Or.
Had someone gone into the forest and lured her out? As a warning. As a threat. He hoped it was the former, because if it was not, he would have to think hard about what that meant. Very few people knew how to safely navigate the forest of Javelin, beside himself.
Basilio had been busy. Everything was tidied, the broken glass swept up, the tables righted. On one of the tables were the contents of Elias’s pouch: stones, tin, key, coins. His compass divider was also there, the brass wiped clean of blood.
“I’m fine, Basilio,” Elias said when the servant tried to fuss about. Elias set his carrier on the table and lowered himself into a chair. Slowly. Everything hurt. “Why don’t you go to bed?”
“Madame Vega left the salve.” Basilio hovered, eyes filled with concern. “I’m to tell you to use it. Before you go to bed, again in the morning, or she’ll know.” The air reeked of lavender ointment.
Elias closed his eyes. “Fine.”
Silence followed. He thought Basilio might have gone on his way until he heard him ask, “What shall I do with this?”
Elias opened his eyes. Basilio held Lady Esma’s leg, cleaned of her blood and his. Wordless, he held out a hand; Basilio gave it over. Elias traced a fingertip along the seahorse’s carved dips and whorls. Someone had killed her, but only after they had hurt her in a way he had never seen another person hurt before. Not in all his years, not in all his travels. With deliberate, indifferent cruelty. And what of his own part of it? He had led someone right to the borders of Javelin and shown them the way in.
What was he missing?
“I heard it was a woman,” Basilio said. “Did you know her?”
“A little. That’s not what we’re telling others.”
“I understand. I am very sorry, Lord Elias.” Basilio bowed and would have left him to his solitude. He stopped when Elias said, “There were only two keys made for this chamber, weren’t there?”
“Yes.”
“What about the molds? Did we keep them?”
Basilio was frowning, understanding why Elias asked. A key could be easily copied from impressions, and all sorts of mischief done, which is why most locksmiths kept their molds and impressions under lock and key. Basilio said, “I had the locksmith break them in front of me before I would pay him. I’m sure he was offended.”
The answer was not surprising. Basilio had always been cautious. Elias picked up his key from the table. It was made of iron, the bow and stem plain and functional, the bit a complicated pattern of grooves and teeth. He held it up to the candlelight and studied it, turning it over, bringing it close and sniffing it. Basilio had come to stand by his side.
“Where is yours?” Elias asked, tossing his key back onto the table.
Basilio fished an identical key from the pouch at his belt. Elias took it, sniffed, and glanced sharply at Basilio, who leaned close and asked, “What is it?”
“Wax.”
Astonishment showed on Basilio’s face, followed quickly by ire. Elias pointed out the tiniest bit of yellow wax, no larger than a dot of ink, left to cling onto the bit. Someone had made a wax impression of the key and had been careless with their cleanup. Basilio muttered something very nasty and un-Basilio-like.
Elias tried to work through a puzzle. “It would not take long to make an impression. But how would they use your key? It’s always with you.”
Basilio was silent, and then with a sudden stricken look said, “The baths.”
The castle baths were enjoyed by men and women, their chambers separated. To enter, one had to first disrobe completely, leaving clothing and other belongings on open shelves that were nominally guarded by attendants. Elias had been to the baths countless times. It would have been a simple thing to wait until an attendant was called away and make a quick wax impression, returning the key within seconds.
“When did you last go?”
Basilio looked wretched. “Yesterday. In the morning. I’ll have new ones made immediately. I am so very—”
“Don’t,” Elias ordered. “This is not your fault.” He drummed his rage along the table. “Listen to me: You’ll go to my parents’ house tonight. Stay there until I send for you.”
“What about you?”
Elias looked at the carrier he’d set on the table. The second map had been safely accounted for in the niche. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Basilio looked at the key in his hand. He squared his shoulders. “Forgive me, Lord Elias, but neither am I.”
It was well past midnight by the time Mercedes returned to her wing of the castle. A lone torch on the wall cut through the gloom. Two guards followed her. They had dogged her steps ever since she had left the geographers’ courtyard, but a glance over her shoulder had them halting abruptly at the far end of the corridor.
Elias was there, sitting outside her chambers. His back against her door, his legs stretched out across the corridor, fast asleep. He opened bleary eyes when she sat by him. Her green dress covered the stones and billowed about his legs. Even in the dim light, he looked terrible. His poor, poor face.
He managed a crooked smile. “That bad?” he asked.
“No, it’s worse,” she said with feeling. “What are you doing here? You should be in bed.”
“Later,” he dismissed. “When will you leave?”
“At first light.”
Absently, Elias smoothed the green silk covering his legs. “How will you do it?”
“Oh, who knows?” It was a two-day journey to Lady Esma’s ancestral home in the mountains. Despite what she had promised her cousin, she had no notion how she would go about burying her in the crypts without anyone else noticing.
Another small smile. “You sound like me.” He glanced down the corridor to the soldiers. Both were very carefully not looking their way. “You’ll take guards?”
“Yes.”
“How many?” he persisted.
