"chash, don't worry about it." aurelius set me down and gavril and i were hugging each other tightly.

"i heard all that stuff; my hearing's really good," gavril said. "reah, it doesn't matter how you got here. where would aurelius and i be if you hadn't been born? i'd have taken that shot instead of you-you shoved me out of the way. believe me, anybody brave enough to pound on a high demon in his smaller thifilathi to keep him from killing a witness gets the highest marks in my book."

"she was pounding on me? i don't remember that," tory grumped.

"and yelling at you. i think if she hadn't been your mate, you might have killed her, too." ry walked in. i hadn't seen him for a while-he'd stayed out of the picture while tory had been courting me.

that's how i ended up being escorted to the kitchens by a high demon, a vampire, the child of vampires, a karathian warlock and a healer. the palace cook was the same one, i saw-he still hadn't gotten his job on the light half of the planet.

"you're the one who made the fish," he said when i walked in, supported by gavril on one side and aurelius on the other. tory had allowed his younger brother to help me down the long warren of hallways into the kitchen. "i am chef harding," he held out his hand. "i can never get the fish to come out right," he said.

"you're cooking it a little too long," i said. "make the sauce first, then do the fish. it always turns out better that way."

"i don't suppose i could get your sauce recipe?"

"not that one," i said. gavril and aurelius let me go so i could work at the counter with lissa's cook. "i can show you one that won't get you involved in a lawsuit with desh's, though." that's how chef harding and i collaborated to make fish with a new sauce and serve it to our audience. karzac had held aurelius back while i worked. "we will allow this-it is a distraction," he whispered. i heard but pretended i hadn't.

"this is amazing," chef harding moaned with pleasure as he tasted his portion.

"i am happy with this," i agreed-the recipe had been bubbling in my head for a while-i just hadn't found the time to try it. we had a menu planned around the fish before all was said and done. norian, lissa and lendill walked into the kitchen right then and i was proud of myself-i didn't slam plates down or grumble as i served the director and his second-in-command.

"i'm immune to poisons, so you'll have to kill me a different way," norian's half-grin was a little on the wry side. lendill said nothing at all.

"permission to speak freely, director?" i asked, gazing steadily at norian keef.

"permission granted."

"i wouldn't stoop to killing you," i snapped. "you're not worth spending the rest of my life in prison over, or dying on one of the worlds that still hands out the death penalty. vice-director," i pointed an angry glare at lendill schaff, "i hope your life is never in danger. i might have second thoughts about saving that tight ass of yours." skipping to get to aurelius had been easy-i don't know why i hadn't thought of doing it before. i skipped away now; it was a simple feat to accomplish.

"bel?" the light was dim inside his cell but bright in the hallway just outside it, making it difficult to identify the wizard. bel was sitting on a cot shoved against the back wall, his gaze locked on the white wall opposite his cage. his expression was a hopeless one-he didn't expect to get away from his alliance prison.

"reah? thank the gods-they wouldn't give me any information on you. we thought you were dead." bel stood and walked toward the bars, staring at me as if i were a ghost.

"no, just almost there for a while," i shrugged.

"reah, this isn't what it looks like," bel said, holding out his hand to me. he was careful not to brush against the bars of his cage.

"i was hoping it wasn't," i said, grasping his fingers in mine. "but i have to tell you, it doesn't look so good from the alliance standpoint."

"i know. reah, you have no idea how bad things are. the high commander is in charge of things on mandil, now. the prince royal is little more than a figurehead. has been for a while." bel shook his head in dismay at his own statement. "we didn't realize until later that three of the prince's wizards aren't mandili-they came from somewhere else. they were hired by the high commander, and everything the prince said or did was funneled straight to that stinking pile of-well. the high commander paid the desert villages to raise drakus seed alongside their citrus crops. it was easy enough to accomplish." bel squeezed my fingers and let them go.

