She stiffened at a metal jangle outside her cell door. The heavy lock clacked, and the door opened partway.
Rodian hung in the opening, staring at her.
What could she say that would matter at all to him?
Oh, don't worry. The wolf was actually an elven dog, a kind you don't know about. And along with a woman you've never meta half undead, half something you don't believe inand a half elf you've never heard of, they hunt undeads, and...
Oh, yes, that would fix everything. They wouldn't lock her up for interfering with the city guard. No, they'd just stick her in a room in the city ward until she was cured of madness.
When the captain finally stepped in, Wynn could tell he was calmer than when he'd nearly thrown her into the cell. But his neatly bearded face was drawn tight, and dark rings surrounded his eyes. His jaw muscles bulged slightly as he ground his teeth.
"You set a trap," she said.
Rodian paced before the door, taking only four short steps to cross the cell before turning back the other way.
"Domin High-Tower must have helped, if he sent out that folio," she went on, "and Master a'Seatt."
The captain stopped, and the lack of his boots' rhythmic scrape made Wynn tense in the silence.
"What were you doing there?" he asked flatly.
For an instant Wynn considered telling him the truth. That the texts he'd been denied had been penned by ancient vampires. And that she was trying to learn which pages were being stolen and why.
"Answer me!" he snapped. "You're already complicit in three guardsmen's deaths... though after the fact."
Wynn almost shouted a denial. She swallowed immediately, studying his face.
Yes, she'd told Chane to run, but Rodian wouldn't care about her side. His only interest lay in stopping these murders, giving the royals a rational and satisfactory answerand in so doing, advancing himself. He had no interest in the truth, and he certainly had no intention of reporting anything from her that might get him laughed out of his position. As things stood, he would have a hard enough time explaining a culprit emerging through a shopfront.
No, he could handle only pieces of the truth.
"I overheard messengers returning from the Upright Quill," she began.
"After what happened at Master Shilwise's shop, I feared the worst. So I ran, hoping to find someone still at Master a'Seatt's scriptorium and check on the folio, perhaps bring it back. That's why you caught me peeking in a window."
His expression never wavered. "You knew the second man."
Wynn panicked, ready to deny this as well.
"Don't bother lying," Rodian said. "He knew your name."
"Since returning from the Farlands," she answered, "many people I've never met seem to know my name."
She expected him to press further, as her answer was hardly satisfactory.
Instead he asked, "Did you get a clear look at the man who took the folio?"
"Man?" Wynn repeated.
"The mage in black robes." He paused and squinted at her. "What did you see?"
Wynn settled farther back on the bunk. The captain didn't want to know what she sawor rather what she knew. He'd already convinced himself otherwise.
A mage, perhapsbut an undead as wellthough one thing didn't quite fit: Its body passed right through a wall, yet it was unable to make the folio follow. It had to break the window to get the folio out.
"You saw it shatter the window..." Wynn said, then wavered, anxious at his darkening expression.
"Was il'Snke at the guild before you left?" he asked.
The venom in his voice startled her. "I don't know... I was coming out of my room when I heard about the folio, so"
"Why would a mage be working with a wolf?" Rodian demanded.
Wynn lost her temper in the jarring shift of questions. "The dog wasn't working with that thing!"
"And how would you know?" Rodian asked quickly. "The wolf, or dog, jumped out into the street when the thief ran, and it followed. They both fled together."
For all the captain's acclaimed cleverness, he was the half-wit, not her. Even he should've seen that Chap had chased off the undead.
"Why ask me?" she shot back. "When it doesn't matter what I say?"
Rodian ran a hand through his hair and fell silent.
"How long will you keep me here?" she asked. "If I'm to be charged, then get on with it."
He hesitated, and Wynn waited.
She had shouted at Chane to run and interfered with an attempt to catch a murderer. Even if a charge of complicity were dismissed, fouling the captain's investigation wouldn't be taken lightly. The high advocate of the people wouldn't have much trouble proving her guilt.
"Your superiors are waiting," Rodian said, and the words seemed to stick in his throat. "I'm releasing you to them."
He pushed open the cell door. It banged against the outer wall, and he just stood there, waiting.
Wynn rose slowly off the bunk, watching him in bafflement, even as she stepped into the dim corridor with its line of other heavy cell doors, all closed and silent. Rodian followed and led the way to the far stairwell in silence. Wynn kept quiet as well.
They climbed to where two regular soldiers stood in the alcove at the top. One unlocked the outer door as they approached. Wynn stepped out with the captain and followed closely as they crossed the paved courtyard to an old two-level barracks. They entered through a side door at the near end.
"My office," he said quietly, pointing.
Down the corridor, Wynn walked into a large room furnished with little more than a desk and two chairs. Premin Sykion and Domin High-Tower were waiting inside.
The latter ceased his heavy pacing, and his thudding footsteps were nothing compared to the weight of his glower.
"My dear," Premin Sykion said, closing on Wynn. "We are thankful you are unharmed. You must not go wandering off without telling someone."
The premin placed her slender, wrinkled hand on Wynn's shoulder, patting it twice before turning to Rodian.
"Thank you for looking after her, Captain."
Wynn's heart sank. Wandering off? Looking after? They painted her as a half-wit again, so no one might give her any credence.
"I'm sorry tonight's endeavor was not successful," Sykion went on to Rodian, but she cast a dark glance at High-Tower.
Wynn realized the premin hadn't known of the scheme hatched between the domin, the captain, and Master a'Seatt.
Rodian only looked at Sykion with a hint of distaste. Then he glanced sidelong down at Wynn, not even bothering to face her directly.
"You are free to go," he said.
Just like that. First he arrested her, locked her up, and questioned her concerning mostly obvious answers he never let her finishalmost none of which had anything to do with what mattered. And with a few condescending words from Sykion, she was being sent home to bed.
Wynn suddenly wondered what Magiere might say in this moment. Probably nothing, but both the captain and the premin would be bleeding by now. Magiere never backed down from anything. Beneath her derisive disinterest, always wishing to be left alone, she was furious when something got in her way or threatened those she cared for. And Leesil could be coldly vicious beneath his outer warmth and wit when it came to protecting his own. And Chap...
He'd always been manipulative, though usually for the best of reasons. He wasn't above putting people in a hard place to save them from themselves.
Wynn began to see that a bit of all of her wayward friends' attributes would be necessary here. She straightened.
"I apologize if I sound dense," she said. "But are we still embroiled in a murder investigation?"
"That was never your concern," High-Tower warned.