“See the ice?”
Edgar did. It looked like one of those frozen crates from the macabre factory.
“I don’t see . . .” Edgar began, but then Lipscombe walked past his view and stood staring up at the sea-crane. He didn’t look happy.
Edgar lowered the scope. The world around him seemed suddenly very distant. He took a step, staggered, managed to catch himself before he fell.
“Transitioning between using and not using the Farseeing Scope takes some getting used to too,” she offered.
Edgar only nodded. His stomach was doing a couple of flip-flops and he was glad he hadn’t eaten much before slipping into the tub.
Josephine re-buttoned the top two buttons of her stolen warden uniform and adjusted its stiff collar. She’d taken it off a young warden who had tried to arrest her earlier. He’d made the stupid mistake of getting too close to her and she’d disabled him, knocked him out before he’d been able to raise an alarm. She figured with Lord Ragget, the Bloody Fists and the Royal Wardens all looking for a young woman, she’d dress as a young man for a while.
“Where’re you going, Jo?” Edgar asked as she left the balcony.
She stowed the Farseeing Scope in her pack and crossed to the door. “Where else? I’m going to get Lipscombe.”
“You can’t-”
She scowled and left.
“Hold up,” Edgar called after her. He grabbed the room key and Owen’s knife. “I’ll go with you . . .”
He didn’t see her out in the hall. Edgar ran for the stairs and finally caught up with her in the hotel lobby.
“Jo, wait. You ain’t thinking this through . . .” He grabbed her arm.
Josephine spun around and gave him a hard stare. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do, Edgar. Not now. Not after what he’s done. Not after everything I’ve done.”
Edgar found himself nodding his agreement even as Bolodenko’s words echoed in his mind. Somehow, he had to keep Lipscombe alive while at the same time not outright betray the woman he loved.
If there had been any doubt before that he’d gotten the raw end of the Bolodenko deal, there was none now.
“What about Lord Ian . . .” Edgar tried. “I thought you wanted to save him?”
“I do, and I will,” Josephine shot back. She headed for the front door. “Right after I finish with Lipscombe.”
Edgar sighed. Yep, he’d been afraid of that. “I’ve warned you about going into Motre-liare’ . . .”
She rounded on him again. “Edgar, I’m glad you’ve returned, and I appreciate your help but if you’d rather stay here I won’t think any less of you.”
Would she think any more of him though? “No, no . . . I ain’t gonna let you go in there alone. If anyone’s got your back covered, it’s me.”
Josephine snorted. “Why do I think you mean if anyone’s got my backside covered, it’s you?”
“Well, that too, of course,” Edgar said. He followed her outside. “You do have a beautiful bum.”
“I think you’ve told me that before.” Josephine waved down a carriage.
“Gods, Jo! Are you tiring of my compliments?”
She patted him on the cheek. “I’m just wondering if you can be a little more creative.”
The carriage stopped, and she climbed inside first. For a moment, her butt was directly in front of his face. Edgar threw his hands in the air. How was he supposed to come up with new compliments when she did things like that?
“You’ve got pretty eyes too . . .” he tried.
“Yeah? What color are they?”
Crap. “Blue?” He climbed in after her.
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
He sat down across from her. She had her eyes closed. That wasn’t fair! “Telling?”
“Where to, warden?” the driver called out.
“Sea crane, far southern dock,” Josephine called out, in a deep husky voice.
“Sorry warden, I don’t go down that-a-way,” the driver said. “It’s not safe.”
“I have official business down there,” Josephine stated. “Go.”
The driver grumbled something, and the carriage lurched ahead.
“So?” Edgar leaned forward. “What’s the plan? Wha’cha going to do with Lipscombe once you find him?”
Josephine sighed and looked out the window. Edgar was happy to note she did in fact have blue eyes. Two lovely blue eyes. She glanced his way and he couldn’t help but notice her blue eyes also looked rather sad. “I’m going to kill him, Edgar. And then, I’m going to see if that makes any difference at all . . .”
chapter 37
“I’m here for the prisoner.”
