"How do you know that?" Gustin asked even as he handed the note over to Sophraea to examine.
"Servants' gossip downstairs," she said, barely glancing at the note before handing it back to him. "Adarbrent has been championing the nobles after Stunk's cheated them out of their possessions. I'm certain that Stunk's plans to tear down parts of the City of the Dead made him even madder. So he used his cousin's spellbooks to unleash the dead against Stunk."
"Oh," said Gustin, a little disappointed that she hadn't been more interested in the note and scarcely looked at the shoe when he indicated it dangling from his belt. It's that being born in Waterdeep, he thought, it just makes them all so hard to impress. Especially a girl like Sophraea.
She tugged at his sleeve. "We need to leave now," she said, starting back down the stairs. "Hurry up."
"So now Adarbrent is slinging around spells," Gustin complained as they went toward the front hall. Sophraea set an even quicker pace than usual and he had to stretch his long legs to keep level with her. "And Stunk's valet knows a fetish when he sees one. Here I thought magic was a rare and unusual talent. An ordinary wizard doesn't measure up to much in Waterdeep."
"Maybe Adarbrent hired a real wizard to read the spells out for him," Sophraea soothed even as she sped across the hall. "However he did it, it worked. But really, we need to leave now. I had a little trouble downstairs."
Ignoring her last statement, Gustin pulled the brocade shoe from his belt. "I foUnd it." Maybe she hadn't noticed it before. He was expecting just a bit more congratulations from her.
"Wonderful," said Sophraea, urging him across the hall with many nervous glances at the guards still stationed at the top of the stairs and near the doors.
"But can we lock the dead back into the graveyard if we return the shoe?" Gustin mused and then answered his own question. "I'm sure this anchored the whole curse to Stunk's house. If the valet had done what was expected, and carried the thing into the mansion, the dead would have been inside the walls days ago."
Two sets of guards were advancing upon them, one pair from the rear of the hall, the other pair from their posts at the great door leading into the courtyard. Sophraea glanced at them and hissed at Gustin, "Whatever the magical reasoning, we should talk about this later!"
Outside thunder rumbled and the sky looked even darker. Gustin began to catch Sophraea's panicky mood. Perhaps it was time for a rapid departure. But when the guards reached them, he said calmly enough, "We have set the protections that Lady Ruellyn requested. We will return tomorrow to collect our fee."
The men stared at him. Behind him, Gustin heard Sophraea gulp, as if she were about to say something and then swallowed it.
Stunk's guards marched to the great door leading to the outer courtyard. One pulled it open as two more arranged themselves in front ofthe wizard and his companion.
"They will escort you to the gate," said the most senior bodyguard. "Return in the morning for your payment."
Gustin nodded and followed the men out the door. "Keep your eyes on their backs," he whispered to Sophraea. "Don't glance around. That just makes you look nervous or afraid."
"I wouldn't want to look nervous," Sophraea agreed very softly, flipping up the hood of her cloak so it concealed most of her face. "Especially after I left Stunk's doorjack tied up in the basement."
"What?" Gustin almost tripped to a halt.
"Keep moving." Sophraea prodded him. "I don't want to explain here."
The guards swung open the gilded iron gates. Gustin and Sophraea slipped through them. Rain began to pour down, but the pair hurried away from Stunk's mansion, never glancing back until they reached the corner of the street.
Then Gustin risked one look over his shoulder. Oblivious to the rain. Rampage Stunk had joined the cluster of guards at his gate. The fat man just stood there, watching them leave. Another guard came running up to the group, obviously bursting with news.
Gustin pulled Sophraea around the corner of the street, shielding both of them from the stony blank stare of Rampage Stunk.
With some urgency, Gustin asked her, "What is the fastest way back to Dead End House?"
SEVENTEEN
fl utting through the City of the Dead was probably the quickest U route to Dead End House, Sophraea reasoned, as she led Gustin back to the Mhalsyymber gate.
She briefly considered going west to the High Road and taking that as far as Andamaar, but that meant twisting back through the little streets to Dead End House. Somehow, she didn't feel as safe on the open streets. That strange emptiness in the North Ward, the eerie silence that felt more like midnight than the late afternoon, still persisted.
For the first time in her life, Sophraea missed the usual clamorous crowds, the hustle and bustle of normal life in Waterdeep. She'd never complain again about Waterdeep's crowded streets, she decided, or about having to slow her steps because of some group dawdling in front of her or having to sidestep some knot of gallants posturing to their peers.
Right now, she had an itch between her shoulder blades; like something was tracking them. Only, whenever she risked a peek around the edge of her hood, she saw nothing but wet pavement and the black shadows that marked the entrances to the littler alleys. And she'd almost missed a turn already, nearly taking the Golden Serpent instead of Mhalsyymber's Way.
With some relief, she pulled Gustin through the public gate into the City of the Dead, acknowledging with a brief nod the Watch standing there. The two older men barely glanced at her. They were huddled together, whispering and staring into the graveyard.
"They are locking all the gates early tonight," one of the guards said.
"We will exit at Coffinmarch," she said. The Watch still did not know about the Dead End gate.
"Hurry," said young man. "The Watchful Order will be here soon."
"New wards?" guessed Gustin, speaking for the first time.
The young man shook his head. "They never tell us anything. Just lock up and lock up tight. But they are expecting trouble, everyone is expecting trouble with the dead tonight."
Sophraea nodded, "We will hurry."
Then they were past the Watch and down the paths that she knew so well.
Inside the City of the Dead's walls, she didn't have to think about which turn or what direction. She just knew the right route.
But it was quiet in the graveyard too, that waiting stillness that she'd felt so strongly earlier that morning.
"Are you sure it is safe?" Gustin asked as if the wizard could read her nervous thoughts.
"Of course, it's still daylight," she answered with far more conviction than she felt. The rain had stopped but the heavy clouds overhead made it as dim as twilight. Every silent tomb that they passed, she looked at twice to make sure that the doors were shut and nothing stirred in the darkness within.
"It's just that you are glowing again," Gustin said.
"What?"
"Not a lot, just a little," he assured. He put one hand on her shoulder, making her stop, and tipped up her head so he could stare into her eyes. Sophraea blinked at seeing his own bright green eyes so close.
"No, it's gone now. It's like the tiniest of blue flames, right in the center of your eyes," he said. "Are you sure that you don't have a blue mark anywhere on you?"
Sophraea remembered her birthmark; everyone in the family had one, at least in her generation and her father's generation according to Myemaw. She started to tell Gustin and then thought better of it, given where her mark was located. It wasn't as if she could show him!
"Come on," she said. "We need to get home."
The pebbles in the path were slick under her feet and she slowed her pace slightly. Something rustled in the bushes to their left. Sophraea looked hopefully for the twitch of a topiary dragon's tail, but there was no sign of the bushy beast or the friendly Briarsting.