Queens of Wings & Storms

by Angela Sanders et al.

“Can’t the City Watch take them in for the other things?” Dane asked.

  “That’ll never happen.” Cadence slipped on her silver ring. “Osprey Tutson who governs this damn town is too good of friends with Master Tano. Nothing will happen unless the Sanctum steps in.”

  Tillie raised her voice. “I can help you investigate! I’m not afraid of them, or of what might happen!”

  “Miss Boyce, you have a child to take care of. He’s lost his father. He cannot lose his mother, too. This family is dangerous. Keep Dane Sheltier detained and alive for me while I get into some trouble.”

  “Wait.” Dane did his best to sit up in bed. “You said the family is dangerous and does all this dark forbidden stuff, right?”

  Cadence’s expression flattened out as she waited for what she expected to be an argument. “Yes. And I suspect I can link them back to the reason I began this investigation in the first place.”

  “Well, what are you going to do? If you try stalking around, and they catch you, and they’re in the clear for crime since they’re friends with the governor, can’t they just kill you and dump you in the river somewhere, and that’d be the end of it?”

  “I suppose that would be the end of it.”

  He scratched his head. “I haven’t learned a lot about the people in this town yet in the short time I’ve been here, but I think I’ve met one of them. The wife. Tarina Tano. Maybe work with her instead of Master Tano? I think she would kill you too, don’t misunderstand me, but she’s a surprisingly laid back woman. I don’t think she would suspect you as quickly as the others.”

  “Tarina Tano.” Cadence rolled the name around in her mouth. “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Without fail I’ve seen her at the farmstand to the east side of the cemetery every morning. She spends at least an hour there, sometimes more. I don’t know what time it is right now, but you might be able to find her. You’ll know her when you see her. Her face looks sharp enough to cut a man, and she’s pregnant.”

  “How pregnant?” Tillie asked. “Lady Clayton is pregnant, too. She’s very pregnant.”

  Dane shrugged. “I don’t know. What does that even mean? How would I know how pregnant she is?”

  “Well, is she hauling a kitten, or a baby goat under her dress?”

  “What? I don’t know. A kitten, I guess.”

  “Alright.” Tillie grinned and turned to Cadence. “Tarina Tano: a sharp-faced woman who is a little bit pregnant. You know, she had twins last time. I wonder if she’ll have them again!”

  Cadence slipped on her tall hat, pushed it gently into place, and nodded. “Thank you Miss Boyce, Mister Sheltier. Please remain here at the Alabaster Bobcat until I return.”

  When she left, Dane fell back into bed with a loud sigh. After that, the room was quiet. Tillie knew she should be watching him in case he tried to get out of the manacles, but she felt awkward staring, and shifted her eyes to the window instead. She could see Cadence in the street.

  “Are you really going to keep me chained up in here like this?” Dane asked.

  “I’m afraid you’ll pull a fast one on me and try to escape if I free your hand. And I can’t let Cadence down a second time.” She shrugged. “Sorry. I hope you understand. Personally, I think you’re innocent.”

  “Innocent of what, exactly? I heard what she said, that she was investigating potential desecration, but what does that mean? What exactly is she trying to find out I did or didn’t do?”

  She pitied him when she finally decided to lay her eyes back on him. There was dirt and grit caked all over his face and arms, and his clothes were stained with blood and grime.

  “Illegally selling dead bodies.”

  “Have I really been here long enough to do that?”

  She shrugged. “How do we know how long you’ve really been here? The first day I saw you, it seemed like you had already been here for at least a little while. Just because I don’t know the exact timeline doesn’t mean you haven’t had time to do bad things!”

  Dane scoffed. “Well I haven’t done any bad things. You two need to calm down.”

  It was quiet again. Tillie sat down at the table, staring out the window with her chin on her palms, wondering what Rowan was doing. It was late in the morning, so he was probably helping his friend with chores before going to chase bugs by the river. Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by her stomach.

