This was supposed to be her wedding.

Kailigh eyed her daughters, watching for shenanigans, since her husband was busy drinking and carousing with his youngest son. After a quick romp in an antechamber, he’d thrown himself into the festivities with a pat on her rump to enjoy herself. She liked that about Maddugh—he wouldn’t be a man, who clung to her skirts, or thought she didn’t have the head to entertain herself.

Nothing worse than a clingy man.

She had plenty to entertain herself, especially with the way Amnan thought he was subtly stalking Sere. She just hoped her girl didn’t poison the princeling—that would be a poor way to begin their life as a blended adult family together.

“Kai, are you even listening to me?” the Constable asked.

She sighed, and sipped her water. No foolishness for her, she had girls to keep an eye over and couldn’t do that inebriated.

“I’m listening,” she said. “It’s a bit rude to discuss business at a wedding.” With a bride. At her own wedding. But they were decades-long friends, and he could get away with it.

Hatcher sighed, tugging at the tight neck of his suit. At least he’d had the courtesy to change out of his uniform, though Kai probably wouldn’t have cared either way. He walked like a cop, watched the room like a cop—changing his attire didn’t change the man.

“I don’t know how else to get anyone’s attention.” He swore under his breath, forgetting he was in the presence of a lady. “Look, Kai. I’ve asked Lord Maddugh. He keeps saying no.”

“Well, what am I to do about it, then? He is Lord here, not I. If he wants to deny you access to the prisoners, that’s his business.”

Hatcher stared at her, scowling. “Can’t you see that we need access to the information they can provide. We don’t have a single lead, Kai!”

“Maddugh is taking care of it.”

“Law enforcement should be taking care of it. He’s a Lord—he isn’t the law.”

They both knew that wasn’t true. Maddugh ruled both the human and dragon populated small towns in this county because he owned the mines and employed eighty percent of the adults in the area. The town businesses were all profitable, resting on land leased by him. He did rule—and the fact that he allowed human law enforcement to remain on his territory and enact some type of control over humans was testament only to the fact that he didn’t want to be bothered.

The constable changed tactics. “We need to work together on this, Kai. We can’t allow any more traffickers to think our town is easy pickings. The more we know about Adjrius’ backer, the better we can make sure it never happens again.”

She considered him. People were often shortsighted and unnecessarily territorial, and, while she hadn’t planned on getting involved, Hatcher was right. Maddugh needed to share information, not hoard it.

“Fine. I’ll talk to him.” She paused. “Why don’t you go say hello to Serephone? She’s quite an expert on the castle now—she could give you a tour.”

Constable grinned, then wiped the expression off his face and bowed, all courtly like. Kai snorted as he walked away, and as a chorus of male voices rose in revelry, decided her husband had had quite enough to drink.

* * *

Her mother had been keeping secrets.

Sere hadn’t known the prisoners were being kept in the castle, but the content of the conversation Kai just ended with Hatcher was clear. She shifted her hearing back to normal, suppressing a grimace. She couldn’t keep up the amplification without giving herself a headache. The wedding crowd was getting to her as well. She hated crowds. At least a fair was in the open, under the sky, with plenty of room to maneuver in an emergency. But being in the ballroom made her feel almost trapped. She gritted her teeth against the sensation and positioned herself to intercept the Constable. He wanted information? She wanted information. Had been trying to get information for weeks now. But Maddugh had managed to conceal the location of the men he’d snatched from Cinvarra’s kidnapping attempt weeks ago, and later from the gunfight that killed Ruthus Adjrius. Men, who possibly knew where their ultimate employer was located.

Sere intended to find out, and pay the fiend a visit. Because she agreed with the Constable. The best way to protect her sisters was to cut off the snake’s head, at the neck.

“Constable,” she said when he passed her.

The man stilled, and turned. Impressive—he’d likely wanted to squeak like a mouse. Sere had long ago perfected the art of fading into a darkened corner—suspected it was another talent gifted her by her mysterious magic.

“Mistress Serephone.” He paused. “Lady Serephone. Your mother—”

“I know. Come with me.”

