by J. C.
"It's me," he said with a rasping voice.
"Come in," Welstiel called.
Chane found Welstiel sitting on the floor with the domed brass plate before him and a knife in his hand. These were the tools Welstiel used to scry for Magiere's whereabouts. He and Chane excelled at differing methods of conjury. Welstiel was an artificer who created objects to work his magic Chane relied primarily upon ritual, though he used spellwork if urgency required it.
He stepped in and closed the door. "You wish to locate her tonight?"
His companion looked much improved. Bathed, groomed, and properly dressed, Welstiel was a striking figure, distinguished white patches at his temples visible now that his hair was combed back. He no longer wore his black leather gloves, and Chane's gaze strayed to the missing end of Welstiel's left little finger. It bled black fluid from a fresh cut, and Chane saw one dark droplet upon the brass plate's domed backside.
"Only her general whereabouts," Welstiel replied.
Speaking of Magiere was difficult for Chane. Since the night his robin had listened in at the Soladran barracks, his thoughts had become confused concerning Magiere… and Wynn.
"I'm going out," he whispered.
"Out?"
"I'll return by sunrise."
"Be cautious," Welstiel said with a disapproving frown. "Here the city's soldiers appear to do anything they wish."
Chane left without response. The last thing that concerned him was a pack of mortals who thought they had power over their fellow cattle. As he crested the top of the plush staircase, movement in the foyer below caught his attention.
A slender woman in a burgundy gown donned a charcoal cape, fastening it with a silver clasp. Soft black curls hung to her shoulders around a pale throat and face. Her features were small and lovely down to her tiny red mouth. Her expression was calm, but Chane sensed urgency both in her eyes and her controlled movements.
He gripped the railing, and the wood creaked beneath his fingers in answer to his hunger.
In the last village, he'd lured out a woman of similar make. A mere peasant compared to the one he now watched, but both women's features hinted of the one prey he wanted most of all. Before Welstiel had interrupted him behind the hut among the snow-dusted trees, he'd tried to find solace in tearing warm flesh. Even with blood between his clenching teeth, a missing memory left an ache in him he couldn't smother.
He couldn't remember Wynn touching him in the murky forest of Apudalsat… after Magiere took his head.
He must have fallen immediately, prone upon the ground as his head rolled away. But surely it hadn't been so quick that he remembered nothing of Wynn falling upon him in sorrow. Some touch, or just the pressure… and not being able to do anything for her.
All he remembered was the brief pain of Magiere's blade through his throat and then waking among blood and corpses with Welstiel sitting impatiently nearby.
And behind that forest hut, he'd bitten deep into the peasant woman's throat as if digging for a memory lost between those two moments. He squeezed the outcry from the woman's mouth until her jaw cracked under his hand. There was the rush of life filling him, and the distant euphoria it carried in the wake of the kill—and nothing more.
And still there was Wynn's pain… caused by the hatred between himself and Magiere.
Chane forced himself to wait at the top of the inn's stairs and followed the cloaked woman only after he heard the inn's front door close. Outside, he expected to find her heading down the street toward any other place still alive with activity at night. Perhaps to an eatery more suitable to her upper-caste appearance.
But she was gone. He let his senses open wide.
Footsteps. To the left. Resounding from frozen earth.
Chane saw the space between the buildings around the inn's left corner. He slipped into it, stepping softly toward the inn's rear, and glanced around the corner.
His prey stood in the alley with her back turned, and she was not alone.
A man waited for her, half leaning and half sitting on an emptied ale barrel. He pulled his cloak's hood back, exposing a yellow scarf tied over his hair.
Chane held his place, watching two figures of such different social castes meet in the shadows.
"Wynn!" Leesil snapped, more threateningly than he'd intended, and grabbed the blanket's edge. Magiere squirmed in his arms, but he held fast and pulled the blanket up behind her to cover them both.
"That's it!" Magiere shouted. "You're going home on the first caravan out of here! I don't care if I have to sell our horses to pay for it."
