“Well what?”
“Are you going to talk about this?”
“I told you, when he comes around,” Gavin said, nodding toward Wrenlow’s sleeping form.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t really know what to make of it.”
“Gavin—”
“Whatever’s happening might be dangerous,” he said, then took a bite. “I don’t know enough about it to be able to say with any certainty, but from what I can tell, there are dangerous sorcerers in the city. One of them killed the Captain, probably to take an enchantment.”
Jessica sighed. “These days, there always are sorcerers.”
He looked over to her. “But that hasn’t always been the case, has it?”
She frowned, shaking her head. “No.”
“Even though Yoran is not a place of magic, it seems like magic has converged upon it.”
Wrenlow started to stir, coming around and groaning. His lean face was clean-shaven today, and his pale blue eyes flicked from Gavin to Jessica for a moment before settling back on Gavin. He had a smudge of ink on his shirt, and there would likely be some on his fingers. Wrenlow always buried himself in his books. He took notes on all the different informants he’d gathered, coordinating them and trying to keep them organized. It was something that Gavin very much appreciated.
Wrenlow looked up. “Gavin?” he asked, squeezing his hand over his ear. “Are you still there?”
“I’m right here,” Gavin said. Wrenlow’s voice was loud in his ear, but it was also coming from across the room, creating a strange effect.
Wrenlow blinked and looked at Gavin. “What happened?”
“Well, it seems as if there is at least one incredibly dangerous sorcerer in the city, maybe three of them, and from what the enchanters tell me, they’re powerful.”
“You went to the enchanters?”
“I needed help, and I went to them to give me a chance to get away.”
“I tried to send word to them, but…”
“You sent word to them?” Gavin asked.
Wrenlow nodded. “I figured that if anyone could help you with the sorcerer, it would be the enchanters, but I didn’t realize you were dealing with more than one sorcerer.”
“I didn’t know I was either.” Gavin took another bite of bread, chewing slowly. “We need to go back and look at everything we’ve done since coming to Yoran. Now with the Captain dead, I’m starting to become concerned about everything that’s happened.”
“Why?”
Gavin cocked his head at Wrenlow. “You need to wake up more. Your mind isn’t working.”
“My mind is working quite fine,” Wrenlow said, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I just don’t really understand what you’re getting at.”
“Think about the jobs that we’ve had most recently. Cyran. The El’aras. The Captain and the Mistress of Vines. Now there’s more than one sorcerer here, one of them incredibly powerful.”
“You escaped from the most powerful sorcerers in the world?” Jessica asked, pulling the chair over and turning it toward him.
“I had help,” Gavin said.
“If they’re that powerful, then you shouldn’t have been able to escape.”
“Like I said, I had help.”
“We need to get Gaspar involved,” she said.
“He’ll probably hear about it from the enchanters anyway.”
Gavin finished eating, leaned back in the chair, and looked over at the fire. His mind raced, working through the jobs he and Wrenlow had done in the time they’d been in Yoran. Many of the jobs had been straightforward, but they’d all been on behalf of Cyran. What Gavin knew about Cyran was that he had been trying to gain power, wanting to improve his position.
Gavin had been tasked with removing the Risen Shard, but not only that. Cyran had hired him to remove other threats throughout the city. There was a merchant, and Gavin had believed that he had been smuggling children from the city, forcing them into slavery in the south. It was a reasonable conclusion based on the information that he and Wrenlow had managed to acquire at the time, but now…
What if there had been something more to it?
Even something as obvious as that should have been left him questioning.
Gavin had removed another man who had some sway in the city. A wealthy businessman, though even now, Gavin still didn’t know what he had been involved in. Maybe that was a mistake. He should have questioned more. He should have tried to understand everything that he was asked to do.
What if Cyran was somehow looking for something to impress the Fates?
Gavin wouldn’t know without contacting the El’aras. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a marker. He flipped it over in his hand, twirling it on his palm.
“What are you doing?” Wrenlow asked, coming closer.
“Think about it,” Gavin said. “In the time we’ve been here, with all of the magical goings-on that we’ve dealt with, there seems to be one connection.”
“What connection is that?”
“Me.”
He squeezed the marker. Anna had given it to him as her way of allowing Gavin to summon her for help, though he’d never attempted to use it. Maybe now was the time. Only, the moment he did, he would bring the El’aras into the city. He doubted Anna and the El’aras would move quietly—or discreetly. The El’aras lived beyond the borders of the kingdom, beyond any of the free cities. They staked claim to lands outside of the forests, mostly because it was safer for them. Too many people viewed their magic as dangerous, which it was.
Is that what I want?
He slipped the marker back into his pocket. Jessica visibly relaxed.
“What is it?” Gavin asked.
“Nothing. It’s just… the last time they were here…” She swept her gaze around the Dragon, her hand clenched to her belly, where she still had the scar from the attack. Her eyes settled back on him.
“It’s not going to be the same next time,” he said.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about them.”