She’d spent several days exploring the castle—it wasn’t a large castle, considering the occupants were dragons. The ballroom/throne room was the only part of the place where the ceiling went up all two stories. But there was a basement, accessed through a simple trap door in the cellar located in the kitchen pantry. She’d seen it, and decided not to descend to the depths because she hadn’t been nearly curious enough to do something as clichéd as trap herself in a dark, dank dungeon because she wanted to explore.

Wasn’t that how all the gothic mystery heroines wound up in trouble?

“Where are we going?” he asked when she’d led him out of the ballroom into the hall. A few people lingered, glancing curiously as they passed, but Serephone gave them no reason to gossip. She was simply the Lord’s new stepdaughter, strolling down the hall with a companion.

“I think I know where they are,” she said. “Stop talking.”

Because the kitchen staff was in full force due to that evening's feast, she had to be tricky about getting them into the pantry, big enough to qualify as the living room in her home.

“You sure about this, Serephone?” Hatcher asked.

She strode towards the trap door in the corner. “Probably not the only way in. Taking prisoners through the food supply? Gross.”

She crouched down and held a hand over the thick padlock. Green heat flooded her skin, a sickly light seeping from her pores and swirling down and around the padlock. The lock popped, and she glanced over her shoulder. Constable’s eyes were wide, and slightly wild.

“I didn’t know you were a sorceress,” he said, voice strangled.

“I’m not.”

She took the first step down the dark hole, adjusting her eyes to pick out the first rung. “Coming?”

He sighed as she climbed down, his weight rattling the rickety ladder as he joined her. “This is a piss-poor way into a dungeon.”

“Like I said—probably not the main entrance. More like an escape hatch.”

Which made sense, cause who wanted to have only one way in and out of a place like this? Her foot touched ground and she moved out of the way.

“I can’t see a damn thing,” he said, swearing.

Light ringed her hands, a dim glow that gave off enough phosphorescence for even a human to see. Sere obviously wasn’t entirely human, so she didn’t quite have to worry about it.

They walked forward, feeling along one side of the narrow tunnel. It was the rough, unhewn rock of the mountain. As if the dragons had simply cut a dungeon out of the base of the mountain. She supposed they liked dark, enclosed spaces. She hated them.

The tunnel opened into a round chamber with weak gas lamps attached periodically to the stone walls. Around the chamber were crude, iron doors.

“Stinks,” she said. And raised her arm to her nose to suppress a gag. But she guessed Maddugh wasn’t concerned with providing bathing facilities for his guests. Why did dungeons always have to be underground? Why not giant bird cages hanging from trees? Or towers. Something besides an airless, claustrophobic, dank basement. Each door had a slit wide enough for a skin of water or a plate to slide through. She supposed if Maddugh bothered to supply slop buckets—it didn’t smell like it—that guards had to unlock the doors to change them.

She was shocked. Sere knew dragons weren’t human, but the coldness of the way his prisoners were treated…they weren’t being tortured, at least. She saw no evidence of the kinds of tools needed for that, or stones. But being tied to a tree out in the open forest would be more humane that this.

“This isn’t legal,” Hatcher said as they checked the slits in all the doors. There were six prisoners. “These men should be turned over to human—”

“You know better than that.” But she’d talk to her mother. This would have to change. And not necessarily because Sere cared—but because a ruler should be above reproach as well as strong. And if the humans ever found out the condition he kept his prisoners in, it could cause more trouble later.

“Who’s there?” a rusty male voice shouted, then paused, hacking.

She walked towards the door, where she’d heard the voice and paused, waiting until the coughing died down. “Serephone, Kailigh’s daughter. Are you from town?” It would save wasting time on introductions.

“I know who you are.”

She heard the shuffle of cloth and the slither of a body against the door. “Then maybe you can guess why I’m here. Are you one of Ruthus’ hires?”

A bitter laugh. “What will you give me in trade for the information you want?”

“I can’t free you—but I may be able to do something about your accommodations.”

“No deal.”

He moved away. Serephone sighed and lifted her hand, so her flat palm aligned with the slit in the door. Spiders slithered out of her sleeve, after a moment she heard a sharp exclamation, then a man's muffled scream.

“I can recall them,” Sere said. “Would that be repayment enough for the information I seek?”

“What’s going on out there?” someone shouted.

