“A woman I’ve been working with—a tax clerk—she’s disappeared. The same one I went out with yesterday, when you followed us.” I hand him the letter and let him read it himself.
His expression, serious before, grows increasingly grim as he peruses the letter. “What, precisely, were you researching?”
“The princess can tell you that.”
He raises his gaze to me, then nods. “You’re sure it’s related?”
“There would be no other reason to target her.” And her family has no idea that the snatchers might be involved. “I need to visit her family, tell them what I know,” I say with sudden decision.
“You’re not leaving the palace.”
What? “Kirrana is missing and you’re worried about me going to see her family?”
“You were wounded, were you not? By someone who might prefer to finish the deed he started? And then you were followed by an unknown man? You can’t go to this family as if there is no danger to you at all.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Because the princess swore me to silence and told me to keep a watch on your safety. I understand you’re not exactly safe outside these walls.”
Fair enough, though I wish she’d told me. “I’m not going to walk there. I’ll take a carriage.” He opens his mouth to protest. “And you can come with me, if you’re that worried.”
He closes his mouth. Takes a breath. “All right.”
I stare at him in astonishment. Did he just agree to go with me?
“But not now. I can’t leave my post here. I’m off duty in an hour; we’ll go then.”
“I should go sooner—”
“Not alone. I swear I’ll take you to find your friend’s family, along with a quad as escort. And I’ll report her as missing at once. She works at the tax office; the palace guard will help investigate. You write back to her mother with what you know and send it ahead of us. Agreed?”
There’s a sharp look about him, a heightened awareness that tells me he’s taking this very seriously. And that I should not underplay the threat the Scholar still poses to me. There’s likely not much I can accomplish alone that Matsin isn’t about to order. “Agreed.”
I set up in the common room where I won’t disturb the other attendants, and send off a flurry of letters, my mind jumping from possibility to possibility. First, a letter to Kirrana’s mother, telling her that I will be bringing Captain Matsin in the next hour or so, as I’m able, and that he will have the palace guard informed and set to work immediately. Then a letter for Alyrra to be delivered when she will accept it, and another for Garrin, because he has taken on the responsibility of the existing investigation.
I get up and pace back and forth when I finish, then sit down to rest my foot. I will no doubt walk plenty today; it’s better not to start out hard. But I cannot sit still, tapping my hands nervously against the table as I think of Kirrana followed and attacked. My hands still. It was Bren’s man who followed us yesterday to make sure we were safe. And Sage told me, that first time we went to meet the thieves, that Red Hawk’s men helped search for a girl who disappeared.
I write a brief note to Bren describing Kirrana’s disappearance and explaining that I’m going to her home. I don’t know that he can do anything, but I’d rather ask than miss a chance to help her. Bren told me how to contact his trusted page—not that I had expected to need to do so. I’m glad for it now.
While I’m waiting for him to arrive, I return to my room to change into one of my simpler new skirt and tunic sets, wrap Niya’s story sash about my waist. I pause a moment in the room, trying to think.
This is my fault. For involving Kirrana, for drawing attention to her. I should have known she was more vulnerable than I. It’s my fault she’s been taken.
But that’s not right—in the end, it is the snatchers’ fault. Berenworth Trading Company. The thrice-cursed Circle of Mages, who are too powerful to take on, too dangerous to face. Darkness take them!
I take a shaky breath, check my pockets. I should have my bone knife. I cross to my desk, slide the drawer open quietly so as not to wake Mina. There is the knife, and beside it the archer’s journal. The archer, who destroyed her king to save her people. And the Fae sorceress with her seemingly incredible magical ability. I stare a long moment at the book, then slip it into my pocket, bind my knife in its sheath to my calf, and write one final letter.
Bren’s page arrives just as I’m finishing, his hair sleep mussed but his eyes alert. He accepts my note to Bren, promises to pass off the other note to another page at once, and departs.
