Sebastian

back—and saw guards hurrying toward the Petitioners' Hall.
    They have no interest in me, nor I in them, beyond simple curiosity , Sebastian thought. His stride lengthened, despite his efforts to appear unconcerned that the guards might notice him. My business in the city is done. I'm going home to enjoy a meal and a pleasant evening with friends. I'm going home. To the Den .
    No hue and cry sounded behind him, and by the time he reached the stairs, he was trembling with relief.
    He paused at the edge of the stairs to give himself time to regain his composure—or as much as he could while he was still within the city walls. No point getting away from the Wizards' Hall if he took a spill down the stairs and ended up with broken bones that would leave him helpless.
    He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he put his foot on the first stair for the descent that would begin his journey home.

    Koltak watched the guards mill around the courtyard gate. No point slipping a suggestion beneath their surface thoughts a second time. There was no longer anything tangible for them to deal with to confirm the "instinct" or "intuition" that had compelled them to check on the gate beside the Petitioners' Hall. Even if he gave them another nudge, Sebastian had too much of a lead now and could elude any guards long enough to get out of the city.
    Stepping back into the room, he closed the door, then snuffed out the candle. He walked to the back wall and, with the experience of the years he'd lived within the Wizards' Hall, touched the concealed latch for the hidden door.
    As soon as the door swung open, Koltak slipped out of the room, then paused long enough to make sure the door was securely locked before hurrying along the corridors that were used mostly by the servants.
    He gave silent thanks to whatever Guide was watching over him that he made it back to his suite of rooms without running into anyone who might wonder why he'd been coming back from the direction of the Petitioners' Hall—and the detention rooms.
    Not that the other wizards would wonder for long. By morning, they'd all know who had asked to see him. It would have been different if he could have contained the problem, but…
    Koltak stared out his sitting room window. It didn't face the right direction, but he stared anyway, as if that alone would somehow locate Sebastian before he got out of the city. Again.
    For thirty years he'd been punished for that indiscretion, that weak hungering for the kind of sexual gratification that made human women little better than a container for a man's seed. Plenty of wizards had indulged themselves with succubi. Plenty . But their liaisons hadn't threatened to topple the power structure that gave wizards a place in the world, that made them the Justice Makers.
    How could there be anything human in me with a succubus for a mother and you for a father?
    Just words flung out in anger. Sebastian didn't know the truth. Couldn't know what his existence meant.
    Secrets tightly held within the Wizards' Hall were flaunted daily because that whelp had been born. Oh, most of the citizens wouldn't realize what it meant that a mating between a wizard and a succubus had borne fruit, but the wizards knew it branded them for what they were.
    Something not quite human. Beings whose ability to influence minds sprang from the same roots as the seductive power the incubi and succubi unfurled to attract their prey.
    We've paid for our secrets. We pay every day by keeping order, by standing for justice . We've paid.
    But tonight, the thing he'd personally feared the most had finally displayed itself.
    Sebastian was not only an incubus; he also had some measure of the wizards' kind of power. He couldn't have opened that gate otherwise, couldn't have shrugged aside Koltak's mental persuasion so quickly that there wasn't time for the guards to arrive.
    If the other wizards realized Sebastian controlled the same magic as the Justice Makers, everything he, Koltak, had done for the past thirty years to make up for his lustful mistake and prove himself worthy of the kind of authority he'd always craved would have been for nothing. So there really was only one thing to do.
    Somehow, some way, Sebastian had to be eliminated once and for all.

    Sebastian was a stone's throw beyond the city's southern gate when he heard the bell ring twelve times.
    Midnight. The city gates were locked at midnight, and no one could enter or leave until the following