“More than enough. Elias, listen to me.” She placed a hand along his cheek. She needed him to hear her. “I’ll take guards tomorrow, and I won’t go anywhere alone. I promise you I will be very, very careful, if you will.”
Meeting her eyes, he said quietly, “I promise, Mercedes.”
She kissed him, lightly on bruised lips, and she did not care who saw. For the rest of her life, she would remember him sprawled face-down on his chamber floor, unmoving. “I won’t be gone a week,” she said, after. “And I’ll see you when I come home.”
It looked to her as if he had forgotten to breathe. He exhaled in one great big rush. “I’ll see you when you come home.”
Even then, she was not comforted. She knew he meant what he said. He would be careful. At least he would try. Elias rarely sought out danger. He didn’t need to. Danger had a way of finding him, regardless.
Elias did not have to knock on Lord Silva’s work-chamber door. It stood wide open. The Royal Navigator was at his desk, working away with parchment, ink, and compass divider. A stubby candle flickered by his elbow and sent wisps of smoke trailing toward the ceiling.
Elias remained in the doorway, uncertain of his welcome. “Sir,” he said quietly, not wishing to disturb Reyna, who curled up on a chair by a floor globe, fast asleep.
“Yes? What is it?” Lord Silva did not look up from his work. No invitation was made to enter.
“I’m sorry for earlier.”
“Don’t think on it,” was the curt response. The quill scratched across parchment. Then, “Was there something else?”
He should go. Come back later, when Lord Silva’s displeasure had a chance to cool. It always did. But he didn’t want to leave things as they were. Lord Silva had only ever had his best interests at heart, and he didn’t like to think of him humbled in front of others. “I wanted to say thank you.”
Lord Silva’s hand stilled. He regarded Elias. “For what?” he asked softly. “Embarrassing you in front of your friends? In front of that humorless commander?”
“For watching over me,” Elias corr
ected. “Even when I don’t need you to.”
An expression he could not decipher flashed across Lord Silva’s face, there and gone in a blink. “Good night, Elias. Close the door behind you.”
“Good night,” Elias echoed. He bowed, even though every inch of him hurt, and Lord Silva did not see. He had already turned his attention back to his work. Just before the door closed, Elias discovered that Reyna was no longer asleep, if she ever had been, but watched him from across the chamber, her eyes wide and troubled in the candlelight.
Elias spent the rest of the night and all the next day in front of the map. Sleep eluded him. Food repelled him. He leaned back against his chair, rubbed bloodshot eyes with his knuckles, and considered all that he knew.
Someone with an intimate knowledge of del Mar had painted both maps, a knowledge gained by many years living here, or at least years studying charts of the area. Or both.
That same person had been alive as recently as ten years ago, when the southern beacon of Alfonse had been erected.
The artist knew that the lady Esma had not been captured along with the princes and Lord Antoni. He had known there was a chance she was alive and hiding within the boundaries of Javelin.
The lady Esma had pointed a finger at her own countrymen. Judge Piri had contradicted her, claiming that the prisoner, long buried, had confessed. But could Piri’s word be trusted?
And if there was a third clue on this map, Elias was damned if he could find it.
He could no longer deny the possibility that his father was alive somewhere, sending hidden messages that might never have been seen by him but for fate, and chance. The least Elias could do was search the map again. And again, as many times as necessary.
He started where all things must start. From the beginning:
Adventurer, two princes lost but not gone.
Follow the path of the ancient mariners, Tramontana to Ostro.
Look not to what is there but to what is not.
Nineteen
HERE WAS NOTHING to be found on the map that night or in the days that followed. Elias was not alone in his frustration. Determined to unmask the three intruders in Elias’s chamber, Lord Silva had questioned everyone within the Tower of Winds—every geographer, every artist, every student—without success. No one had noticed anything suspicious until Hector, poor Hector, had started screaming in the courtyard. And even that had not been so very unusual. Commander Aimon’s luck in questioning was no better. A one-legged woman with silver-and-black hair flowing down to her waist? No one who fit that description had entered through the city gates. The guards would have remembered.
A brief discussion ensued about Elias simply returning to Javelin to ask the spirits what happened. Ulises said no. Not even if he waited for Mercedes to accompany him, for if the spirits did not already know that Lady Esma had been murdered, did Elias truly want to be the one to tell them of it?
Ulises made a good argument.
After two days of huddling over the map and slathering on Madame Vega’s cloying but effective salve, Elias had had enough. He bolted from his chambers and headed down to the harbor.
It was morning. A mild wind had kicked up by the waterfront, scattering chicken feathers across his boots and filling his nostrils with smoke from the food stalls. The geographers’ booth stood among a hundred others at the eastern edge of the harbor. Here, geographers met with all manner of travelers, from humble shipmen to prosperous merchants, gathering information that could prove useful. They purchased sketches of unfamiliar lands roughed out by mariners. They learned which kingdoms were at war or on the verge of war, and what that meant for diplomatic relations and land boundaries.
Geographers took turns at the booth whenever they were in Cortes. Even Lord Silva could occasionally be seen behind the tables. It was a way for them to keep their knowledge of the world sharp, and to continue to meet the diverse people who flowed in and out of del Mar like the tide.