Stephano Di Rygazzo held up his hand but continued his droning chant. He was close. Very close. He could feel the crack forming, spreading. A few more images and the entire scenario would implant.
And then, like having a door slammed in his face, the crack closed, and he was violently hurled from Ian’s mind again.
“Akz’eptiene di’Hel’ien stem’pendien Ge’nact,” Di Rygazzo chanted softly. “Akz’eptiene di’Hel’ien stem’pendien Mor’dren Ge’nact.”
As the last magical word passed over his lips, he waited, watching Ian’s face. There was still a slim chance the spell would work. It might slip through a crack in Ian’s mind he had inadvertently overlooked.
The muscles in Ian’s face tensed and Di Rygazzo held his breath. Seconds passed. The change would be exquisite . . .
And then Ian’s face relaxed again, unchanged.
Di Rygazzo let out his breath in one long exhale. The spell had failed. Again. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. Never had he encountered someone with such determination and moral strength and for a moment, he admired the Gyunwarian lord.
Then with a shake of his head, he turned and gestured to the royal warden standing patiently by the cell door. “Take him away.”
chapter 38
As Wynston dressed, his eyes continued to drift over to the folded note resting upon his desk. If only Bolodenko’s warning had arrived at the estate an hour earlier, Ian would not be in custody, and perhaps the king’s murder could have somehow been prevented.
Wynston had no doubts in his mind that Ian was innocent. He also suspected that the items found in Ian’s vault were planted, most likely by some sort of mage. Upon further reflection, he had deduced from the past night’s events, a wind mage had caused the violent blast that had forced the front doors open. However, the same mage had not melted the stone in the secret tunnel. So, two mages, one of wind, and one of fire, had entered the estate to wreak havoc last night. Of course, it hadn’t taken him long to realize Garett, the ‘scullion’, the man who refused to swim, was in fact the fire mage. However, except for a missing pie and the melted rock, nothing else had been taken or damaged by either mage . . . unless Garett was the very same fire mage who had destroyed the warehouse and Kylpin’s ship. But if he were, why hadn’t he torched the estate too when he’d had the chance?
Perhaps being a fellow Gyunwarian, he had experienced a change of heart once entering the estate. Or perhaps with the arrival of the royal wardens, he thought it best to try and escape and had fallen in with them, only to be thwarted by the underground river. But still the question that begged to be answered. Why? Why frame Ian for the king’s murder and the vault burglaries? Surely the greater of the two crimes, regicide, would be more than enough to ruin him.
Wynston paced over to an eastern facing window and stared out at the rising sun. The storm clouds had passed out to sea and their fluffy underbellies which had once been black and ominous were now bright pink and orange. If only recent events could change so easily.
Below, he spied a carriage leaving the estate, carrying Lady Cecily away again. She had returned home less than an hour before, had shouted angrily at the royal wardens for muddying up the floors, as if she were going to clean them herself, and had disappeared into Ian’s study without so much as a comment about his arrest or where she had
been for the past few days. He had watched her from within the secret room built into the stone walls, but when she began poking around in Ian’s desk, he had slipped back into the hallway and entered the study.
“Wynston, leave.”
“But, M’lady, those are Lord Ian’s private papers.”
The icy glare she gave him had stopped his tongue. Though he typically answered only to Ian, she was still the princess, and with her being in such an obviously foul mood, she was liable to cast anyone into the dungeon alongside her husband.
Briefly, he had entertained the idea of pushing her to that extreme, but then he remembered there was something else that still needed to be done.
“Old man, what do you think you’re doing?”
Wynston turned away from the window. Gertrude was standing in the open doorway staring at him.
“I am helping Lord Ian.”
“By wearing an old suit of armor?” Gertrude snapped. “Let me put one of my soup kettles on my head and I’ll help him too.”