  She hadn’t eaten since… she couldn’t even remember.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I thought I was going to have to eat my own arm.”

  “No, no! There won’t be any of that.” Tillie took the key to the manacles out of her pocket and looked it over. “Can I trust you, Dane? It’s really important that you stick with us until Cadence says otherwise. But I would like you to get to wash up and have a meal at the very least. Will you cooperate?”

  “What do you think happens to me if I don’t?” Dane asked her. “She’ll probably have me ran outta town, which means I lose my new job and I have to go back out on the road again. I’m tired of wandering. I like it here.”

  “Look, can you just give me a straight answer?”

  “Yes. I will cooperate. What’s your name, again?”

  She smiled and came over with the key. “Miss Tillie Boyce. Please don’t be so formal like Cadence is. You can just call me Tillie.”

  Dane scooted upright and watched her unlock the manacles, catching the scent of jasmine on her skin. “Tillie. What’s that short for?”

  “Matilda,” she said. “Now, I don’t think there’s much that can be done about your clothes till we get all of this sorted out, but I can show you where the washrooms are. Cadence has a tab open here, so you can take all the time you need. It’s one silver star for fifteen minutes, though, so I’d try not to go over that if you can help it. She’s put up with so much from me already.”

  “Haven’t you put up with a lot from her?” The cuff slipped off his wrist.

  “Oh, no!” Tillie chuckled. “She keeps giving me opportunities to leave, but I won’t take them. She probably would have had an easier time of things if I had stayed home early on. But here I am. I need something like this. I think she knows that.”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her and didn’t know why. Then, it hit him. He got out of bed and stretched.

  “You were at the cemetery the other day. With your boy. Right?”

  “Yes. That was me.”

  “Parent? Grandparent?”

  Tillie swallowed hard. “Husband.”

  “Oh.” His eyes were wide. “Uh, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be so nonchalant about that.”

  She shook her head. “It’s alright. Here, let me show you the washrooms. I can wait outside the door for you and then we’ll get something to eat. Alabaster Bobcat serves food all day, so we’re in luck.”

  The Alabaster Bobcat was not busy. A festival had passed weeks ago and most of the town’s visitors had cleared out. It was quiet as Tillie waited outside Dane’s washroom door. She secretly wished it had been loud and hectic instead. Just for those fifteen minutes. It made her heart race to hear the dripping of soapy water, and it took all of her willpower to keep from picturing the wet, bare torso that it trickled down.

  You stop those thoughts right this second, she told herself. Do not let all this excitement get the best of you. Life would go back to normal any day now. She was sure of it. And then she would not have to stand outside the door while an attractive young man bathed himself and get carried away with her thoughts.

  Before noon, both Dane and Tillie had a meal in front of them and were seated by a window, looking out at the town. Horses and mules pulled carriages down the streets, sometimes loaded with crates of goods and sometimes passengers. There was even a view of Tano Manor. Tillie loved Beralin, but she missed Riddenholm so much.

  “Do we really have to stay here all day waiting for that crazy lady to come back?” Dane asked. “Who knows how long that could take?”
/>
  “We should do what she says. She wouldn’t purposely keep us waiting forever. She knows we have lives.”

  “Does she?” Dane piled thick bacon on top of his biscuit and took a bite.

  The way he constantly seemed to whine made her chuckle. “Yes! Of course. I’ve only known her for these days since the investigation, but I have her figured out.”

  “Mm-hmm.” His grin was wry.

  “She’s a little rough around the edges, but she’s very well-meaning and very proper. It would be downright out of character for her to leave us hanging.”

  “Alright, if you say so.” He pointed to her plate. “You gonna eat anything?”

  She looked down at her bowl of perfectly untouched oats and cream. Alabaster Bobcat even served them with a touch of molasses.

  “I’m hungry, but every time think about eating, my insides get all twisted up over this. Guess I should just shut up and get it over with.”

  “Hold that thought.” He stood up and patted her shoulder. “I know what you need.”