Wynn peered hesitantly around the door's frame as Magiere thrashed out of Leesil's lap to a more dignified—and better-covered—position. Wynn did not back away, though her embarrassment made her voice unsteady.
"Byrd was downstairs talking to an elf," she said.
Leesil stared at her. Any brief escape from the world that the sage had interrupted washed away. Even Magiere paused at struggling to reach her breeches lying on the floor.
"They left together," Wynn added softly. "And they seemed well acquainted. They were meeting a woman, and Byrd reacted as if this were a change in some previous arrangement."
"An elf?" Magiere asked. "You're certain?"
Before Wynn answered, Chap reappeared and nearly knocked Wynn over as he bolted into the room with the talking hide clenched in his jaws.
"Wynn, turn around," Leesil said, and grabbed Magiere's clothes from the floor as he retrieved his own.
By the time he and Magiere finished dressing, Chap had rolled out the hide with his nose and paws. The instant Leesil said he was dressed and Wynn turned about to peer in, Chap began pawing at the elvish symbols. Wynn scurried in to watch the dog's movements.
"Anmaglâhk, "Wynn whispered. "How would Chap know?"
Leesil sat on the bed, hands planted firmly on its edge. One of his mother's elven caste of assassins was here in the city? And how, for a fact, would Chap know, unless this one dressed the same as…
"Was it Sgaile?" Magiere demanded first, and crouched before the dog. "Was it that butcher sent to kill Leesil in Bela?"
Chap barked twice for "no."
Magiere looked up at Leesil. "You said we could trust Byrd. What's he doing with one of them?"
"Byrd was my father's friend, not mine," Leesil returned. "And I never said we could trust him—any more than anyone in this city."
Leesil's thoughts were too thick with suspicions. Of all places and people, why was it here with Byrd that he ran across more of his mother's kind and caste? He turned his attention back to Chap.
"He was an anmaglâhk?" Leesil asked. "You're sure?"
Chap barked once to confirm this.
Leesil remembered Wynn's outburst when she'd first intruded. Byrd was up to something more than walking a thin line in service to Darmouth. They did need to search this place.
"Start downstairs," he told Wynn. "Look for letters, scrap notes, or anything out of sorts for an innkeeper. Anything that looks like it doesn't belong. If Byrd comes back, say you were hungry and went to the kitchen. Say it loudly, so we can hear you."
Wynn nodded and headed for the door, pausing once. "And I am not leaving on any caravan, Magiere."
Leesil waved Chap out, and the dog went after the young sage.
Magiere's anxious expression told Leesil that she wanted to leave, drag him out of this city and never return. Leesil shook his head slowly, and she sighed.
"Let's find Byrd's room," she said.
Her hair hung down around her ivory cheeks, and Leesil turned his eyes away to keep his emotions in check. Sgaile was the one who'd hinted at Nein'a's fate, that she might be alive. If anyone knew more of her or what had happened to Gavril, it would be the Anmaglâhk. One had been right here in the inn, and he'd missed his chance.
"We'll get the answers," Magiere said, and put a hand upon his shoulder, leaning close. "But don't you even think about going after that elf."
She kissed him on th
e mouth. Leesil pulled away slowly. This place— this city of his first life—was a pit he'd toppled them all into. He couldn't afford another distraction, even if Magiere thought it best he forget for a little while. Leesil dug out his tools from their chest.
They checked each door on the upper floor, and he wasn't surprised to find one of them locked.
"Pick it or break it?" Magiere asked.
Leesil frowned.
It was unlikely that Byrd arranged surprises for anyone snooping about. The risk of a wandering patron stumbling into the wrong place was too great. But when he began studying the door instead of the lock, Magiere backed to the side, understanding his caution.
Leesil started with the hinges and then checked the entire frame before carefully inspecting the latch. Finally convinced it was only a locked door, he took a thin hookwire from the toolbox's lid and slipped it into the keyhole. A click answered his efforts.
