“Aren’t you the one who has Lieutenant Yates jumping off the Shuttle every lunar or so?”
So much for looking like everybody else. And it wasn’t her fault the lieutenant got crazy when she asked for sword training. Not that she better admit to anything. “Sir?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. Why are you looking for passage?”
“Passage?” What was he talking about? “My friend is missing. I’m just looking for him.”
He glared at her like she’d told a whopper. Like she’d lie when he could ask the sailor to rat her out.
“Listen, you can’t ask a cargo master for passage. Everybody knows that.”
One elegant Zedisti eyebrow rose. This guy must be gentry, aiming for the lieutenant’s job for himself. “Everybody knows, do they?”
She nodded. Didn’t they?
“You must be one of the merchant’s brats.”
Hey, no need to get insulting. Not that there was anything wrong with merchants, but her parents were craftsmen. No way she’d ever admit that. He didn’t need her help to track her down.
He reached around her and knocked on the harp case. Strings hummed loud enough to hear over the racket of the shipyard. “What’s with this?”
“I’m taking harp lessons.” Merchants kids were always taking some kinda lessons. Social climbing, her dad called it, except when it was music lessons.
“Open it.”
Lorel shrugged, knelt, laid the case on the ground, and popped the clasps. The battered harp looked even worse than usual.
He bent down and ran one finger over the strings. They sounded like the clock tower’s chimes after pranksters tied bags filled with cow crap over them. “You play this thing?”
“You gotta tune it before you play it. Every time.”
“Show me the false compartment.”
Blood in the Weave. This guard was smarter than most. But he did look like gentry, and them fancy sorts took music lessons, too.
She swallowed, set the harp aside, and lifted the first false bottom. Sheets of music fluttered in the breeze, held down by clean monthly napkins. It worked on her brothers. Would it slow him down? If he noticed the second false bottom, she was dead.
The guard pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Put those in a bag, Loom lint. Your teacher won’t appreciate seeing them.”
“Yes, sir.” She pushed the napkins aside. “You wanna check my music?”
“No, close it up.”
Sing to the Weaver. She really didn’t fancy getting hung. Dying would put a crimp in her travel plans. She stashed everything away and swung the harp case back over her shoulder. “Can I keep on looking for my friend?”
“What’s he look like?”
“Little skinny blond about this tall.” She held her hand up again. She gotta remember to ask Mom what to feed him to make him grow some. Weaver drowned in tears, she gotta ask Mom if she could bring him home, now that Trevor was dead.
“I’ll ask around, but I haven’t seen anyone like that. How do I get hold of you?”
Get hold of– Oh, crap. She couldn’t give him her parents’ address. If the City Guard even asked about her, Dad would ground her forever. “Ask for Marise at Trader’s Inn.” That old lady would know what to do with the Guard, and how to protect the kid.
He frowned at her. “You live in the Trader’s Inn?”
“I’m there a lot.” She tried to look scared and innocent. “I’m not supposed to be here today. If you talk to my parents, I’ll be in big trouble.” As usual, but he didn’t need to know that.
The guard snorted. “Get out of here. I’ll send a message if I hear anything.”
Yeah, sure he would. Well, he might, just to see if he could find her. If he even remembered her in an hour, or to ask about the kid.
She sighed and turned away. Now what could she do? Go up to the seawall and look down into the shipyard? She could spot the kid’s golden-honey hair from a mile away.
At the base of the seawall steps, someone right behind her cleared his throat.
Lorel spun to face him. Coward crap, how’d he sneak up on her?
“I thought you had music lessons.” The fraying guard crossed his arms and glared at her.
“I gotta find my friend.” She crossed her own arms. “You know how quick slavers’ll grab a cute little thing like him?”
The guard’s jaw dropped for an instant, but he clenched his teeth. “What do you know about slavers?”
She rolled her eyes. “The same as every girl. My mom’s always saying, ‘Don’t walk after dark, the slavers will get you.’ Or don’t go to the shipyard, or to–” Oops, she almost said Trader’s Inn. Mom didn’t know about the really rough places she kept an eye on.