I set out after him. There’s still a half hour before Matsin will be able to take me to see Kirrana’s family. I don’t intend to waste it.
Chapter
44
The women’s residence lies quiet and mostly empty. Most of the palace nobles may still be asleep, but it’s morning and the work of the world has already begun. Inside, the elderly caretaker has rolled up her sleeping mat and is puttering about the front room. I tell her that I want to leave a note for Kirrana and she waves me up, apparently unaware of Kirrana’s abduction.
Upstairs, I find the room unoccupied, as I’d hoped. Kirrana is organized, but thankfully not so much so that she cleans out her hairbrush daily. I harvest one of the hairs left on its bristles and head out once more. My final note should have been delivered by now; I can only hope it will be answered.
The courtyard is just as quiet as it was the first time I came here, the mosaic tiles familiar. Only this time, the favor I have to ask is a great deal more personal, and I’m not sure Stonemane will grant it without some form of payment. I don’t have much to give him, for I doubt he would want jewelry or coin. But perhaps he’ll humor me, as he did last time.
I try to distract myself by revisiting the last passages of the archer’s journal. Her desperation and regret are clear on the page, but so is her sense of betrayal by her own liege. Before she ever betrayed him, he turned his back on her, until her service to him became an empty thing. How that must have hurt; it’s as if I can see her pain in the shape of each letter she penned. It’s a deeper betrayal in some sense than what the Circle has done, but only because I don’t know those mages. Their betrayal is impersonal, but equally as devastating. Berenworth, at least, never presented itself as an organization in service to the people. Not that I won’t do my best to see Berenworth destroyed, if I can prove the truth of their involvement. Or if Garrin can. But that still leaves the Circle.
“Kelari, I am glad to see you well.”
I look up with a start, then hastily get to my feet and offer Verin Stonemane a curtsy. He is dressed simply this morning, tunic and pants bearing just a touch of embroidery at cuffs and sash. His hair falls over his shoulders with its usual inhuman sheen, setting off the darkness of his eyes against his pale skin.
“Thank you, verayn, for coming to speak with me on such short notice, so early.”
“It is no trouble,” he says, seating himself at the other end of the bench. As I sink back down, he rests a hand on the bench, taps it once. That same strange dimming rolls out from him, the world momentarily muffled, and then my ears pop and sound resumes.
“You have more questions, I presume,” he says.
I shake my head. “No. It is something different. A favor to ask.”
“Indeed.” His voice is neutral in its coolness, but that is a warning in itself.
I straighten my back. “A friend of mine has gone missing, verayn. We are investigating her disappearance, but I wondered if you might be able to trace her. I am concerned she’s come to harm.”
Stonemane lifts his brows. “If you are yet again not going to one of the mages of the Circle, I must assume it’s because you do not trust them to find her. Was she investigating the Blessing the Speakers give? Or perhaps the snatchers themselves?”
“The snatchers,” I admit. “But only through the various records available to us—shipping logs and tax records. Not
hing direct.”
“Taxes?” He gives a soft laugh. “I would not have thought of that. But I am afraid I cannot help you. It is not my place as ambassador to come between the royal family and the Circle.”
“But that’s not—Kirrana’s work points to the snatchers directly, not the Circle.”
“And still, it is not my place.” I take a breath to argue, but he raises a hand, stalling me. “Not all of us are heroes, kelari. I cannot save every person in this kingdom.”
“I’m only asking you to save one person. My friend.”
“Whom you cannot trust the Circle to find. This is not apolitical. Even if the king himself asked this of me, I would defer him to his own mages. I already granted you more than I should have in our last meeting.”
I swallow hard, shake my head.
“I am sorry, kelari,” he begins.
I can’t sit any longer. I rise to face him, palms upturned as if begging. I am begging. “Help me, verin. I will pay whatever debt you ask.”
He laughs, but it’s a sad sound. “I find I do not actually want such a debt from you.”