Today, Madame Vega and Luca manned the booth. Reyna was there recording a transaction in a ledger. All three glanced up as he entered the booth. All three winced. His face showed even worse in the light of day.
“Madame.” Elias leaned close to Madame Vega so he could be heard over the din. “I can take over.”
“Absolutely not,” Madame Vega said. “You should be resting. Have you been using the salve I left?”
“Buckets of it” was his grim reply; at the same time, Luca said, “Elias, go home. You’ll scare everyone away with that face.”
At least twenty men waited in front of their booth in a straggly queue. More than a few were recognizable; the majority of them were far uglier than Elias. In his personal opinion. He called to a Lunesian mariner who balanced a wooden chest on one shoulder.
“Is my face frightening to you, Noah?”
Noah stepped from the queue to consider him. His response was amiable. “Frightening? No. It’s an improvement, I think.”
There was laughter all around as men contributed their thoughts on Elias’s looks. None of it was kind. Madame Vega conceded with a sigh, gathering up her things and preparing to leave.
Reyna appeared by Elias’s side. A sensible apron protected her dress. “I can take your carrier.”
He hesitated. Understanding, Reyna added quietly, “I won’t leave the booth, and I’ll wear it myself. It will be uncomfortable to sit with.”
It made sense. She slung his map carrier behind her—it was nearly as tall as she was—then went to help Luca. Madame Vega had not yet gone. She lingered at the edge of the booth, watching the carrier pass from one to the other. Madame was no fool. She knew enough to suspect something in his carrier was dangerous. And by the look on her face, she did not like how close that danger had come to Reyna.
“Master Luca?” Madame Vega said.
“Yes, Madame.”
“Reyna is your responsibility. See her home safe when you are done here.”
“Of course,” Luca said after a quick glance at Elias.
Then Madame was gone. She had not given Elias the responsibility, though he was slightly older than Luca, the more senior. Keep Reyna safe? Everyone knew he could not even keep himself safe. He tried not to let it sting.
The next man in the queue was exactly the sort of distraction Elias needed. Javier was a del Marian mariner. Wizened, his skin like cracked leather, and the most prolific storyteller Elias had ever come across. Javier traveled widely, had fascinating stories from foreign lands: a strange race of people with a single eye in the center of their foreheads; a kingdom no one had ever heard of overrun by black rabbits as tall as men. The old man never had anything that could be verified, but today it did not matter.
Elias sat in his chair and folded his arms. “What story do you have for me now, tale spinner?”
The hours passed. Elias immersed himself in the stories told and in the maps and charts spread out before him like a feast. For a sea chart was never solely a sea chart. On the surface, it was simple parchment: sheepskin transformed into vellum, paint, and gilt; a work of art. But he had learned never to mistake the importance of a good map. It could show the most efficient trade routes, the safest harbors. A rival kingdom’s most vulnerable entry points. Also the capes and coves where pirates were known to lurk, waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting.
“Tell me, Elias,” Lord Silva had said years before when he was very young, younger even than Reyna. “If you were aboard a ship filled with women and children and were set upon by pirates, what would you do first? Throw the maps overboard, or save the women and children?”
“Women and children?” Elias had repeated, wondering if the question had been asked to trick him.
“Infants.”
“Well, surely the infants, at least . . . ow!” Lord Silva had cuffed him, not gently, on the side of the head. “The maps first. Of course the maps!”
“Excellent answer,” Lord Silva had replied. “Remember, our maps show our trade routes. Our trade routes are our livelihood
. We protect them always.”
Reyna stood beside Elias now, entering figures in her ledger. Elias waited until she finished writing, then said, “Tell me, Reyna: If you were aboard a ship filled with women and children and were set upon by pirates, what would you do first? Throw the maps overboard, or save the women and children?”
Luca glanced over and grinned. He, too, had had his head smacked once upon a time by Lord Silva.
“Women and children?” Reyna asked.
“Infants.”
Reyna set her quill aside, her expression thoughtful. “I’d throw all the maps overboard first. But I would try to do it as quickly as I could.”
She’d not hesitated. Elias beckoned the next man forward in the queue, surprised he could still find something to laugh about.
It was the middle of the afternoon when the Mondragan appeared. Young like Elias, his hair the color of wheat, he carried four beautifully painted maps of Mondrago.
Elias took his time, ignoring the line, grumbling and impatient, that snaked before him. He glanced at the Mondragan. Before Lady Esma’s death, he would have sent him on his way, for he’d no real interest in Mondragans besides Mercedes. And Elias could tell from the man’s expression that he expected to be sent away. The Mondragan’s map carrier hung from his back; he gripped the strap that lay across his chest and stared straight over Elias’s head, his expression remote.
Elias saw something else. While the paints used on the maps were of the finest quality, ones he used himself, this man’s clothing was showing wear. Unraveling at the shirt cuffs and collar, the fabric nearly worn through. He was thin for his frame. He’d not had enough to eat. What funds the Mondragan had were going toward his supplies. It was a choice Elias could understand and respect. He would rather starve than use inferior paint.
“Do you speak del Marian?” Elias asked.
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