The guard sighed and his teeth unclenched. “Yeah, my mom tells my sisters that, too. Why the seawall?”
“I might see him down here. Besides, my friends hang out up there. They might’ve seen him.” That was stretching, since the rich kids who partied on the seawall wouldn’t tell her if her hair was on fire, but it sounded good.
His eyebrows twitched, but he nodded. “Good luck.”
She needed all the luck she could get. If she didn’t find the kid soon, she’d have to ask the other gangs to look for him. Others than Kraken’s. Or Wolf’s, now. Thinking about Kraken still made her stomach hurt.
She prayed on Weaver’s Loom the guard forgot to mention her and the kid to his fraying lieutenant. After that business with the giant spider a few days ago, he might recognize the kid’s description and go charging up to Trader’s Inn. Especially if any of the gang had ratted on her about Kraken.
Sprinting up the seawall steps would make her feel better, but she trudged up slow and weary, like any merchant brat. That guard would remember her for sure if she ran.
The Seawall Guards, who knew her better than she liked, looked her over, but mostly ignored her. Well, she did show up every few days. Or used to, when Faye wasn’t mad at her. It’d been a while since she’d gotten to enjoy the ocean.
And she didn’t have time to enjoy it now. She leaned over the inner wall and peered down. Was the kid down there in the dockyard? Didn’t look like it. No blond hair at all at the moment, much less his unusual dark golden blond.
Sea spray fluttered against her back. The ocean roared as each unseen, gorgeous wave attacked the seawall. Someone to her right snickered.
Lorel spun around. Blood in the Weave, she gotta pay more attention. Twice today somebody snuck up on her.
But it was only some rich brat, Harcourt, with his buddy Dominic. Friends of Faye’s. So why were they laughing at her?
Oh, oh. Not twenty feet away, Faye stood glaring at her, arms crossed and head half down. Her “I’m furious” stance, as clear and scary as any parry position Ahm-Layel had taught her.
Well, so what? They weren’t friends anymore. Faye could be just as mad as she wanted, for as long as she wanted.
Lorel started to turn away and stroll down the stone staircase, but froze. The kid was missing, and Faye knew people. Important people. If anyone could find him, it would be the boss.
Former boss, rather. Dealing with her might be thorny. But she’d swallow her pride and ask.
Faye tossed her head and turned away when Lorel walked toward her. The noodle brain. If she didn’t need help so bad, she’d–
But she did need help. Who knew where the kid might be after five days?
Estelle stepped between them. “Fayette does not want to speak with you.”
Another fraying rich brat. But gentry, like Faye was. Lorel didn’t quite dare push her aside.
Faye lifted her chin and marched away.
What would catch that Loom lint’s attention? Without blaring all their business to all these rich brats, anyway.
Just loud enough, she hoped, to carry that far, Lorel barked, “Trevor’s dead.”
Faye froze, and slowly turned back.
“Can I talk to you? Only for a minute?” She held up h
er hands in surrender. Not that she would give up, but Faye had to protect her dignity in front of these gentry brats.
Faye hesitated, but nodded. She told her friend, “I’ll be back before our gentlemen return.”
Estelle pouted and walked away.
Lorel sighed. Sing to the Weaver. The fewer people who knew, the better.
Faye lifted her skirt in both hands and roared up to her like a wave attacking the seawall. “How dare you come here and embarrass me?”
“Trevor died five days ago.”
Faye froze again.
“The kid’s been missing that long.” Her throat closed up so tight she could barely squeeze the words out. “The sorcerers say something attacked him three days ago, but they don’t know nothing more. And they’re scared.”
“How do they know?” Faye whispered.
“Magic stuff.” Lorel shrugged. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask. Old Trevor always knew weird stuff, why shouldn’t the rest of them? “I’m looking everywhere I can, but nobody knows nothing.”
“I’ll ask around. He must be the only Setoyan child in the city.”