“Be quiet,” Hatcher said, striding to the source and rapping on the door. “Sere, you can’t be letting him caterwaul like that.”

“They bite! Sunuvabitch, they’re biting me!”

Serephone sighed. “Stop screeching. Just have a few questions. Better accommodations?”

“What do you want, goddamn what do you want?”

“I want to know who financed Ruthus Adjrius.”

“Fuck, don’t know that. I’m just hired muscle. Never was taken into the moneyman’s presence. Not fancy enough, you know?”

“Hmm.” Fancy enough could imply all sorts of things. “Adjrius had to have briefed you, assured you somehow that he was good for your payment.”

“All I know is the client was from the Hills, and a district you need a pass to step a foot in. Ruthus put on his best suit when the client called.”

Serephone considered. “Where would a client such as that look for a man like Ruthus?”

A beat of silence, and then the man rattled off a concise list of clubs. The kind where men of all classes could mingle, discuss sports or business, have a drink. The kind of place, where it was understood one could buy all kinds of physical labor—specifically of a premium and not-quite-legal kind.

“Hey,” the man said. “Joseph is in here. Ask him to show you his tattoo.”

“Why?”

“He isn’t just hired help. Don’t know where he came from—but the money man might have sent him to keep an eye on us. Has a tattoo on the back of his hand. Some of the city barons do that with their retainers.”

Hatcher and Serephone exchanged a look. “Protection or warning?” she asked.

“Both,” the Constable replied, then walked along each cell. “Which one of you is Joseph? I have a deal for you.”

Sere let Hatcher set terms once the prisoner spoke up, identifying himself. “I’m not giving you no information,” Joseph said. “I’d be dead if I betrayed my employer.”

“All we want is to see the tattoo,” the Constable said. “He’d never know we didn’t see it during the course of arresting you—and you’ll still get the upgrade for cooperating.”

A beat of silence. “Fine.”

Hatcher leaned forward to peer through the slit, studying something for several minutes before moving away and beckoning to Serephone. She moved towards the iron door, ignoring her natural distaste of the sickly smelling metal, and considered the slit. A tattoo on dark skin should have been hard to see, but the outlines were done in a shimmering, silver ink, almost like paint. She committed the lines of the glyph to memory, spine tingling as her eyes traced over the pattern. Skin prickling with tiny bumps, hair on the back of her neck raising. Whoever had laid that glyph was a sorcerer—her own magic responded, recoiling away.

Serephone stepped back, nodding at Hatcher, and kept her knowledge to herself. So, she wasn’t looking for just a rich man, but a rich man with access to magic—or, who knew magic himself.

They spoke to each prisoner, gathering snippets of mostly contradictory information. Opinions, impressions, a few offering information on places, where snatched girls might be sold. She filed all the place names away in the back of her mind, a plan forming, as she and Hatcher moved back down the hallway and discussed the latest information.

“Do you believe them?” he asked.

“They have every reason to lie.”

“But, you believe them.”

“Yes.”

Of course, she’d been hoping for a name—an address would have been nice. Maybe even an engraved card of introduction. But she had enough to at least begin her hunt.

“Let’s get out of here before we’re both missed.”

They climbed up the ladder, tracking the ebb and flow of traffic in the kitchen for a lull, and then emerged from the trap door.

“The lock,” he said.

Sere shrugged. “Can only break things. Can’t fix.” She wasn’t a healer like her mother or a green thumb like Cinvarra. Her magic, so far, was only good for animating metal things and hurting people. Which was fitting, considering the sins of her father and all that.

They walked quickly down the main hall, slowing as they came closer to the ballroom.

“What are you going to do?” Hatcher asked. He knew her well enough.

“What do you think?”

He shook his head. “Don’t go off all half-cocked, Serephone. I’ll have to tell your mother.”

“Give me a day’s start. You know I can take care of myself.”

His look was measuring. “Even men partner up on a dangerous investigation, Sere.”

“Mother will follow along after the day, and I won’t be alone. Just a day.”

“Then why go alone at all?”

“Have you ever tried to get something done by committee?”

He grimaced, laughed. “Good point. One day, then I tell your Ma. And I’m telling Lord Maddugh you made me. I won’t be a dragon’s roast in this lifetime.”