Vashek led him away from the main palace grounds, down a winding path that cut through what remained of an ornamental garden, untouched by the fighting, strangely, its dark blooms still closed tight against the evening air.
The kind of place nobody would think to look for two people who didn't want to be found.
He stopped beside a cracked stone well, long dry, its edges worn smooth by centuries of hands that had stopped needing it generations ago.
"This is far enough," Vashek said, glancing back the way they'd come. Satisfied, apparently, that no one had followed.
He reached into his robe and produced a small vial. Glass, dark as obsidian, stoppered with wax and bound with a thread of essence that pulsed faintly even in the low light, the kind of containment reserved for things too volatile to trust to simple glass alone.
Brandon's eyes fixed on it immediately. "What is it?"
