ll still come after you when they hear the story. You need me to swear a soul oath—not just to stay quiet, but to stop my peers from seeking vengeance on my behalf.”

  The Dragonlord considered that. “I’ll take the four cuffs. You keep the collar.” Elend opened his mouth to object, but Zantano raised a clawed finger. “And my people will leave your students alone. I’ll swear that oath today.”

  Elend deflated. His students had escaped one group of Fangs, but they couldn’t keep that up for long. Relia would still have the Grevandi to contend with—they didn’t work for the Dragonlord directly—but she could handle them.

  “Aye,” he agreed after a short pause. “We have a deal.”