“I know,” I say softly. “You didn’t mean it the first time either. You were testing me. But I’m offering it now. The only other thing I can offer you is a certain bone knife I own; it is Fae made. You might know it.”
He recoils. “I will not take back what I gave you.”
“Why not?” I demand. “You gave it in payment of a debt. It is an equal return.”
His lips thin. “I have no use for it.”
Then what does he have a use for? I have nothing of unusual value beyond the knife. But perhaps what Stonemane needs is not a thing. He is here, after all, as the first permanent delegate since the Fae Attack. He and the Cormorant came for a particular reason . . .
“I am sorry, kelari,” he says again, rising to face me. “I require neither debt nor payment because this battle is not mine. I cannot join it for you.”
“What is your battle, then? Is it—whatever the curse is that dogs our royal family?”
He raises a brow. “A curse doesn’t seem likely, don’t you think?”
I meet his gaze with its hidden currents and decide I have nothing left to lose. If I end up looking a fool, well, it’s worth the risk. “More like a sorceress,” I say quietly.
That stops him.
I go on: “Does the name Sarait Win—”
He closes the distance between, his hand pressing hard over my mouth. “Quiet.”
Fear sends me jerking back a half step. I come up sharply against a wall that isn’t there, the air blocking me, Stonemane’s fingers, long and cool, still pressed against my lips.
We remain frozen like that, my heart thundering in my breast as I remind myself he is not the Scholar, never mind if he’s caught me, or if they both have slim, long-fingered hands.
Then he drops his hand and says, “Don’t ever speak that name out loud.”
I focus on this: his fear. “Is she listening?”
“Always.” He turns his gaze on me, and I finally understand the stories told of those who lose themselves in the eyes of the Fae. They swallow me whole, darkness flooding my senses until there is nothing but the fathomless depths, the faintest of glimmers like starlight lighting the abyss within which I float. I hear his voice from far away, from within the beat of my heart. “Tell me, how did you know it?”
The words slide up my throat, called forth whether I will them or not. “The Black Scholar—” I grit my teeth—become aware that I can do that—but the words are still pressing against my tongue, crowding into my mouth. And the darkness of his eyes holds me. I cannot see past it, cannot find my way out. “Stop,” I croak, the word heavy on my tongue, shoving past smaller, sharper words that I will not allow out. “Stop. Please.”
Reality snaps back into place around me with an almost audible crack: the courtyard, the morning sunlight streaming down on my shoulders, Stonemane standing a pace away, pale and grim and unhappy. Well, he can be as unhappy as he likes, I’m the one who was trapped.
He waits, and I keep my gaze on the mosaic underfoot, until my breathing slows to normal. “I read it in a book,” I tell him, my voice rough. “You could have asked.”
He gestures once, a twist of his hand before it drops back to his side.
“Find my friend,” I say, raising my gaze to his chin, “and you can have the book.”
Silence.
I slip my hand into my pocket and draw forth the journal, holding it up. My hand is not quite steady, but there’s nothing I can do about that. “Do we have a deal?”
“No one can know I helped you.”
“I understand.”
“Very well.” He gestures toward the abandoned bench, asks, “You have something of hers for me to use?”
I take four steps to the bench and sink down, immeasurably grateful for its support. I pass the kerchief with the hair I took from Kirrana’s brush to him. Stonemane seats himself silently. I watch as he snaps off a short length of hair, placing it on the bench. He marks the four cardinal points around it, each touch of his fingers leaving behind a faint glow. Then he holds his hand above it, palm flat and fingers spread. A faint rush of cool air fans my face.
I wait, watching as Stonemane remains focused on the bench. It seems no different in essence from what Niya attempted in Ani’s kitchen a month ago. And, like then, nothing changes. No . . . the hair glitters, and then in the blink of an eye, it flares to red-yellow and falls to ash.
“Warded,” Stonemane says, sitting back. “And powerfully so. I would guess the wards are not tied to her but to the place where she is.”
