“But we are going, correct?” Perrin said. He hadn’t taken large portions of anything, and Sienne noticed he’d only picked at what he had taken.
“Of course,” Alaric said. “The next step is to make sure your family is still safe, and see what progress Sienne’s brother has made on their problem.”
Sienne nodded and said, around a mouthful of tender squash, “Alcander will have a plan by now. I’m sure of it.”
“When I spoke with Cressida this morning, she indicated all was well,” Perrin said, “but I…would like to see for myself.”
His uncertainty surprised Sienne. Perrin had spoken with his former wife Cressida almost every day since they set off for Omeira, and Sienne had been sure they were working out their differences and moving toward a much desired (on Sienne’s part, at least) reconciliation. Perrin loved Cressida still, and Sienne thought Cressida returned his feelings, so if they could just sit down in the same room for ten minutes and talk things through…but now Perrin sounded doubtful in a way he hadn’t throughout their journey. If he was having second thoughts, Sienne didn’t know what to do.
Outside, a dog howled, a low, mournful sound like the cry of a lost soul. Leofus groaned and muttered, “Not this again.”
Alaric turned toward the window. “Again? Has this been going on long?”
“Four days,” Leofus said, scowling. He held his spoon, dripping with chicken gravy, like a spear. “Howls like the undead every night around this time. Some stray dog, like as not, though it might be someone doesn’t want to lay claim to the beast and get the neighbors in an uproar after him.”
Alaric looked thoughtful. “Odd. I could swear…” He shook his head. “At any rate, we need to stop in Beneddo sooner rather than later.”
Dianthe nodded. “We can be on our way day after tomorrow, either by carpet or by transport. Or—I suppose Sienne could use ferry, take us one by one.”
“We’ll need to travel overland once we reach Ansorja, so I don’t want to leave the carpets behind,” Alaric said. The howl cut across his words, fainter this time as if the dog had run away. “But we have plenty of options for that. At any rate, tomorrow Sienne hunts for spells, the day after that, we go to Beneddo, and then once we know where things stand with Perrin’s family, we’ll leave for Ansorja.”
His final words fell like shards of ice into the sudden silence, broken only by the sound of Kalanath steadily eating his way through the last of the roast. Sienne laid down her fork and knife and pushed her plate away. “And then we confront the wizard,” she said. “Are we ready for that?”
“We still don’t understand how the unbinding should work,” Dianthe said, “and we aren’t sure about whether it makes more sense to try to do that, or just kill the wizard and hope that breaks the binding.”
“I’m inclined to the latter,” Alaric said. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and dropped it on his empty plate. “Subduing the wizard long enough to perform the unbinding could be dangerous.”
“But what if the binding persists after his death?” Sienne asked. “That would leave the Sassaven—the adults, anyway—trapped in something they can never break.”
“We’ll have time in Beneddo to finish working out the details,” Alaric said. “I don’t want us rushing off without a plan. There’s no hurry.”
“I am glad of this,” Kalanath said. “I do not wish to face this wizard with no plan. It is not what I see.”
Alaric frowned. “Did you have a vision?”
“Last night,” Kalanath said, nodding. “But I do not say because I do not understand it. I think about it while we fly.”
Sienne wasn’t used to her friend being so open about his ability as devesh, holy child of God, to have prophetic dreams. His time in Omeira, and his growing relationship with the father he never knew, had changed him.
“I see us flying,” Kalanath went on, “flying like birds, I mean. And we fly over forests and mountains to a tower. It is too tall—no tower is so tall without falling.”
“That sounds like the wizard’s tower,” Alaric said. “It really is impossibly tall.”
Kalanath nodded agreement. “We fly, and fly, but the tower’s top is always out of reach. So we fly to the ground and search for an entrance, but there is none. And in my dream I know it is because we must have a plan.”
“The wizard’s tower is solid stone. No stairs,” Alaric said. “There’s what we call the walkstone in the base. It’s an artifact that transports you to the top. I think I remember how to activate it.”
“And we have to worry about the Sassaven attacking us,” Dianthe said. “Hard to figure out a strange artifact while a mob is nipping at our heels.”
Alaric yawned and stretched. “I’m too tired to think about this now. Let’s sleep on it, and discuss it in the morning.”
Sienne gathered up her plate and Alaric’s and scraped the bones into the scrap bucket. “Thank you again, Leofus,” she said as she handed him the plates.
“Taking me for granted,” Leofus muttered, but he was smiling.
Alaric trailed Sienne up the stairs to the third floor. The third floor had once been servants’ quarters, back before Master Tersus had bought the place, and the bedrooms were plain and plainly furnished. Sienne pushed open the door of the room she shared with Alaric and winced at the heat radiating from it. “I wish I’d left the window open a crack before we went to Omeira,” she said. She crossed to the window and got it open with some shoving. Cool evening air breezed past her, bringing with it the smell of the distant harbor, brine and hot tar and a hint of cinnamon. She inhaled, closing her eyes. It reminded her of their sea voyage and how beautiful the waves were.
The bed creaked, and she turned to see Alaric sitting on it, removing his boots. She’d cast fit on the bed weeks ago, enlarging it and its bedding enough that Alaric’s feet didn’t dangle off the end. He had his attention on his boots and his brow was slightly furrowed. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“Hmm?” Alaric looked up, one boot in his hand. “Just thinking about getting into the wizard’s tower.”
“I thought you said you were too tired to think about that.”
