The Return of Absent Souls (After The Rift Book 6)

by C. J. Archer

  “Perhaps you can teach us to pick locks so we can break in without you,” Meg said.

  Gillon nodded at Max. “He already knows how. The rest of you, sure. But it ain’t just picking locks you’ll have to do, it’s sneaking in, knowing your way around the jailhouse in the dark.”

  “It’s knowing the guards’ routines,” Drew went on. “You ain’t got time to learn all that. Besides, without the Marginer, it’s just Max, some women, an old man and them two. They don’t look too strong.”

  Quentin puffed out his chest. “I can wield a sword and throw a punch as good as the next man.”

  Drew pointed at Theodore. “That’s because the next man is him.”

  Vance had fallen quiet again. He seemed to be concentrating on his stew, but when he looked up at Max, I saw a spark in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Our plan appealed to him. Perhaps he liked the idea of beating the authorities at their own game, or perhaps he simply liked thrilling adventures. Whatever put that spark in his eyes, I knew how to exploit it.

  “Do you know the guards’ routines and your way around the prison in the dark?” I asked him.

  “Of course.”

  “Vance,” Jenny warned. “It might have changed since then.”

  Vance dug his spoon into the stew. “About a year ago, we thought of breaking in and going through their records to find out what really happened to you, Max. We set to watching them, memorized when they changed shift, how many they had on at the front door and inside.”

  “Why didn’t you go through with it?” Max asked.

  “We couldn’t find a way to make it work. There were just too many guards.”

  “It was too much of a risk,” Jenny said., hand on hip “Still is. Ain’t no way we’re doing it for someone we don’t know.”

  Drew, Gillon and even Vance nodded in agreement.

  I picked up the silver buckle and flipped it over. It was thin, not a quality piece. “What if we promised you solid silver buckles? And candlesticks and plate. More ells than you have here, too. Much more. Will that persuade you?”

  “You don’t have it,” Jenny said with a sneer.

  “We can get it. Money, jewels, you ask for it, and we can provide it. Dane’s mother’s friends will pay whatever you need.”

  “He’s got family here?” Gillon asked.

  “Then why aren’t you staying with them?” Jenny asked.

  My gaze locked on to Vance. “She’s friends with the Rotherhydes.”

  Vance’s eyes flared. For a man who showed little surprise or emotion, it was telling. He was very interested now.

  “Merdu and Hailia,” Gillon murmured.

  “They’ll agree to pay you whatever you want to get Dane out,” Max said to Vance.

  Jenny stormed back to the fire, her annoyance clear in her stomping footsteps and indistinct mutterings.

  Vance sat back and regarded Max. “You want to tell us what’s really going on?”

  “What do you mean?” Max asked.

  “Why’s Dane so important to the merchants?”

  “He’s one of them.”

  Vance looked to me and I knew we had to give him more if we wanted to win him over. “He’s supposed to marry the sister of Ewen Rotherhyde.”

  “Merdu!” Gillon blurted out.

  Drew chuckled. “Guess he didn’t want to marry her then. I guess he thought he needed to get as far from Freedland as possible to escape the Rotherhydes.”

  “Who wouldn’t want to marry that much money?” Jenny said from the fire. “Especially if he’s poor.”

  Vance’s eyes darkened. “From what I recall, the Rotherhyde girl went to the prison mine and was also later executed.”

  The other gang members frowned and became very interested in Max’s response. But Max said nothing.

  Vance fidgeted with the gold skull ring on his middle finger. “Tell me the truth or we won’t help.”

  Max looked to Balthazar. Balthazar hesitated.

  So I told them instead. I told them all about the magic and what we’d learned about the palace servants so far, and even about Dane’s relationship to the last king of Averlea, the former name for Freedland.

  They listened in shocked silence until the end. And then the questions came. I answered them as best as I could until their curiosity seemed satisfied. Drew, Gillon and Jenny looked like they believed me, but Vance’s expression was unreadable.

  “Well?” Max asked. “Will you help us get him out? The Rotherhydes and other royalists will pay you a fortune.”