Wynston bristled. “Lord Orrington challenged Lord Ian to a duel yesterday before all this happened and unless someone shows, the Weatherall name will be further dishonored.”
Gertrude crossed her arms. “And you think you’re that someone?”
“There is no one else,” Wynston said. “Denton is imprisoned, and the remaining home guard is either locked up with him or dead.”
“To cover our escape,” Gertrude retorted, “and yet, we’re still here.”
“You heard Tyran in the cavern.”
“That boy! Someone ought to . . . I would have . . .”
Wynston could tell she wanted to be angry, but she just couldn’t muster her usual rant. Dark circles colored the bags beneath her eyes, and finally after a few sputtering attempts, she trailed off, ending with a sigh. He smiled. “Tyran’s a lot like his father, isn’t he?”
“And his great-grandfather,” Gertrude added, sounding a little less gruff. She crossed the room and began inspecting the leather straps that kept his armor in place. “Peace to Alan.”
“Peace to Alan,” Wynston repeated. It was an old saying, attributed to Alan’s heroic journey to sign the treaty. At only fifteen years of age, Wynston had been the youngest of Alan’s Peace Walkers, and he remembered being scared during the entire trip. Scared, but proud. Alan’s determination and courage had seen them through and Wynston had witnessed the end of the war, the Great War which had raged for all but the first year of his life. And perhaps now, sadly, after fifty years, he was about to witness the end of peace.
He shook his head in disgust.
Gertrude finished her inspection and straightened. “I won’t try to dissuade you from your decision, old man.”
Wynston nodded.
“Even if it is a fool’s errand,” Gertrude continued in her more scathing tone.
“Then who better to perform it than an old fool?” Wynston asked. “You’ve accused me of being such many times before.”
“I’ve accused you of being a horse’s ass too, but I don’t see you out in the stables shitting in the stalls.”
“Your concern is unnecessary, madam,” Wynston retorted. “I will return shortly.”
She snorted. “I think you’re delusional. On both accounts.”
“Perhaps. That’s why I left instructions for my burial in your kitchen.”
“You should have left them in Tyran’s room. He might actually follow them.”
“I didn’t want him to know I was going.”
Gertrude crossed her arms and stared at him sharply.
“He knows?”
“That’s why I’m here. He asked me to convince you otherwise.”
“And you listened to him?” Wynston raised an eyebrow.
“Did I tell you to stay, old man?” she asked harshly. “Go. Get yourself killed. I don’t care. I won’t attend your funeral.”
Wynston shrugged. “I’d only want mourners there anyway.”
“Then I suspect it will be a sparse gathering.”
Wynston sighed. “Perhaps, but at least I will have died defending the Weatherall name.”
“Well, that’ll just mean more blackmanger, chicken with marybones, and honey wafres for the rest of us at dinner tonight.” She turned and stalked back toward the door.
“Those are three of my favorite dishes,” he called after her.
She stopped in the hallway and glared back at him, her mouth pinched tight. “I know, old man, I know.”
And then she was gone.
chapter 39
Theodora Mor’moria stepped out of the carriage and handed the city driver a few coins.
“Thank you, madam healer,” he called down and tipped his hat. “Have a good day.”
She returned his smile and waved politely as he wheeled the carriage around and headed back toward the city. Lord Glavinas Roth’s estate lay outside the main wall, a few miles north of the city, on a narrow peninsula sticking out from the mainland like a thumb. Normally, the trip would have only taken half an hour, but the north gate had been uncharacteristically closed. Only after a thorough search of the carriage, had she been allowed to pass.
“What are you looking for?” she had asked one of the wardens once the inspection was over.
“None of your business, madam healer,” the warden replied brusquely. “Move along!”
