Shadows Return

who’d been concealed behind the others.
    This one wore a veil over the lower part of his face, and Alec knew him at once for an Aurënfaie by his slighter build and light eyes. He wore a long, sleeveless tunic under his cloak and good leather shoes. A golden torque glimmered at his throat.
    The hooded man and the man in the black coat spoke quietly with him in Plenimaran. The veiled man turned to look down at Alec, nodding agreement to something the men said.
    “What’re ’ou ’ooking at?” Alec spat bitterly in Aurënfaie, his words slurred around the branks.
    The man in black said something to the ’faie, who then approached the bars and said in Aurënfaie, “My master bids you put your hand out through the bars. He won’t hurt you.”
    Master? So this ’faie was a slave, too.
    “Your masker can go fuck himsel’!” Despite the branks, he had made himself understood. Those eyes weren’t smiling now.
    “Softly, little brother. A bad temper won’t do you any good here. Come to the bars and put your hand through. You’re in no danger.”
    “’o ta the ’rows, ’rai’or!”
    “Please,” the ’faie implored softly, stealing a look back at his waiting master. “Obey now, or they’ll come in and force you. And that
will
hurt.”
    “He’s quite right,” the dark man told Alec, speaking Aurënfaie as fluently as he did Skalan. “And it will all end the same way, Alec of Ivywell. See? I know who you are. And I’ve been most eager to meet you. Now give me your left hand nicely, or those rough men in leather aprons will drag you out for me.”
    Defeated, Alec crawled awkwardly to the front of the cage and hesitantly extended his shackled hand out through the bars, half-expecting it to be cut off. The man grasped it and twisted the palm upwards, tracing the round, faded scar at its center with a thumbnail. Alec held still, watching as the man smiled to himself. It was almost as if he knew the history of that mark. Alec also noted that his fingers were stained with ink. Perhaps he was a wizard, after all or, worse yet, a necromancer.
    “Just a little poke,” the possible necromancer murmured, and before Alec could pull back he produced a thick needle from the folds of his robe and pricked the end of Alec’s forefinger deeply.
    Alec hissed at the pain and tried to pull back, but one of the servants reached in quickly and held him there while the master caught a large drop of Alec’s blood on his fingertip. They released him then, and Alec quickly pulled back out of reach. The nobleman rubbed the blood between thumb and forefinger and a small tongue of muddy red flame licked up for an instant, then disappeared.
    “’ecroman’er!” Alec hissed, his worst fears realized.
    The man wiped his soiled fingers with a spotless white handkerchief. “I’m nothing of the sort. And that’s good news for you, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
    The wizard, or whatever he was, turned to speak to the hooded man in his own tongue. Alec knew the Plenimaran word for blood—
ulimita
—and heard it spoken several times. The noble seemed very pleased about something, and so did the hooded man. Though Alec could still see nothing of his face, he heard him say something softly in Plenimaran. There was something familiar about that voice. Before Alec could tell for sure, though, the hooded man turned and strode away. Whoever it was, he had the gait of an old man.
    The not-necromancer nodded to one of his companions and a weighty-looking purse changed hands with a slave dealer.
    Turning back to Alec, he said, “My name is Charis Yhakobin. I own you now, Alec, and you will call me
Ilban,
which means master in my language. To address me in any other fashion is disrespectful, and will be punished.”
    “Kish my ash!” Alec snarled as a new wave of panic threatened.
    “My tastes do not run in that direction, boy, and you will incur my great disfavor if you ever again suggest such a thing. You are a useful instrument to me. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
    At his order, one of the slave market men came with a bunch of keys and opened the cage. Alec cowered back, but it did no good. His new owner gave orders to a pair of muscular servants. They entered the cage and cut the ropes around his legs, then roughly hauled him up by the arms.
    “Come along, or my men will carry you out by force,” Yhakobin advised.
    Alec’s legs burned as the blood returned to limbs too long bound. Even so, the urge to fight or run was