  Vance rubbed his jaw. “I don’t think it will work. The reason we abandoned the idea of breaking in the first time was because there are too many guards.”

  Gillon clicked his fingers. “There needs to be a distraction. Something that will get them out, or most of them.”

  “We can provide that,” I said. “I have medicines that will make them purge.” It hadn’t worked in Merrin, but I meant it when I said I’d learned from the mistakes I made there. This time there would be no mistakes.

  Vance pushed his chair out and stood. “Sorry, Max, my answer is no.”

  Max shot to his feet. “Why?”

  Vance went to walk off, but Max intercepted him. He grabbed Vance by the front of his jerkin and pulled him closer until they were nose to nose. Neither blinked an eye.

  Vance threw a quick jab, low in Max’s gut. Max released him with a grunt and threw a punch of his own. Vance dodged it and caught Max’s fist. Being the stronger of the two, Max pulled free. He stepped back and settled into a fighting stance, but Vance didn’t attack.

  “You used to be quicker,” Drew said.

  Jenny snorted. “Palace living has made him slow.”

  Max ignored their taunts. “Why won’t you help?” he growled at Vance.

  “It’s too dangerous,” I said. “He can’t risk their lives.”

  “That’s not why,” Vance said.

  “Danger don’t scare us,” Gillon agreed. “It’s the Rotherhydes and their money we don’t want. Not for this.”

  “Not just the Rotherhydes,” Vance added. “We don’t want money from any of the royalists to release the heir to the throne. We don’t want another king in Freedland. The last one almost ruined this country.”

  “Dane’s not like that,” I said. “He’s a good man.”

  “And he doesn’t want the throne,” Balthazar added.

  Vance shook his head. “He won’t have a choice. If he’s the heir, he has to take it. It’s his birthright.”

  “There is always a choice,” I said. “Dane won’t take it even if it’s offered to him on a platter. He’s a different person now than he was before his first arrest last year. Just like Max is different.”

  Vance looked to Max and sighed. “He has changed,” he conceded.

  “So you’ll do it?” I asked. “You’ll help us free him?”

  Vance twisted his skull ring and regarded me then Max. After a moment, he said, “You’ve got to promise you’ll get him away from Freedland immediately.”

  “We will,” I said, even though my head told me it wasn’t my decision to make. For now, I would promise Vance the moon if it bought his assistance.

  “And never let him come back,” Vance added.

  “We’ll make sure of it,” Theodore said. “So you’ll do it?”

  “There’s one problem.” Vance sat again. “We won’t ask for money—for Max’s sake, you understand. But I have a friend with a boat who’ll agree to take you all the way to Glancia if you pay him. It’ll cost more than twenty-eight ells though. A lot more.”

  We all studied the loot on the table. We couldn’t ask them to donate it to us. They needed it. It wasn’t much anyway.

  I started thinking of items we could sell, but we didn’t carry anything of value. We’d sold some of the horses to the last innkeeper to pay for our rooms, but we still had three. They should fetch a good sum, but would it be enough for all of us to secure passage to Glancia? If not, who should b
e left behind?

  “I’ll sell this.” Kitty stood in the doorway and reached behind her neck. She unclipped the necklace she wore beneath her clothes and dropped it on the table. The gold and gems dazzled in the candlelight.

  Drew gawped at it. “Who’d you steal that from?”

  “My husband.”

  Jenny picked it up and held it to the light. “Are they real?”

  “Of course,” Kitty snipped. “If you can’t tell real jewels from fake, perhaps you’re in the wrong business.”

  Jenny put the necklace on herself and admired her reflection in the silver candlestick.

  “Is it enough?” I asked Vance.

  He nodded.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled. I felt light-headed all of a sudden and hardly heard them as they made plans. The only thing I did hear was the timeframe—they would free Dane tomorrow night.

  I opened my eyes. “Why not tonight? We must get him out without delay.”

  “I need to speak to my friend with the boat,” Vance said. “And we need to go over what we know about the courthouse routine and learn if it has changed. I won’t send anyone in until I’m sure it’s safe.”