  She watched him walk up to the bar with a swagger like he owned the place. Or had just suffered a serious head injury. Either way, he came back with a petite glass of something fragrant that was the color of honey.

  “Been hearing about this place’s mead since I came into town. Here! Have some. Courtesy of the Bone Priestess.”

  Tillie broke into laughter as he sat back down and handed it to her. “Thank you. This place has amazing mead. Can’t get anything like it in Beralin, unfortunately, unless I wanna pay double the price when a bottle comes in.”

  “You live in Beralin?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “It’s nice, but it’s not home. This is home.” She gazed back out the window, sipping on the sweet mead. “I moved away after my husband died. It just got too hard to see the way everyone looked at me and Rowan. Everyone always wants to tell you they’re sorry, or they want you to open up about it, or worse yet they clam up and have no idea what to say when you start to talk about it. I had to get away. Even still, sometimes it doesn’t feel far away enough.”

  “So, you’d never move back to Riddenholm?”

  “Oh, I think about it all the time.” She smiled and took another sip. “I love it here. I’m getting better, I know I am. It just gets hard around that time every year. But I come back. And I always will.”

  “Then being around Cadence must be perfect for you.”

  She glanced at him and put the glass down. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, no one’s more comfortable with the subject of death than she is. I’d hardly call her nurturing,” he took another bite of his food, “but helping people with a death in their life is part of what she does. Whether you were looking to move on or just cope, it couldn’t have been an accident that you two came to each other.”

  For a second she hated him for his words, just for the mere thought of moving on from Galen, but Dane was right. She nodded slowly, then finally started to eat. Dane finished his plate and stared out the window, occasionally poking at the stitches in his head.

  “So, that big place over there, that dark wood mansion… that’s Tano Manor?” he asked.

  “That’s it,” Tillie said. “I don’t know much about them, and certainly nothing like what Cadence said about them. But they’re strange. That much I can confirm.”

  “A couple of people are going in right now.”

  “Really?” Tillie leaned over and squinted to see. “I wonder who they are.”

  “One of them has a cane.”

  “How can you see so well? Gods, I need a pair of glasses.” She blinked and squinted harder. “Wait, I can see it now. That almost looks like the Master Anatomist’s cane. The amber color.”

  “Who?”

  “The Master Anatomist at the Physician’s College in Beralin, Lord Deloren. It can’t be him, though. He was injured at The Plaid Bonnet. It looked bad. There’s no way he would be healed quick enough to take the riverboat here.”

  “Is the cane shaped like a snake? It kind of looks like a snake.”

  “You’ve got eyes like a damned elf, Dane! That has to be his cane. Did someone steal it from Lord Deloren? It would have been easy to lose sight of, with how crazy it was. Oh, that makes me mad! Someone better not have stolen it!”

  “What if they didn’t? What if that’s really him?”

  “It couldn’t be.”

  “But Tillie, what if it was? What if?”

  She rubbed her forehead and pushed her oats around with her spoon. “He wouldn’t be friends with people like the Tanos. He wouldn’t have any reason to be there unless it was strictly for business.” She took a bite.

  “You and Cadence were out to dinner with him last night, right?”

  “Yes. This doesn’t make any sense. I turned in this stupid anonymous note to the City Watch one night because…” she stopped and sighed, suddenly a little ashamed, “I got suspicious after seeing Brin Colt bring you in as the new grave warden, and coming back to Beralin to find out Lord Deloren had reached a breakthrough in one of his studies. I just, well, I got to wondering how the Anatomy Wing comes by all these bodies to dissect and learn from and get their studies from, and, and—”

  “And one thought lead to another.” Dane rolled his eyes. “I get it. Go on.”

  “City Watch didn’t keep my note anonymous and turned it over to the Botathora Sanctum as a potential case of desecration. So, Cadence came to me for the full story, and then she went to you. When everything with you checked out, she said our last lead was Lord Deloren. And that’s why we went out to dinner. We were trying to get him to spill some useful information when the bandits attacked.”

