Ward Against Darkness (Chronicles of a Reluctant Necromancer) by Melanie Card Page A

badly. She’d gotten him into this mess, it was her responsibility to get him out of it. Surely the Goddess would give her enough time to get Ward to safety.
    But things didn’t often work that way. Celia hadn’t experienced any sensations that might indicate Ward’s spell on her was about to end…but what if whatever kept her alive wasn’t just a Jam de’U?
    Macerio thought she was Ward’s vesperitti, and Lyla, a real vesperitti, had made the same assumption. They saw something Ward couldn’t. But he was mystically blind and couldn’t see magic—the reason he couldn’t entirely explain what he’d done to her. Sure, he’d cast a Jam de’U, but from everything he’d said, the spell should have ended over a week ago.
    Which meant maybe that wasn’t what he’d cast. He had said he had to improvise parts of the spell. Maybe he’d cast something else. He might not believe he was powerful enough for anything else, but she knew different. She’d seen a glimmer of something amazing when they’d faced that last Innecroestri. Maybe he cast a vesperitti’s false resurrection spell on her. Except, if she were a vesperitti, why wasn’t she driven to consume souls?
    She needed more information, and she’d start with Val Rous, her former suitor. If she could rekindle their flirtation, she’d learn what she needed about what a vesperitti could do and if she was one herself.
    Fear and hope fluttered through her. Being a vesperitti meant she wasn’t going to die again and could fix the things she’d ruined in Ward’s life; she could even remain with him. But what would Ward do if he discovered she was a monster? Would he think twice before trying to kill her?

Chapter Six
    Ward jerked awake. There was someone in his room.
    Maybe it was just his imagination.
    The flame of the candle on the bedside table flickered. He’d been so tired he hadn’t even blown it out. He’d seen horrible things, knew monsters lived in this house, and the door to his room didn’t have a bolt.
    Movement flitted at the edge of his vision, and something scratched. That side of the room was dark, filled with shadows. It had to be Celia.
    But she didn’t appear or call out.
    The curtains billowed again, revealing a man-sized shadow. Ward’s mouth went dry. He needed a weapon, but he didn’t have anything, and even if he did, he wasn’t skilled at using it. He was a necromancer and not a very good one at that.
    In truth, he was a physician. He’d been good at that. But his dream of pursuing the illegal activities of surgery had destroyed that life.
    The candle. It might distract the intruder long enough for him to escape. He inched up the bed and reached for the holder.
    “Not your wisest move, Doctor Death.”
    Ward froze, straining to see who was in his room. The masculine voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Whoever it was knew him, so it couldn’t be anyone from the house. It had to be a bounty hunter.
    “That’s de’Ath, not death. It’s two syllables. And what isn’t wise?” Just stay calm.
    A large muscular man with short-cropped dark hair stepped from the shadows of the curtains. Both his build and his hair were signs of his occupation: warrior. Or in this case, a member of the highest law in the Union of Principalities, the Quayestri. The Tracker Nazarius, a warrior with divine backing.
    The man crossed his arms, the fabric of his shirt straining against his well-honed muscles. “You were going to throw that candle at me. It wouldn’t have worked and would have just made a mess.”
    The goddess-eye brand at the back of Ward’s neck began to itch. It did every time he faced the law, and he was reminded he’d been caught digging up a corpse in Wildenmere and branded a criminal. Wonderful. If he thought he had enough to deal with before with Macerio and his monsters, now the law was involved. And that was never good.
    “Would it at least have set the mansion on fire?”
    It was bad enough the