“Prisoner?” she said aloud, and she immediately stood up.
Chap’s furry canine face appeared just as frustrated as Magiere felt. He huffed three times for “maybe” or “uncertain,” and then locked his crystal blue eyes onto hers. As well as dipping into the surfacing memories of anyone in his sightline, Chap could make any memory he’d seen before rise in the owner’s mind. This was sometimes a faster, or simpler, way to communicate.
Without warning, a rush of memories flooded Magiere’s thoughts.
First came a clear image of Wynn being captured by Lord Darmouth’s men during their time crossing the Warlands. Those soldiers had dragged her away to lock her up. At that time, there had been nothing Magiere could do to stop it. Even the memory brought up a wave of impotent rage. That same anger had rushed upon Magiere when the dark-haired sage had grabbed Wynn.
The memory passed in a flash, and the next was of Leesil wrapping up the orb they’d found in the Pock Peaks to be carried away from the six-towered castle. Then followed a memory of Wynn trying to carry away too many books from the decaying library they’d uncovered in that same place.
Magiere didn’t like it, but some of what Chap tried to convey seeped through. Wynn being locked up ... an orb being found and recovered ... Wynn’s passion for the ancient texts she and Chap had selected for taking. All of these were somehow linked.
Leesil looked up at her from his crouched position before the talking hide.
“Wynn’s mixed up in something serious, if her own people are doing this to her. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s gotten herself in trouble, thinking she knows what’s right versus any rule or law. Our showing up in the archives must have been the final pebble to make it all cave in on her. But she still insisted that we leave her behind.”
He glanced down the road, his eyes narrowing, and Magiere followed his focus to the keep’s smaller gatehouse towers peeking above the high bailey wall.
“Maybe she didn’t think they would lock her up,” Leesil added. “Not if she wanted to stay to keep her access to the archives.”
He looked to Chap, but Chap just huffed three times. He wasn’t sure, either.
Magiere glanced away, for she’d had enough of this. “Then we get her out—tonight.”
Leesil rose and anger leaked into his voice. “What do you suggest? Yell a few insults through the portcullis and hope someone opens it up? Even if they did, and they wouldn’t, we can’t just blunder back in there. We’ll make things worse for her. We need a real plan ... not just blind, bully tactics. We need to know what’s going on ... first.”
Magiere’s ire at Leesil and even Chap suddenly shifted to Wynn. What had that girl been thinking, sending off the only ones who could help her? Now they were separated, and it was up to Magiere—again—to pull Wynn’s fat out of the fire.
But how in a fortress held by sages?
“First, we get the lay of this place,” she insisted, “if we’re going to break back in.”
Ignoring Leesil’s retort and Chap’s warning, Magiere stalked off down the road along the bailey wall. Even from ten paces, she heard Leesil cursing under his breath and Chap rumbling.
Leesil snatched up the talking hide, rolled it tightly, and went after Magiere. He wasn’t surprised when she walked right past the bailey gate, heading along the wall toward its turn around the southern tower.
She moved with a determined grace, her long, black hair barely showing its bloodred tints in moonlight as its bound tail swung across her upper back. All along the way, she peered up at the keep’s heights and studied the high wall itself.
Leesil knew this wasn’t over, not by far. Magiere was just getting started, and he was so tired on the inside. His love for her—his desire for her—was as certain as ever. But during their years together, she had always been skeptical, reluctant, leaving him the freedom to be the impetuous, sly one. That had changed as her obsession grew, and now he had to be ever more sly with her. He didn’t like it.
“When did I become the cautious one?” he whispered to himself.
And in one more step, a memory surged upon him and slowed him almost to a halt.
Leesil saw a white, icy waste where nearly nothing stood for as far as he could see through freezing mist and windblown falling snow. But he saw something. No more than a hazy silhouette, a broken gray-white mountain range rose far ahead in the white distance.
“Don’t!” he hissed, cringing as he spun on Chap at his side. “Not now ... not here!”
Chap exhaled through his nose, gazing after Magiere.
Most people couldn’t read an animal’s face, though some might claim so. Most hadn’t grown up and roamed the world with a four-footed manipulative Fay in the form of a too-tall, too-lanky silver-gray wolf.
Leesil saw his own old worry in Chap’s crystal blue eyes as the dog watched Magiere, but he couldn’t deal with that right now.
“What happened up there has to wait,” he added to Chap, forcing calm for the sake of his new role as the sensible one. “Until we make sure she doesn’t lose herself again.”
Chap let out a sigh so human that it was unsettling. After a long pause, he huffed once in agreement. Leesil jogged a few steps back to retrieve the rest of his gear on the ground, and then he started off after Magiere again.
Whatever she might think of him tonight, she was wrong to claim he’d abandon Wynn. First, though, they had to get in touch with their small friend and learn what was happening in this place.
Not by Magiere’s ways and means, but by Leesil’s, if he could think of something.
Chapter 3
WYNN AVERTED HER GAZE when she spotted Chane, so as not to alert her escort to his presence. Once Shade trotted into the room and hopped up on the bed, Wynn reached for the door. Before she touched the handle, Dorian jerked the door shut without a word.
They barely knew each other—hadn’t seen each other in years—but unfamiliarity wasn’t enough to explain his manner. Wynn wondered again why journeyor metaologers, who should’ve been preparing for new assignments, appeared to be lingering about at the beck and call of Hawes and Sykion.
Chane stepped out to her, but the instant his lips parted to speak, she reached up and clamped a hand over his mouth. At his scowl, she cocked her head toward the door. His scowl faded as his gaze narrowed, and they both listened in silence.
Wynn heard no footfalls fading down the outer passage. Her escort must still be outside, standing guard. When she looked back, Chane nodded, for they both knew he couldn’t be discovered in her room, not now. Then she hesitated for a few breaths, giving herself less than a moment to feel relief that he’d returned safely from helping to hide the orb in Dhredze Seatt. He was so tall, she had to tilt her head back to see his pale, handsome face and jaggedly cut, red-brown hair. Dressed in his usual boots, breeches, white shirt, and cloak, just the familiar sight of him moved her.
That moment was all she allowed. This was no time for a reunion.
Wynn quickly retreated to her desk, flipped open a blank journal, and snatched up a paper-wrapped charcoal stick to begin writing in Belaskian.
The orb?
After all that had happened, it was still the first thing on her mind. Chane took the charcoal stick and wrote one word before handing it back.
Safe.
Now began the harder part, as Wynn wrote furiously. Soon she would be hauled before the council for questioning. Chane had to get out of her room—out of the keep—before they came for her. Only two nights had passed since she, he, and Shade had returned from their long journey south. She’d come straight to the guild, but he’d gone on for the quick trip to Dhredze Seatt and back. It would be better that the premin council didn’t know he’d returned, as well.