There were a few outcast half-breed kids that Lorel knew about, but nobody so short, so pretty, so gold-colored. Come to think of it, it would be a miracle if slavers hadn’t hauled him off.
From the look on Faye’s face, she knew it, too.
Chapter 9.
Orange sunlight glinting on the ocean blinded him. It reflected like a burnished copper lamp glowing over the city, even here on Thorn Lane. Trevor would have been delighted.
Viper raised a hand to protect his eyes from the setting sun. He was too tired to appreciate any kind of beauty right now.
His feet hurt. His thighs ached. His calves threatened to disown him. But after three days of walking, he was finally home.
Trouble was, somebody was watching Trevor’s house as if they were waiting for someone. Like him.
He ducked behind a neighbor’s magnolia bush and peeked between the leaves. Who was the man dozing on the steps across the street from Trevor’s place? Had Bahtdor Nose sent him? Probably. Frujeur wasn’t the trusting type. Who else would send a watcher?
But what could he do about it? He couldn’t sneak past the man. He didn’t know any spells to make him fall into a deep sleep like a sorcerer would in a hero’s tale. He did, however, know how to make an illusion.
What would be the most effective illusion? A cougar? Not in the middle of the city. The City Guard? Too noisy. He didn’t know how to make sound. Besides, the man looked respectable enough to ignore a patrol.
But fellow was young. And male. And young males were often distracted by–
He stared up at the third story window of the neighboring tenement. Yes, that would do.
He wove the illusion meticulously, detail by detail, holding it tight inside his mind. Olive skin, dark brown hair, blue cotton curtains. He waited until the image was firm, and waited again until the image remained solid in the window.
He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and giggled on a rising pitch.
Frujeur’s friend glanced in his direction, then up at the young woman in the window, a cute lass who appeared to be wearing only her long sable hair and a small lace handkerchief. She smiled, jerked her chin at the door behind her and disappeared into the room. The curtains swung closed.
Frujeur’s young friend took off toward her building at a run.
It was pure luck that old Bahtdor Nose had sent a young one to spy on the house. He’d known those busybody neighbor girls would be good for something. The grumpy guard who lived in those rooms shouldn’t thump the poor fool too badly. Might not beat him up at all, so he’d better hurry.
Viper released the illusion and sprinted up the street to Trevor’s house. He dashed up the wobbly front stairs, stuffed his key into the lock, and threw himself against the door. He darted into the parlor, slammed the door and relocked it behind him.
He hurried into the sitting room, but stopped and stared at the familiar room, with its overstuffed chairs and scarred end table. Already it had developed a layer of dust.
What to do next? He hadn’t thought beyond this moment.
The house was so quiet.
His guts shriveled. Vultures slashed his heart.
He was home, but this wasn’t home anymore. It couldn’t be home without Trevor, even if he were allowed to stay here. And he wouldn’t be. They’d hand him over to Frujeur the minute they noticed him.
Why hadn’t he spent more time with Trevor? Why hadn’t he asked about the old man’s history, his dreams, his plans? Taking the Wizard Route was fine to say, but what would he have done in the near future?
Now he’d never know. Because he’d never thought to ask.
He sat down in Trevor’s favorite overstuffed chair, pulled his feet up onto the cushion, and fought down the urge to cry. Without Trevor, what was the point?
Three long, stinking days to walk back from the valley. Three long, cold, lonely nights. And now he was lost. He’d gotten lost in the mountains, but even then he hadn’t been as miserable as he felt in this sad, abandoned house.
He wiggled out of the chair, wandered into the kitchen, and froze.
Drawers lay on floor. Silverware and cooking spoons were scattered throughout the room. Cabinet doors dangled open, their contents pushed to one side.
The room had been searched. The house had been invaded.
He dashed back into the parlor. Books he knew he’d left there were gone. Stolen. How had they gotten in? He had the only key.
What a turybird he’d become. He’d read about lock picks. He wouldn’t be surprised if Lorel knew how. But she’d never take anything. It had to be Frujeur.
