Prologue Gray Waters Lunatic Asylum, London Fall 1872 Whenever you have a sorcerer betwixt your thighs, your powers tend to disappear," Sabine told her sister as she scanned the faces of the frenzied, caged humans. "It's merely a fact of life." "Maybe in the past," Lanthe said as she dropped the unconscious guard she'd been toting by his belt. "Things are going to be different with this one." She busily tied the man's hands behind his back-instead of breaking his arms, which had the same result and didn't waste rope. "You still haven't seen her?" Her-the sorceress they came to release from this place-if she agreed to convey her powers to Lanthe in exchange for her freedom. Sabine slinked down the darkened corridor. "I can't tell when they huddle like this." She plucked a cell door off its hinges and tossed it away, her heels clicking as she entered the cage. Up close, she could tell the inhab­itants all looked very ... mortal. Naturally, they cowered from her. Sabine knew the exotic picture she presented with her garments and face paint. As though she'd donned a mask, her eyes were kohled black in a swath from the sides of her nose to her temples. Her clothes were constructed more of strips of leather and chain metal than of cloth and thread. She wore a metal bustier and mesh gloves that ran the length of her arms, ending in forged fingertip claws.