Byrd's room was ordinary at first glance. Not much different from any at an inn where someone might settle to stay for a while. The belongings seemed sparse, but Leesil remembered how few possessions he'd had in his life with his parents. Beyond a wide trunk, there was no more in the room than could be taken in flight. This was also the way he and his parents had lived, even if leaving were but a wishful thought.
The bed was made, and clothes were neatly folded inside the large trunk. The small table and chair were solid, with no hollows to hide anything. Leesil found no openings or edifices in the walls or the shuttered window. Magiere paged through leather-bound papers left on the table as Leesil dropped down to study the floor. No cubbies or holes, not even a loose board, were there to be found, but this meant nothing with people like Byrd and his parents. Leesil searched the bed and mattress, though he knew Byrd would never hide anything in so obvious a place.
"Nothing," Magiere said. "Ledgers and stores lists."
And not a thing remained to inspect in the room.
Leesil crouched before the chest and started on it for the second time. He emptied it completely, piling the clothes on the floor and lifting out all the trays within supported by side rails. He fingered the interior sides and then the bottom, which flexed when he leaned too hard on it. He could smell cedar beneath the linen lining adhered to the wood. The fabric was folded and sealed continuously across all edges and corners, leaving nothing that could be lifted or pulled away without splitting the lining. And there was no split.
He leaned against the side and stared into the empty trunk.
"There's nothing here," Magiere said. "And I can't see him hiding anything in the other rooms, if patrons are housed there. We should help Wynn downstairs."
Leesil repacked the trunk, got up, and headed for the door behind Magiere. He still felt the lingering flex of fabric-covered wood on his fingers. Magiere disappeared out into the hallway, and he stopped and looked back.
Flexing wood in a stout travel trunk?
He returned to the trunk and began pulling everything out for the third time.
"Leesil?" Magiere called, her voice carrying from the hall.
He was halfway to the bottom when he heard her come up behind him.
"You've done that twice already," she insisted. "There's nothing there."
Leesil reached the bottom and pressed his palm firmly against it. The wood gave beneath the fabric. The trunk's sides were thick and solid, so why the thinner bottom? He placed his other hand on the outside floor. The distance down to floor and trunk bottom was noticeably different.
A false bottom. But how was it opened if the fabric was solid throughout the interior?
"Leesil!" Magiere said, her voice growing more annoyed.
He ignored her and shoved the trunk over backward. The lid slammed on the floor as the vessel toppled. He stared at its bottom, solid and flush to the edges of its side walls. There were six brass knobs that served as legs along the bottom edges, one for each corner, and the last two placed midway along the front and back edge. These were held in place with small brass nails.
He picked at one with his fingernail. It was loose. Magiere crouched down, as Leesil slipped a stiletto from his wrist sheath and began popping out brass nails. Only the front knob legs came off, and the trunk's bottom fell open.
Leesil found himself staring at a pile of flattened parchments. The first depicted the charcoal-drawn layout of a four-towered keep in crude lines. The sheet below this was an interior map of the same structure. He touched it. Part of the rendering smeared slightly, while the rest seemed set and clean. The whole of it was unfinished, with notable areas still blank within the structure's outline.
"Recently drawn," he said. "Or parts of it."
"Is that Darmouth's keep?" Magiere asked. "Why would Byrd have drawings of the keep?"
Leesil paged through more parchments. There were eight, each depicting a different area or level. All were incomplete, with at least three that had almost nothing added within the outline of the outer walls. Two were of the towers' interiors, with inked marks and lines that might indicate paths walked by sentries.
"A better question…" Leesil said, almost to himself. "Why have drawings of the keep and be meeting with an anmaglâhk?
Magiere didn't answer but reached out for his wrist. "What are you going to do?"
"Ask him. I'm going to sit downstairs until he returns."
"I'll wait with you," she said, and it wasn't a suggestion.
"He won't talk unless I'm alone. Gather up Wynn and Chap and go to bed. I'll tell you everything I learn."
Magiere heaved on his wrist, jerking him around to face her. For all the rage in her face, he could feel her shaking through the grip on his wrist. Leesil had no patience for a fight over this.