I close my eyes. I had hoped—foolishly, perhaps—that Fae magic would be able to reach Kirrana where our own mages might fail. But the snatchers have warded her too well. No, not her, but where she is. And I have been where slaves were held before. I cast my mind back to the brickmaker’s yard. If there were a ward protecting the boys from the Darkness, it would have been there too. I remember the prison cell of their room, and the kiln room, and the plaque above the door there. With a faint quickening of hope, I ask, “If you knew the shape of the ward, could you counter it?”
“Perhaps.”
“A moment,” I say and rise to move forward before remembering the invisible wall that had hemmed me in before. “Can I reach the fountain?” I ask, not looking at him.
“Of course.”
Of course, meaning he will expand the magic surrounding us to allow me? Or of course meaning that the wall at my back was there only for those moments, just as Kestrin blocked the viper from reaching Jasmine? I start forward again in silence, reach the water unimpeded, and return to draw the ward I recall upon the bench between us with wet fingers. “Like this?” I ask. It is not quite right, but it is as close as I can get.
Stonemane studies my work. “I don’t recognize such a sigil. I can put the question to the Cormorant. He has been making a study of the local forms of magic.”
“Thank you.” I sit a moment, then hold the journal out to Stonemane.
He takes it, and the exchange feels wrong, somehow. Ugly. Which it is—but I didn’t ask him to use his magic on me, try to force my answers when I would have simply told him. He must fear that sorceress very much. Sarait Winterfrost.
I look up as Stonemane gets to his feet.
“Does Alyrra know?” I demand. “About the sorceress?”
“She knows better than I do,” Stonemane says.
Good. I will worry about Kirrana and leave the sorceress to Alyrra and Stonemane. I turn my gaze to the fountain, waiting, but he doesn’t move on. He only stands there, hovering.
Finally, he says, “Forgive me, Rae. I . . . the one you named has been known to use others as her pawns. I had to be sure of you.”
Why do people who use force seem to think they are being reasonable? Matsin cornering me, and Alyrra ordering it; her brother asserting his power; the Scholar protecting his territory and his reputation? There was nothing
reasonable about my punching Bren, and there’s nothing reasonable about any of the rest of these choices. I raise my eyes to glare at him. “Don’t you do it again.”
He grimaces. “No.”
“And I never gave you that name to use, either.”
He flashes me a pained smile. “No.”
“Stop looking so beautiful about it, then,” I snap. He blinks at me and grins—which is that much worse. I shouldn’t have said that; I must be more frazzled than I realized. “Find my friend and I’ll see about forgiving you,” I say, so we’re clear.
“As long as you don’t fear me,” he says, stars glimmering in his eyes again. Gah!
“I don’t trust you,” I say, and give up waiting for him to leave. I need to get back to the royal wing to meet Matsin and go see Kirrana’s family. All the rest of this mess can wait till later. I stand up, nod to him, and stump off without another word.
Chapter
45
Matsin is waiting for me in the guard room at the top of the back stairs, but not for the reason I expect. “The princess wishes to see you,” he says. “At once. The other attendants have already been called in. I’ll wait till you’re done.”
I nod and hurry on to her suite. Whatever this is about, at least she must have received my note by now. I open the door to find the king poised to leave, and Kestrin sitting beside Alyrra on the sofas opposite him, their expressions hard. Arrayed to the right, standing against the wall, are Mina, Zaria, and Jasmine. To the left stand Kestrin’s own attendants.
“I will leave you to this, then,” the king says to the royal couple. “Should you require my presence, you have only to send for me.”
Alyrra dips her head. “I am grateful for your support, verayn.”
I step hastily to the side and curtsy deeply as the king strides toward the door, his gaze sliding past me and then snapping back. “Kelari Amraeya?”
“Tarin.”
He pauses a moment longer, then nods once and continues. There was something he wanted, though I can’t say what, and he clearly decided not to pursue it for the time being. I straighten from my curtsy as the door closes.
The Theft of Sunlight Page 33