“I am. But my brain didn’t get the message.” He set his boot down and tugged off the second one. “This isn’t going to be easy. Avoiding the Sassaven, subduing the wizard, performing the right ritual…there are still too many unknowns.”
Sienne sat beside him, sending up her own creak. “We’ll figure it out. There are still things we have to do before we can make any concrete plans. If I get new spells tomorrow, that could change things.”
Alaric put his arm around her. “How likely is it that this Carys Bettega will want to deal with you?”
“Ghrita thought she’d at least be willing to meet with me. She said Mistress Bettega collects scrapper stories, like as a historian or something. But she’s not with the university, so I don’t know exactly what that means. If she’s not willing to sell or trade, she might know others who would be. I feel confident I’ll get something out of meeting her.”
“We could come with you.”
“I thought about that, but the rest of you will do better to prepare for the journey to Beneddo. Besides, I don’t want to overwhelm her.” Sienne rested her head on Alaric’s shoulder and felt his arm tighten around her. “This is nice.”
“I had in mind something a little more intense than ‘nice.’” Alaric’s hands went to the hem of her shirt. “Unless you’re too tired.”
“I hope I’m never too tired for that,” Sienne said.
Outside, the dog howled again, mournful and loud. Sienne, leaning in to kiss Alaric, found his lips unresponsive. His hands rested unmoving on her hips. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” He blinked and looked at her. “Nothing. That howl…it sounds familiar.”
“All dogs’ howls sound the same to me.” She kissed him again, and this time he returned her kiss, slow and sweet. She loved his kiss.
The howl w
ent up again, and Alaric stiffened. “I swear I’ve heard that before,” he said. He stood and went to the window. “I don’t see anything. I—”
The unseen dog howled again, closer this time. Alaric swore and turned away. “Sorry. That howl is going to drive me mad.” He crossed to the door without stopping to put on his boots.
“Wait for me,” Sienne exclaimed as he strode out of the room. She hurried after him, the floorboards warm against her bare feet.
Outside, the noise of the neighbor’s party drifted toward her on the wind, which had picked up since they returned home. Snatches of laughter, and the music of a fiddle and flute, filled the air with a carnival sound. The howling had stopped. Alaric rounded the corner of the house into the small garden, no more than fifteen feet on a side. Yew hedges taller than Sienne could see over bordered the garden on three sides, with the fourth side being the kitchen wall. Kalanath practiced his fighting routines there in the morning, and Sienne had often watched and admired his flowing, graceful movements. At the moment, it was dark and still.
Alaric said, “I need light.”
Sienne made half a dozen magic lights with a thought and sent them spinning into the air to illuminate the garden. Their white light cast strange shadows over the hedges, throwing each tuft of needles into stark relief. The branches needed to be trimmed back; their bushy limbs looked like they were reaching for Sienne with prickly fingers. Sienne looked closely at their bases. Nothing moved. She and Alaric were the only creatures in the garden.
“Maybe it ran away when it heard us coming,” she said.
Alaric nodded. “Maybe.” He had a distant look in his eye, as if he were thinking hard. Then he shook his head. “It was probably nothing.”
Another howl swallowed the word “nothing,” longer and louder than before. “Around front,” he said, and ran from the garden. Sienne followed him, carefully avoiding the small rocks of the gravel path.
Alaric stood at the edge of the street, looking east toward where the houses rose along the steep incline. Lights burned behind windows and in front of each house—it was each householder’s duty to maintain a lantern to light the street—some white with magic, some warm and yellow with real fire. The sound of the party was louder now, and Sienne could barely make out the booming voice of Master Innes, calling for more wine. If not for that, the street would have been its usual quiet, peaceful self.
Sienne looked westward, toward the bottom of the street where it curved away to the north and toward the harbor. The small round paving stones were slick when it rained in winter, but at the moment they were dry and not at all treacherous. Cypress trees grew where the street curved, planted years ago by some overzealous property owner who wanted the neighborhood to look more prosperous than it was. Sienne’s eye lingered on the base of the left-hand tree. Was it her imagination, or were the shadows there deeper than they should be?
She opened her mouth to ask Alaric what he thought, and the shadow detached itself from the tree and flung itself toward her.
Sienne gasped and said, “Alaric!” Instinctively she flung up her hands and chanted the spell force even though the shadow was moving fast enough it would reach her before she finished.
Alaric grabbed her and slung her roughly out of the way, interrupting her spell. She took a few stumbling steps to regain her balance and saw the shadow was a dog, a lithe black creature built like a greyhound. The dog’s mouth was flecked with foam and it growled deep in its throat as it ran. It ignored her and went for Alaric, who crouched, hands at the ready to wrestle the animal to the ground. Sienne took a few more steps to the side and once more began casting force.
The dog launched itself at Alaric’s throat, knocking him over. Alaric got his hands around its throat, holding its head with those sharp teeth away from him. The dog went still.
Alaric, it said, in a voice that echoed in Sienne’s head.
About the Author
In addition to the Company of Strangers series, Melissa McShane is the author of more than twenty-five fantasy novels, including the novels of Tremontane, the first of which is Servant of the Crown; The Extraordinaries series, beginning with Burning Bright; and The Book of Secrets, first book in The Last Oracle series. She lives in the shelter of the mountains out West with her husband, four children and a niece, and four very needy cats. She wrote reviews and critical essays for many years before turning to fiction, which is much more fun than anyone ought to be allowed to have.
You can visit her at www.melissamcshanewrites.com for more information on other books.
For news on upcoming releases, bonus material, and other fun stuff, sign up for Melissa’s newsletter at http://eepurl.com/brannP
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