Now what did he do?
Pack. And get out of here. He needed maps and books and money and fresh clothing. Food, if anything was unspoilt.
He snuck up the creaky stairs to his bedroom. No chaos here. They hadn’t considered his tidy room worth searching, thank the Thunderer.
He grabbed his knapsack off its peg on the wall and yanked open his clothing drawer. He began to shove wadded cloth into his pack, but changed his mind and folded and rolled the few items he chose to take, dumping the rest back into the drawer.
He should have known he was in trouble when old Bahtdor Nose wouldn’t let him get clean clothing.
He opened the bottom drawer and glared at the pair of saikeris lying at the back. Were they worth the whipping he’d earn if caught with them? Thundering unlikely they’d ever figure out what they were, though.
Those were good times, when he carved them from a bahtdor’s shoulder bone. The day they dedicated all the weapons. The astonished look on Lorel’s face when he beat her with wooden saikeris.
If he risked taking the saikeris, he might as well risk the Dedicated knife his sister gave him, too. That would be useful a lot sooner, and it meant a lot more to him. The Guard might not consider an intricately-carved bone knife real, anyway.
He put all three weapons in his knapsack between layers of clothing, grabbed another pair of clean socks, and closed the drawers of the chest. He stepped out of his ruined house shoes and eased his sore feet into his only pair of boots. Wherever he went, now he’d be ready for serious traveling.
He walked to the wall where his mandolin hung from a peg and fingered the black leather of the case. Had anyone had noticed it? Whether they had or not, was his. Lorel make it for him with love, sweat, and tears. He was not leaving it here to be stolen.
He eased it down from the wall, slipped the strap over his head, and settled the mandolin safely on his back. He tossed the knapsack over one shoulder and stalked out of the room.
A ghostly spider skittered up his back.
The door to Trevor’s bedroom was ajar. His stomach dropped. He crept down the hall and peeked in.
Books and papers were strewn throughout the room as if a tornado had swept through. Without thinking, he stooped to tidy the mess, but dropped the crumpled paper
s. He couldn’t afford to show he’d been here. The chaos would have to remain. He closed a book left sprawled open and wept silently at the desecration.
Whoever had picked the lock would be back. Everything would be stolen or destroyed within days. He was surprised anything was left at all.
As he turned to leave, he noticed his newly finished book about precious stones laying on the floor.
‘Excellent,’ Trevor had scrawled on a note attached to the cover. ‘Let’s publish it!’
A thick sob clogged his throat. Viper slipped the thin book into his pack and wiped his sleeve over his wet face.
He opened the door, but turned back to stare at the bed. He bit his lip. It couldn’t be there. But this was the only room in the house he’d never cleaned.
He felt silly, but he walked back to look under the bed. On the far side, near the headboard, lay a slim, dust-covered book.
He wriggled under the bed and pulled it out. Under the grime, the title read: The Magically Advantageous Flora of Menajr. There was a detailed drawing of a mandrake root below the block letters. At the bottom of the cover were the words, ‘by Trevor of Zedista, 1592.’ That made it ninety four years old.
Viper smiled through tears as he eased the little book into his pack. “You were right, Samiderf. Of course it was under the bed.”
He crept back downstairs and checked for intruders. So far, he seemed to be alone.
Back in the kitchen, he stuffed a bottle of cider and several apples into the knapsack. He ignored the fuzzy blue bread and the fluffy green cheese. He hadn’t been hungry in days, and he’d never been hungry enough to eat moldy food. Raw grubs and mushrooms had satisfied his grumbly belly on the walk home.
His breath caught in his throat. He didn’t have a home anymore. Trevor was dead.
But he had to keep going. He scooped a paring knife off the floor and slipped it between the apples. Surely the Guard wouldn’t hang him over a three-inch blade. If they found him. He planned to stay far out of their reach.
He left the kitchen and headed to the dark end of the hallway.
Sorcery's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 2) Page 10