  “Bandits attacked, kidnapped me, dropped me at an abandoned warehouse where Forbidden texts belonging to the Tano family were being kept, and now here Lord Deloren is walking into their house. Unscathed from the bandit attack.” Dane folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Sounds fishy, doesn’t it?”

  Tillie’s heart hurt. “Lord Deloren is a family friend. He wouldn’t…”

  Dane could only shrug. “I hope you’re right. But you should finish eating. You look like you’re about to march up to their front door any second now, and you should do it on a full stomach. Trust me.”

  “I know we should wait for Cadence, but I feel like I’m going to miss out on something important if we don’t see what’s going on!”

  “We should absolutely wait for Cadence.” He nodded. “But you’re just going to find a way to talk us out of it, so why bother?”

  Tillie grinned. “You’re a smart man, Dane Sheltier. I’m glad.”

  Chapter 8

  Despite everything, Cadence knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would have done things differently regarding Lord Deloren. She firmly believed she should have gone with her original plan to speak to him plainly and directly while throwing around the weight of the Sanctum. Her stance on that matter had not changed.

  However, Tarina Tano was not Lord Deloren. As much as she hated to admit it, Cadence knew Tillie’s method was the only way to approach her new lead. She spent a brief moment at a boutique down the street from the Alabaster Bobcat to switch out her coat and hat for something a little more…

  “Approachable,” she told the owner. “Just a little something to look approachable. I will leave my coat and hat here and come back for them when I am done.”

  The owner blinked her eyes in confusion but nodded. “Something in blue? A cap and capelet would look pretty. I’ll be just a moment.”

  When she was finished, she almost looked like she belonged shopping at a farmstand. A few brass pennies fetched her a basket, and then she was off. A carriage dropped her off just a short walk from where she hoped Tarina Tano would still be.

  Butterflies fluttered in and out of various bouquets for sale with the bumblebees. Stalls with awnings shaded produce from the hot summer sun as townspeople mingled and shopped. Minstrels wandered with upbeat songs for the patrons.
/>   Cadence had never felt more out of place. She took a deep breath and started shopping her way to Tarina Tano. Conversation in the stalls was ripe with gossip about Beralin and the bandit attack.

  “City Watch still sayin’ they don’t know who’s responsible?” a woman asked the peach farmer.

  “Of course they are,” he said. “Do they ever want us to know anything?”

  “Is it that, or do they not want to do the work to find out?”

  They laughed with each other. Beralin, Riddenholm, any city at all, really. It didn’t matter. City Watch was often the butt of jokes. Cadence skirted by and put several coins in front of the farmer.

  “I’d like this one.” She held up a small burlap sack of peaches and set it in her basket. There, she thought, now it looks like I came here to do more than bother Tarina Tano.

  She was only slightly familiar with the woman who was Master Tano’s wife. She was not usually the one who came up in conversation, so there was never a need to be familiar with her. But now things had changed, and Cadence had a new tactic in her arsenal.

  As she wandered up and down the stalls, she caught sight of a dark-haired woman with an unmistakable baby bump. Kitten, not a baby goat. Cadence moved closer to see the woman was buying eggs and having a casual chit chat with the farmer about cooking. Her laugh was silky and cutting. And though her smile was warm, her eyes held something fierce and sharp.

  She had the right woman.

  Putting on her most convincing polite smile, Cadence nodded her head to Tarina and the farmer as she started making her selection in silence.

  “What do you typically do with your eggs, Lady Tarina?”

  She took pause from filling up her little tin egg crate and drummed her fingers on her lips. “We mostly just bake them. Nothing more complicated than that, I’m afraid. I’m not a very good cook.”

  The farmer gestured to her basket. “But it looks like you’re shopping to cook a feast!”

  “Well…” she rubbed her bump, “my husband thinks I’ll be having twins again. And I think he’s right!”

  “Can’t be cheap, buying so much food.”