  He was right. It couldn’t be rushed. I prayed tomorrow night wouldn’t be too late.

  Chapter 2

  The following day dragged. We had to remain in the lair as Vance refused to allow our men to go with him to the docks to speak to his friend the boat captain. They couldn’t afford to be recognized as escaped prisoners. Even with a patient to occupy my time, and herbal emetics to prepare, it felt like an age before night fell.

  “Do you think it will work?” Meg asked as she peered over my shoulder at the pot of steeping herbs.

  “It has to.”

  Balthazar, seated at the kitchen table, cleared his throat. “The guards in Merrin fetched others as soon as they felt ill. That might happen again.”

  “Someone will be watching all exits. If a guard attempts to leave, he’ll be dispatched.” I eyed Balthazar first, then Meg. “In Merrin, I was reluctant to do what needed to be done to free Dane. This time, I won’t hesitate.”

  “Josie,” Meg began.

  “Don’t.” I turned away. “Don’t lecture me until it’s Max’s neck in a noose.”

  She sighed but thankfully said no more. My conscience couldn’t cope with the guilt. She finally left to join the others in the bedroom where Erik was recovering. He wasn’t well enough to help free Dane but he insisted on being involved in the planning with Vance, Max and the other men.

  Drew had already gone out that morning and reported back that Dane’s trial had been the first of the day. He’d been sentenced to hang tomorrow. There was no gossip about him at the market, not a whiff of a suggestion that he was anyone other than a man from Glancia being hanged for murder. His true identity had been suppressed.

  Vance insisted that was a good thing. If the public knew who Dane was, the crowd would swell overnight in the hopes of getting the best view of his hanging. It would make his getaway more difficult, not just with the extra people, but the extra people determined that he should not be allowed to escape. The notion of the royal family returning was not a popular one, so Vance assured us.

  I went to follow Meg out of the kitchen to see how the plans were going, but Balthazar asked me to stay. He patted the chair beside him and I sat. Going by the ominous look on his face, I was about to receive a lecture.

  “I don’t want you to join the rescue attempt.” He put up his hands for silence when I began to protest and asked me to hear him out. “You can wait on the boat with me, Erik and the others.”

  “I’m needed at the jailhouse. In Merrin, I didn’t watch the guards drink the ale myself. This time, I want to see them.”

  “You’re going to put more into the ale, aren’t you?”

  “I didn’t add enough in Merrin. I didn’t factor in the larger size of the guards. But that also means the smaller ones could become quite ill.”

  “That’s not the real reason you want to be there, is it?”

  I rose, but he caught my wrist.

  “Don’t go tonight,” he said. “Come to the docks and wait.”

  “I’m tired of waiting.” I tried to pull away but he held my wrist firmly. “Don’t, Bal. I don’t want to hear your lecture.”

  “You need to hear it, because no one else will say this to you. It’s too dangerous. I’m forbidding you to be there. Let Vance and his men—”

  “Save your breath, Bal. Nothing you say will convince me not to be there.”

  “You’ll be sentenced to hang too if the plan fails.”

  “Then it better not fail.”

  He clicked his tongue in frustration.

  I jerked my wrist free and walked off. “My mind is made up.”

  “Josie, think about the consequences.”

  “I have,” I said from the doorway.

  “I’m begging you not to do it.”

  I stopped and lowered my head. Tears burned the backs of my eyes. “I can’t sit by while Dane is hanged for a crime he didn’t commit and let others who are not his friends take all the risk. What if it becomes too dangerous and they abandon the rescue before the job is finished?”

  “You should leave if it becomes too dangerous.” His voice sounded thin and far away.

  I closed my eyes. “I have to be there.”

  He didn’t speak and I thought I’d got through to him, but as I went to walk off, he said, “Losing Dane will be terrible. But losing you too… I can’t even comprehend it.”

  My throat constricted. I dared to look at him, but he was staring down at the floor, his knotty fingers holding tightly to the head of his walking stick. I crossed back to him and kissed the top of his head.