"the prince came to the rangers shortly before you came to us, reah. he asked us to place ourselves under the high commander's authority, to spy on his activities. if it hadn't been for the drakus seed, the high commander would have ordered the outlying villages to empty and come to crown city long ago, when the demons first attacked. he wasn't willing to let all that go-he just hadn't calculated on the strength or the tenacity of the enemy we faced. he didn't know what they were. he sent us and those other two cohorts to the desert outposts to protect the locals and their drug crop. those fool wizards the prince has don't have much in the way of protection against spawn. the high commander almost destroyed mandil."

"bel, are you telling me you were undercover? the whole time?"

"reah, please believe me. we'll die over this-they're sending us back to tulgalan for judgment, didn't you know? one of those kids who died was the son of a high council member. they'll sentence us to evensun for that reason alone. leave it to the high commander to recruit shit for brains nods whitlin."

"you're telling the truth, i'd know if you weren't," i said. he was telling the truth. i'd been able to tell truth from a lie since i was six. i'd known marzi was telling me the truth when she'd whispered her poison in my ear. "but what were you going to do? i mean, there had to be some sort of plan, didn't there? after you reported back to the prince?" at that moment, i was desperately hoping there was a plan.

"reah, we-the rangers-were hoping to take the high commander's wizards down, as soon as we figured out what they were doing and who they were selling to. we don't have any contacts with the alliance-all we have is a shaky treaty to leave each other alone and a few wizards who are still loyal to the crown. i don't know if our ability will be enough-we've missed lin and jorvis. more than you can ever know. we miss you, too, reah. i don't know what it was that we saw that night; i only know that without it, we would all be dead."

both of us gasped and turned as we heard footsteps coming down the hall. "go, reah," bel hissed. "you don't need to be caught here!" i took bel's advice and skipped away.

"can we believe this?" lendill schaff held up the small chip from the hidden camera, wiggling it suggestively at norian.

"i think we can," norian grinned. "reah gets us what we want and we didn't even have to do anything for it."

"except act like assholes," lendill muttered, handing the chip over.

"yeah-we have a lot of begging and scraping to do after we get this cleared up."

"if we get it cleared up. the more drakus seed that gets out, the more deaths it leaves in its wake. if this becomes widespread, the entire alliance could fall. the alliance worlds are looking to the asd and the alliance armies to deal with this. it has become too large a problem much too quickly, and we have too little intelligence to kill it swiftly. the member worlds will break away and try to handle the problem themselves if it looks like we can't." norian rubbed his forehead-he felt a headache coming on. "ever since those fools on campiaa decided to form their own alliance by accepting every black-hearted planet in the known universes, we've been under attack. if we can't get this cleaned up soon, the reth alliance could die a painful death. they're trying to break us up, lendill. any way they can."

"then i have a suggestion," lendill smiled.

"what's that?" norian was willing to listen to anything at this point.

"we're sending the prisoners to tulgalan in three days. let's stage a breakout along the way and attribute it to those rogues we have in custody. let's arrange for a quick death for our shooter, too. he killed all those kids-not the rangers." lendill had come to think of the captive wizards in those terms-bel and reah both had referred to them that way. "if we let them go, perhaps the rangers can finish their assignment. or at least disrupt the flow of drakus seed from mandil."

"let's send ours back to mandil with them-ry and tory both, in addition to reah," norian nodded in enthusiastic agreement. "the rangers already know reah, that won't be a stretch, and we'll say that our three were captured in the bust on tulgalan-that they were rival dealers and such. maybe our three, combined with the rangers who work for the mandili prince, can successfully bring down the high commander and his rogue wizards. then the drakus seed farms on mandil can be destroyed." norian liked the idea. very much. "you think we can pull this off, lendill?"

"i'm all for giving it a try. how much danger do you think ours will be in?"

"some, but remember, tory and ry can transport themselves away at any time. reah, too, unless i miss my guess. how did she get into the dungeon otherwise?" norian grinned mischievously. "we only have to convince the rangers to cooperate. if we offer them freedom and the opportunity to complete the assignment for their prince, i think they'll leap at the chance."

"i'll call them in for a meeting," lendill agreed.

"we have a change of plans-you'll be going farther undercover than you've ever been before," lendill paced as he made the announcement. "you'll have a new destination, too."