Masques by Patricia Briggs Page B

reply; but he must have nodded, because when he spoke again, it was on a different topic. “What was that you grabbed off the floor?”
    “Ah yes. Just a . . . spy. Small but effective nonetheless.” Was that amusement she picked up in his tone?
    The bag was opened, and she found herself hanging by her tail for the perusal of the two men. She twisted around and bit the hand that held her, hard. The mage laughed, but moved his hand so that she sat comfortably on his palm.
    “My lord, may I present to you the Lady Aralorn, sometime spy of Sianim.”
    She was so shocked she almost fell off her perch. How did he know who she was? It wasn’t as if she were one of the famous generals that everyone knew. In fact, as a spy, she’d worked pretty hard to keep her name out of the spotlight. And no one, no one knew that Aralorn could become a mouse.
    Then it hit her. Without the additional muffling of the bag she recognized the voice. It was altered through the mask, a human throat, and that odd accent—but she knew it anyway. No one else could have that particularly macabre timbre. It was Wolf.
    “So”—Myr’s voice was quiet—“Sianim spies on me now.” Aralorn turned her attention to Myr. In the short time since she’d seen him, he’d aged years. He was thinner, his mouth held taut, and his eyes belonged to the harsh old warrior who had been his grandfather instead of the boy she’d met. He wore clothing that a rough trapper or a traveling merchant might wear, patched here and there with neat stitches.
    Deciding that the mouse was no longer useful—and it was easier to talk as a human—Aralorn jumped nimbly off her perch and resumed her normal shape, which was not the one that he would recognize. “No, my lord,” she answered. “Or at least that wasn’t my assignment. Sianim has spies on everyone . In fact, this is a rather fortunate meeting; I was looking for you to tell you that the ae’Magi’s messengers have reported your fit of madness to all the nearby townsfolk.” She spoke slowly and formally to give him a chance to adjust to her altered state.
    Rethians were not less prejudiced against shapeshifters, just more likely to admit their existence. Since her mother’s people lived in the northern mountains of Reth and paid tribute yearly to the King of Reth in the form of exquisite tapestries and well-crafted tools delivered in the night by unseen persons, the Rethians had a tougher time dismissing them as hearsay.
    Folktales warned villagers to stay out of the forests at night, or they would be fodder of the shapeshifters or other green-magic users who might still be lurking in the impenetrable depths of the trees. Given the antagonism that the shapeshifters felt toward invading humans, Aralorn was afraid that the stories might not have it all wrong. But the royal family tended not to be as wary, probably the result of the yearly tribute they received—and the fact that they lived in southern Reth, far from any possible outpost of shapeshifters.
    Myr glanced at the mage, who nodded and spoke. “That she means you no harm, I will vouch for.” The slurred quality was not a product of the muffling of the pouch; if anything it was stronger than it had been. Maybe it was the mask.
    “She has a gift for languages,” Wolf continued. “I need someone to help me in my research. If she is not occupied with other things, it would do no harm to bring her to camp with us. She can fight, and the gods know we have need of fighters. Also, she stands in danger from the ae’Magi if he should discover who it was that spied on him.”
    “You spied on the Archmage?” Myr raised an eyebrow at her.
    Aralorn shrugged. “It wasn’t my favorite assignment, but definitely one of the more interesting.” She let her face shift quickly to the one he’d seen in the ae’Magi’s castle, then went back to normal.
    Myr looked a little sick—watching someone’s face move around could do that—then he blinked a couple of