"Just do it, Magiere!" he snapped. "I know what I'm doing—and you don't.
A long silence followed as she stared back. Magiere turned away without a word. Leesil rolled up the drawings, stuffed them into his shirt, and followed her downstairs.
Wynn was stunned when the search was called off. Of course she refused, until Leesil explained that he was going to speak with Byrd rather than tear the inn apart. Something must have slipped into his voice or expression, because she nodded and did as he asked without another word. He didn't show her the drawings, or he'd never get rid of her. Magiere ushered Chap and Wynn upstairs to their rooms, but Magiere never looked back at him.
Leesil turned down the lanterns and settled in the chair near the front wall to watch the door. He unfastened the catches on his wrist sheaths.
His father and mother, contrary to Byrd's acquaintance, had taught him many things in this city. Beyond blood ties—and sometimes those included—there were no friends here. There were only those who hadn't yet betrayed you, and those you hadn't yet betrayed.
* * * *
Tomato and Potato were asleep on the bed, so Wynn was alone with Chap in her room. She sat cross-legged upon a braided rug, brushing his fur in long strokes to carefully work out his mats and tangles. She could not always read Chap's expressions, but he appeared relieved by her attention. With her hands once again in his silvery fur, she remembered the strange chorus of leaf-wings she had heard while watching him before the battle on the Stravinan border.
Part of her felt guilty for avoiding the dog… Fay… majay-hi… whatever or however she should think of him. He was all of these things, all at once, though this merely made it more confusing. He had also been her constant companion on this journey. One part of her took solace in his presence, but another part was frightened by the mysteries behind his presence. She knew too little of his agenda, and why he had left his existence among the Fay.
Was that what she had heard in her head as Chap grew angrier and more savage before the battle? And how or why had it happened to her, for that matter?
Chap whined and pushed his head against her folded legs. Wynn wrapped her arms around him.
There were moments such as this when he seemed no more than her four-legged traveling companion. He pulled
his head back and whined again, then perked his ears in a quizzical expression.
Wynn grew hesitant. There were other moments when his canine form seemed a deception for his true existence—a Fay in flesh.
And everything in Wynn's vision turned blue-white.
Her stomach lurched, and her dinner rose in her throat. The room became a shadowy version of its former state. Overlaying all was an off-white mist just shy of blue. Its radiance permeated everything like a second view of the room coloring her normal sight. Within the walls, the radiance thinned, leaving shadowed hollows in the planks. The glimmer thickened within the sleeping forms of Tomato and Potato curled together in a tangle of little legs upon the bed's end.
Wynn lurched back, pulling away from Chap, and the sudden movement sharpened her vertigo. She stared at Chap in fear.
Unlike all else in her tangled vision, he was the only thing that was not permeated with the blue-white trails of mist. Chap was one image, one whole shape, glowing with brilliance. His fur glistened like a million hazy threads of white silk, and his eyes scintillated like crystals held up to the sun.
Wynn cringed and blinked.
The room became dull and dim again. Before her was Chap, silvery gray and furry. He cocked his head, staring at her.
Wynn's panic rose until she shook. This had happened only once before.
In a dark forest in Droevinka, she had dabbled in thaumaturgy to give herself mantic sight. A foolish act, and in the end only Chap had been able to free her of the wild magic she could not control. With it, she had seen the elemental Spirit layer of the world in order to track the undead sorcerer Vordana, so Magiere and Leesil might free a town of the monster's influence.
Why had this happened again? Why had she heard the strange leaf-wings in her head when she had watched Chap at the Stravinan border? And mostly, what had been revealed to her that she did not yet understand?
Wynn took long breaths, looking back into Chap's curious eyes, until her shudders faded.
She needed to put aside the form she saw before her, to talk with him, but she hesitated. How could she ask after the nauseating leaf-wing sounds in her head, or tell him of her revulsion at his blood-soaked jowls? She laid aside the brush, pulled the talking hide closer, and unrolled it on the floor with honest purpose in mind.