“I know enough,” Gavin said.
She shook her head. “You only think you know enough. When it comes to the El’aras and the kind of power they possess, I don’t think anyone can truly know.”
Gavin kept his face neutral. He was at least part El’aras, though he had no idea what that meant for him. And he never would’ve believed it were it not for the El’aras visit and discovering that he had this magical connection to some deep part of himself.
Perhaps Jessica was right. There was no way for him to know the El’aras. Not without calling them back.
Gavin got to his feet and started to pace. “I need to know what they took from the Captain.”
“And like I said, you need to reach out to Gaspar,” she said.
Gavin stopped in front of the fire, staring at the flames.
Maybe he did need to go to Gaspar, who had contacts that he could use. Contacts that might be necessary. Not only that, but Imogen came with Gaspar. He needed someone not afraid to help him take on a sorcerer.
Jessica slipped out of the Dragon without another word.
“Why do I get the sense that you’re more troubled than you’re letting on,” Wrenlow said.
“It was something Zella mentioned. That the Fates were responsible for all of the magical maneuvering in the world.”
“And you believe her?”
“I don’t have a reason not to, and given that she seemed to believe it, I at least have to consider the possibility,” Gavin said. “I don’t think the enchanters have much experience with the magical world, but they might have enough to know certain things I don’t.” He looked up at Wrenlow. “You and I have dealt with many different magical beings over the years, but there are limits to what we know about magic.”
Wrenlow smiled. “Thankfully.”
Gavin began to pace again, and his mind started piecing through the jobs he’d taken over the years—specifically, the year he’d been i
n Yoran. A different job came back to him, an early job that he had done for Tristan.
He had returned to Tristan, having stolen a small ceramic bowl.
“How did you feel when you took it?” Tristan had asked. He was older than Gavin, though Gavin had never learned by how much. Tristan had seemed considerably older than him during the time when Gavin had studied under him, though that might’ve just been his imagination.
Tristan had dark hair with streaks of gray running through it. He wasn’t a large man, though he was stronger than he looked. Faster too. He always defeated Gavin. There had only been one time where Gavin had gotten close to stopping his teacher, and that had been when he unloaded all the power of his core reserves into attempting to stop him.
Gavin had been inside of a small room, with a hearth much like the one in the Dragon. The room had been decorated well, with the paneled walls painted a deep brown, and statues and paintings all around it. A plush carpet had covered the floor. Gavin always remembered the carpet, as the barracks had none, and it always struck him as something warm and inviting, regardless of the truth of that matter.
“Scared,” Gavin admitted.
Tristan smiled at him, as he always did when Gavin said he was afraid.
Gavin waited for the inevitable strike. Not only did he know that he shouldn’t always acknowledge his fear, but he also knew that he shouldn’t always admit it to Tristan. Only, in this case, he thought that it was necessary.
“Fear is natural when you’re dealing with this,” Tristan said. “You did well.”
“I barely got out of there,” Gavin replied.
“But you got out.”
Gavin glanced at the bowl. “What is this?”
“A signifier of your ability,” Tristan said.
Gavin studied the ceramic bowl. It was painted a pale blue, and there were strange markings along it, letters he couldn’t read. In hindsight, Gavin knew the bowl was El’aras in origin, though he didn’t think the home that he’d broken into and stolen it from had been an El’aras home.
“Did you face any particular challenges? Anything more than what we had discussed?”
Gavin shook his head. “There was a trick to getting in the door.”
“What trick was that?”
“You said I had to focus on my core strength to open it,” Gavin said.
By then, he had already broken through the leathers and had begun to break through chains, demonstrating his ability to shatter things around him. At the time, Gavin had thought it was only a matter of knowing the power within him was part of his core reserves, but now he wasn’t so sure. Now he didn’t know whether there was something else, some other way that Tristan tried to test him. Perhaps Tristan had already known that he had the power within him, some sort of magic.
Tristan nodded. “And it worked.”
“It worked,” Gavin said.
“What about when you were inside?”
Gavin smiled. “There wasn’t anyone there. We didn’t have to worry about it.”
That had been his concern when he was breaking into the house. Tristan had warned him that there might be one of three different people home, and if they were, then he was to dispatch them. Gavin had no hesitation dispatching people when it came to the kinds of jobs that Tristan assigned him—but in this case, to simply steal a bowl—Gavin didn’t think there was any reason to do so.
He looked down at the bowl and traced his finger along the surface of it. “All that trouble, just for this. What is it?”
“I already told you. It’s a marker.”
“A marker of what?”
“Fate.” Tristan didn’t look up. He stared at the bowl for a long time, saying nothing else.
Gavin shook his head, tearing himself away. In all the jobs he’d taken for Tristan, that was one of the strangest. It hadn’t been all that difficult. Gavin had been forced to use his core reserves—possibly magic—to break into the door, but nothing else. He hadn’t needed to kill. He hadn’t needed to fight. All he’d needed to do was take the bowl.
