* * * *
By the time Gerard returned to his room at the inn, it was well past midnight. Thessalyn had waited for him. She was sitting beside the fire in the peculiar stillness that came over her when she was composing music in her head. Her face cleared as he entered.
“You shouldn’t have waited up,” he said.
“I’m a minstrel. We’re supposed to be able to harp all night.”
Gerard stripped off his coat, glad that she could not see the bloodstains. “I’ve been killing shavier. A couple of grishnards, too.”
Thessalyn’s white eyes grew luminous and sad. “You saved them from Lamire, then?”
Gerard sighed. She knew him too well. “I doubt that’s how they saw it.”
“They will see everything on the Shores Beyond the World, and they will understand.”
Gerard shook his head. “I’m not concerned with the Shores Beyond the World just now, only with Maijha Minor and my last predecessor in the Police, Montpir. He disappeared there. I think he was looking for Sky Town.”
Thessalyn strummed her harp thoughtfully. “So you really think Sky Town exists?”
Gerard shrugged. “The Priestess seems to think so. Montpir did, too, I think.” Gerard told her about Marlo Snale and what he’d said. He also mentioned Silveo’s parting words.
Thessalyn shook her head. “What is wrong with him? Doesn’t he see that you’re both on the same side?”
Gerard hesitated. He’d never told Thessalyn all of the rumors about Silveo. “They say he clawed his way up from the slums around Slag on Sern.” He watched Thessalyn’s face. The harbor town of Slag was perhaps the roughest and ugliest in Wefrivain. The town had a reputation for brothels that catered to all tastes, and foxlings were especially prized because of their fine features and child-like proportions. Gerard would have pitied any such creature, except that Silveo had a way of dissipating pity as a summer sun dissipates dew. In Gerard’s experience, Silveo would have been more likely to sell such children than to have been one.
Thessalyn was quiet a moment. “Poor thing.”
Gerard made a face. “No one can say whether it’s true, as he seems to have killed nearly every shelt who knew him as a child.” He hesitated. “However, it might explain his taste in clothes.”
“Gerard!”
“He is cruel, Thessalyn. He hasn’t the honor of a mud leech.”
“And you are intimidating, especially to someone like that.”
Gerard drew a hand across his eyes. “Alsair can talk of nothing but eviscerating him since that business with the Foam. I don’t want to talk anymore about Silveo Lamire.”
She smiled. “Then let’s not. Judging from what Marlo Snale had to say, you’ve taken on a dangerous job, love.”
“Frightened for me?”
Thessalyn stood and walked to him, fearless now that she’d memorized the layout of the room. Gerard took her in his arms. “My dear,” she said, “you could vanquish hydras and cross the deserts of fire.”
Her boundless optimism was one of the many things he loved about her. “You have more faith in me than I do.” Gerard started to kiss her.
“I want to hear about the Police,” said Thessalyn. “What’s got you so curious about Montpir and Maijha Minor?”
They curled up on the bed, and he told her about the office and the stacks of paper. “Something wasn’t right with that office,” said Gerard. “Every document I found was dated at least three red months ago. Montpir only disappeared last month. Judging by what I saw, he kept meticulous records. I even found evidence of a filing system, but nothing was in order.”
“You think someone searched the office?” asked Thessalyn.
“Yes,” said Gerard. “I think someone stole a lot of paperwork. They hoped I’d confuse ransacked with messy. I went through the fireplace, and I think a lot of paper was burned there recently. I found a bit that had fallen under the grate, a list.” Gerard took the charred fragment out of his pocket and read it to her.
Sky Town
Misnomer?
Tea cups—tea leaves?
Who is Gwain? At the center of the web
Cowry Catchers—the winged wolves
Maijha Minor
The diving spiders
Thessalyn grinned. “Cryptic!” Gerard could tell that her minstrel’s mind was already making poetry or prophesy of it.
“Yes,” he said, “but that list meant something to Montpir, and I’m going to find out what.”
The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1: Embers Page 5