She squinted at the early morning sun and was thankful she had remembered her wide-brimmed hat. Being inside mostly, tending to the sick and injured, she found this moment of peace and tranquility beneath the wide expansive sky a near sinful delight. She pushed the sleeves of her healer’s robes up to her elbows and smiled at the luxurious feel of the warm sun on her skin. In her youth, she remembered playing outside all summer, her skin turning a dark tan from the sun. She glanced down at her pale arms now and sighed.
To be young again.
She turned and surveyed Lord Roth’s estate. Beyond the imposing iron gate and eight-foot high stone walls, giant oaks and evergreens huddled close together, casting deep, velvety shadows beneath their tangled branches. Thick spider webs hung from some of the lower branches, littered with the carcasses of recent kills, while the tall weeds choked out the grass and threatened to obscure the stone pathway leading up to the equally obscured estate. A small section of a stone wall, or perhaps a tower, was the only part of the dark estate she could see from the rusted gate.
“Hello?” Theodora called out merrily. Her voice seemed completely out of place here, just like it did when she visited the necropolis.
A single crow cawed ominously from a hidden perch nearby. Theodora shivered despite the warm sun. “Hello?” she tried again. “Lord Roth?”
Her words were swallowed by the dark forest looming in front of her. She pushed tentatively against the rusty gate and the hinges moaned sorrowfully, the tone low at first like the groan of a dying man, but as the gate swung open, bending weeds, the pitch resembled the high screeching wail of a woman struggling through a painful contraction.
Once the gate quieted, she listened for the bark or growl of a dog. Often, lords or ladies maintained guard dogs to patrol their properties, especially the estates outside the protection of the formidable city wall. The grounds, however, remained eerily still, the silence broken only by the raucous cawing of the crow.
“Quiet, you,” she called out to the unseen bird.
Her admonishment went unheeded. As she stepped into the shadows of the giant trees, careful not to walk into any of the low hanging spider webs, the crow continued its obnoxious cawing. If anything, it sounded even louder.
“Lord Roth?” she called again.
Didn’t he have any guards, or servants . . . or gardeners? She waded through the waist-high weeds and stepped onto the barely visible stone path. The air was cooler under the dark canopy of twisted and tangled branches and smelled strongly of pine . . . and something else . . . something musty, or rotten, or . . . gangrenous. All sorts of flying bugs zipped around her, and s
he waved her hands over her head trying to keep them out of her long blonde hair. She hated bugs, hated the way they looked, the sounds they made, and especially the way she always stepped on the crunchy ones whenever she walked barefoot through her house.
Theodora shivered again.
Hurrying toward the estate, pulling her robes free each time they caught on the weeds, she reminded herself again the reason she was here. To help Lord Ian, surely, but also for an evening of dinner and dancing with Sir Lumist Tunney!
She remembered the horror she’d felt last night when the obscenely overweight man had carried him through the infirmary’s front doors. Lumist was leaking blood fast and it was all she could do to keep him alive while her magic-quickened fingers sought to repair the internal damage and knit him back together again. After she had released her magic for the third time, and he had remained alive, she had excused herself, fled to her room and cried.
In her haste to finish her task and return to the infirmary, Theodora tripped on an unseen root and pitched forward, falling onto one of the large, white stones. More embarrassed than hurt, she rose and brushed the dirt from her knees. Only then did she notice the blood trickling from the cuts in her callused palms. Calling upon her gift, she drew the earthen magic into herself, and knitted the flesh together. The new pink skin formed quickly and within minutes, she was walking toward the estate again, mindful of her step, with the tingle of the magic power still working on her hands.
The snarled mass of trees thinned as she neared what once might have been a moat. The stagnant marsh encircling the estate reeked of death and decay and thick, black clouds of hovering insects buzzed incessantly over the turbid water. Breathing shallowly and holding a smile on her face to control the urge to vomit, Theodora searched, and thankfully found the remnants of a drawbridge. The rotting timbers spanning the wide trench did little to instill confidence, but she had seen Lord Roth’s robust size, and if he was able to cross safely . . . she took a cautious step forward onto the first plank . . . then so should she.
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