  “I promise I’ll be careful.” As an assurance, it was weak, but I couldn’t offer more. I certainly wouldn’t do as he wanted and wait for Dane to come to me at the docks. Waiting and blindly hoping wasn’t in my nature these days.

  In Merrin, we’d waited for the day of Dane’s hanging to rescue him. It left us with no time to form an alternative plan if we failed. We would not make the same mistake.

  By the time Kitty and Jenny returned from visiting the gang’s goldsmith acquaintance in the late afternoon, my emetic was ready, and so were we. They had come via the courthouse where the prisoners were being held in the holding cells before their execution in the morning.

  “There are no extra guards on duty,” Jenny reported. “The shift changed as the temple bells rang at midday.”

  “We counted eight guards arriving and eight leaving,” Kitty added.

  “There’ll be another change at dusk,” Vance said, nodding.

  “Was the scaffold erected?” Gillon asked.

  I swallowed the lump rising up my throat.

  Kitty hooked my arm with hers. “Let’s not talk about that.”

  “Did you get enough for the necklace?” Vance asked.

  The boat captain had demanded an exorbitant sum to take all of us back to Glancia. He hadn’t been made aware that Dane was the heir to the throne, but he must have sensed our desperation. Asking to depart in the middle of the night and avoid docking until we were out of Freedland were very big clues.

  Kitty removed two full purses from the pack she carried beneath her cloak and set them on the table with a dull clank. “It leaves us a little left over after we pay him.”

  Vance checked inside the purses. “We make our way to the Sandpiper Tavern at dusk. Jenny, take the money. You’ll be in charge of getting the women and the infirm men to the boat.”

  Quentin stamped his hands on his hips. “Who’re you calling infirm?”

  “The Marginer and the old man.”

  Quentin lowered his hands with a sniff. “Right. Me and Theo will come with you.”

  “You’ll stay with the horses.”

  I didn’t remind him that I would be joining them. We’d already had this argument. Vance had given in when I explained how accurate the quantit
y of emetic needed to be. Too much and the guards would die. Too little and they would not be sick enough.

  A shrill whistle from the doorman filled the cottage. Vance, Max and the other men stood and reached for weapons.

  A bow-legged man with a cluster of gray hair clinging to the back of his otherwise bald head wandered in. Vance and his friends let go of their sword hilts.

  “This here is Captain Obsidian,” Vance said. “He’s the one taking you tonight on his boat.”

  The captain scratched his dark red whiskers. His lips, almost entirely hidden beneath all the hair, twisted to the side. “That’s the thing. We can’t go tonight.”

  “It has to be tonight!” I cried. “We can’t stay in Noxford a moment longer than necessary.”

  “Sorry, miss, but a barge hit us and the hull needs repairs.”

  “How long will that take?” Vance asked.

  “Two days, maybe three.” Captain Obsidian shrugged, as if it were not important, just a small delay without consequence.

  But it had a very big consequence. It meant hiding in Noxford at a time when every constable and soldier would be looking for Dane after we broke him free from the courthouse jail.

  “We can stay here,” Max said.

  Vance scrubbed a hand over his face. When it came away, he looked worried. “You can stay, Max. But not them, and especially not Dane.”

  “But you have to hide us!” Quentin whined.

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  Quentin was about to protest until Theodore rested a hand on his shoulder. “He’s right. This is his place, and he decides who can stay. We’ll find somewhere else until the boat’s ready to sail.”

  “Where?” Quentin whined.

  “I know a place,” I said, rising. “Meg, Kitty, will you come with me?”

  “Do you need our help persuading people?” Kitty asked, following me out of the kitchen.

  “I simply need your moral support. Dane’s mother is not someone I want to face alone.”

  Yelena was not at her cottage, but Martha said she could be found at the Rotherhydes’ residence. “They’re trying to think of a way to get Dane out of prison tonight,” she said. “But I don’t see how. They haven’t got the support.” Her face crumpled as her tears welled.