He thought about Tristan’s response and how he had acted, and he still didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps there was nothing to it.
Since learning that Tristan still lived, Gavin hadn’t gone after him yet. He needed to, mostly so he could figure out why Tristan had concealed his own death and resurrection from him.
He took a deep breath and let it out. The door opened, and Gaspar strode in with Jessica, followed by Imogen. Jessica tugged on her brown braid, pulling it around to her left shoulder, biting her lip as she studied Gaspar and then Imogen.
Imogen remained quiet, as usual. She took up a position near the door, though she nodded to Gavin. She was short and thin, and her dark hair always shielded her eyes, giving her a mysterious quality.
“What is this?” Gaspar asked as he laid eyes on Gavin.
“Something new. The Captain is dead. A sorcerer attacked.”
Gaspar glanced to Imogen. “Dead?”
“And he was moving enchantments. Probably even responsible for those you pulled me in on.”
“That bastard,” Gaspar muttered.
“Now we’ve got something worse to deal with.” He told them about the Fate and what Zella had said.
“What makes you think he’s sticking around? If he got what he’s after, that might be it.”
Maybe. Gavin couldn’t get past what the Captain had said.
Don’t let him take it.
But take what?
“I don’t think he’s done. He was going somewhere when I caught up to him.”
Gaspar watched him for a long moment before nodding. “I will see what I can find from the enchanters.”
“Thank you,” Jessica said.
“After I get some rest, I’m going to see if I can find where they were going,” Gavin said.
Find the Fate, figure out what he took, then…
He didn’t know.
If he had to face the Fate again, would he survive?
Chapter Eight
Gavin sat up. He had needed a little bit of rest, and he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He was still tired, though not nearly as exhausted as he had been before. At least now he didn’t feel as if he had been using his core reserves to the point of emptiness. He dressed quickly and came down the stairs into the tavern and looked over at Jessica. She sat alone, a stack of papers in front of her. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table as she rubbed her temple. Her apron was draped over her shoulder, and again she looked tired. Weary.
He approached and took a seat across from her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going through my debt,” she said. “Ever since the attack, I haven’t been as profitable as what I need to be.” She looked up at him, smiling tightly. “I do have debtors, Gavin.”
“I could help.”
She laughed softly. “Help with what? Paying for my tavern? No. I’m responsible for it, and I’m not going to have somebody else do anything I should be doing for myself.”
Gavin nodded. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I understand you want to be independent and to make sure you’re able to cover your finances.”
She shook her head. “It’s more than just that, Gavin.”
“What else is it?”
“Eventually, you’re going to leave here. You don’t have to deny it. We both know it’s true. When you do, I’m not going to be able to depend upon you taking care of me.”
Gavin leaned back. He had considered leaving several times before. Each time he gave it much thought, he realized that perhaps now wasn’t quite the right time for him to depart. Something else always came up, prompting him to stay. It was almost as if he were meant to be in Yoran. Maybe it was more that he needed to be. Cyran had certainly coordinated things so that Gavin ended up in the city, and ever since then, odd things had been happening that were forcing him to stay.
“I don’t know that you ever depended upon
me taking care of you,” he said.
“Perhaps not quite like that, but I’ve allowed myself to become more dependent on you than I typically would be.”
Gavin looked around the tavern. It was empty and late enough in the evening that he would’ve expected to find the tavern full—at least when he had first come to Yoran. Before the attack, the Dragon would’ve been occupied with various patrons, a musician or two, and servers making sure that everyone had the food and drink they needed.
Recently, none of that had been the case.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “When you decide to move on, I’m going to be fine.”
“I know you will be,” Gavin said.
She smiled at him. “I’m stronger than you give me credit for.”
“I haven’t tried to say you weren’t.”
“I know you haven’t,” she whispered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s just that you act as if you have to protect me, but that’s not necessary.”
“When the tavern is attacked because of me, I feel like I’m responsible for it.” He hesitated. This wasn’t the conversation he intended to have with her, but maybe it was overdue. “Would you prefer I leave now?”
She looked down at her hands for a moment before glancing up at him. “No.”
Gavin swallowed. “I…” He wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it, knowing only that he felt as if there was something more he needed to be telling her. For now, he simply said nothing. “I suppose I need to figure out where the Fate was going.”
She nodded. “I’ll be here.” She glanced around the tavern before looking back down at the table, then started sorting through her papers.
Gavin took another look back at Jessica before heading out onto the street. He wandered past a general store. He started toward the part of the city where he’d been attacked by the Fate when he saw something that made him slow.
Shadows loomed in the distance, swirling around the street like a fog. Several constables patrolled near it. The fog seemed to move… and then one of the constables dropped.
The fallen constable didn’t get up.
Gavin hurried over to the fallen man. He was still alive. His skin was cool, almost cold, and though he had a bracelet on either wrist—enchantments, surely—he had nothing else on him that would identify him as a constable.
The Chain Breaker: Books 1-3 Page 64