“Well,” Tam said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “We’d best prepare.”
Dahl squeezed his fists even tighter and counted to ten the way Jedik always insisted. Dahl’s patience broke anyway.
“I see now why they say the Harpers are a dying breed,” he said acidly. Tam’s expression shifted, as fierce as a dire wolf, and he shut the door, the only way out of this. But it had been too much already. Let’s do this, Dahl thought. “The answer was right there before you-”
“Brin is not the answer,” Tam said. “I already have a plan.”
“It’s not much of a plan.”
“If you want to play adventurer,” the silverstar said, “and run about with foolish ideas that don’t account for reality in the slightest, then get down to the Fisher and hand him your bloody pin. But if you’re assigned to me, you’ll have a little godsbedamned sense and listen.”
“I have been listening!” Dahl shouted. “I’ve done nothing but listen to you, and you’re wrong. He was standing there, all but offering you the funds to cover a competing bid. If we’d asked for the coin-”
“We’d have doomed the scion of a very wealthy family to the tender ministrations of the Shadovar.”
“If you go in alone-”
“Then I have only myself to manage. Which seems a good sight better than the alternative.”
“So you’d rather doom yourself and this mission than tell me what to do?” Dahl shouted. “You’re not the only person involved! You’re not the only one who can do anything.”
“This isn’t a discussion!” Tam snapped. “Go back to Aron and tell him you’re free for more antiquity hunting.”
Dahl stormed from the room, cursing Tam in a dozen different tongues. How could he act like Dahl couldn’t do anything, like he couldn’t help? He wasn’t broken. He wasn’t useless just because he’d fallen, and yet there was Jedik tossing him aside-
Tam. Not Jedik. The thought stopped him in his tracks. Gods, if ever there was a time for a drink. He headed down the stairs.
At the foot of them, Farideh stood, staring down at a note as if it were a slowly opening portal to the Abyss. Dahl’s temper flared.
“What is wrong with you?” he demanded in a low voice. “Did you just flit out of there and start telling anyone who’d listen?”
Farideh looked up at him as if he’d gone a little mad. “What?”
“Your Crownsilver friend knew about the page,” he said. “About what it was.”
“Oh.” She looked back down at the note, turning it in her hands as if she weren’t sure whether to crumple it or handle it like it was made of crystal or read it over again. “He’s no one to worry about.”
“Considering your other ‘friends,’ you’ll forgive my skepticism. Any more gifts from your dear Master Rhand?”
The look she turned on him could have melted steel. She shoved the note at him, crumpling it against his chest. “He sent that,” she said, a tremor of anger in her voice. “He knows where I am.”
Dahl caught the note and opened it: an invitation to the viewing.
An invitation to come right into the room where the page and stone would be, whether Tam appreciated it or not. His thoughts started spinning. He could salvage this …
“Would you consider going?” Dahl asked.
She looked at him as if he’d gone completely mad. “I know you don’t like me, but karshoj-why would you even suggest such a thing?”
He considered the note, the spiky handwriting and the subtle suggestions. He could spin a story, try and convince her it was in her best interests-Hells, maybe it was in her best interests to show up and tell Adolican Rhand to leave her be.
But she’d never trust a word of it. And then he’d be as bad as Tam.
“I need to get into this revel,” he told her quietly. “He’s bought the page and he’s putting it on display. Master Zawad intends to steal it.” Dahl handed back the invitation. “I think he’s underprepared and I want to be there to help.”
“To help,” she asked, “or to catch him in his mistake?”
“With luck there is no mistake, and he can lecture me on my lack of trust,” Dahl said. “But if I can save his neck-and I’m willing to bet I will … I’m not going to promise I won’t ask for his thanks.”
“I wouldn’t believe you if you did.”
He bit back a retort. “You know we have to get that page,” Dahl said. “And … what I said before, I was only repeating what I’d heard. For all you or I truly know, Master Rhand is just …” He hesitated, trying to think of the most innocuous way to phrase it. “An overly wealthy gentleman with poor conversational skills and unfortunate dress sense.”
“That’s plenty for me.” Farideh bit her lip. “Maybe you could just take the invitation,” she said. “I don’t want to wind up in any trouble, and-”
“I’ll teach you rituals,” Dahl interrupted. “Five. Fair?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know if you know the ritual I need.”
“As long as it’s not along Master Rhand’s lines, I can all but guarantee I do know it. Common or obscure-I have a lot of rituals. Ones you won’t find outside of Oghma’s faithful.” She looked unconvinced. “Ten,” he said. “One a day for a tenday. You can choose half of them. Once we’ve got the basics. And I’ll set up a safehouse for you,” he added. “And your sister. Somewhere Rhand can’t bother you.”
She seemed to consider the invitation in her hands, and sighed. “I might not be here in a tenday.”
“Then as many days as you are here,” he said. “I can’t take the chance they won’t let me in, and we have to be sure Netheril doesn’t tease any information out of that page. It could spell war.” Still she hesitated. “I’ll get you a dress,” he said in a wheedling tone. “Something to wear to the revel.”
She scowled at him. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Get me a knife. I’ll need that more.”
“A knife and a dress. You’ll look out of place in leathers.”
“Then get one for Havi too,” she said. “I’m not going in there without someone at my back, and she’ll be a terror if she doesn’t get to wear something frilly.”
Dahl winced. “No. You’ll stand out as it is. Add your sister and all the guards will be eyeing us.”
Farideh folded her arms across her chest. “You’ll be watching Tam’s back. Which means I’ll be left alone … And if we’re moving to another place, I want to be sure we aren’t separated. I want Havilar with me.”
“If anything happens I can’t promise I can get both of you out of danger.”
Farideh laughed to herself. “If anything happens, Havi will be happy to clear a path twice as wide as you need.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WATERDEEP
4 FLAMERULE, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)
His prayers ended, Tam opened his eyes to the waxing moon and the sure sensation of Selune’s blessing coursing through his veins. He lay on the roof tiles a few moments more, letting the powers quiet and settle. If his life had followed a different course, such nights might have been the center of his existence. Channeling the moon goddess’s powers to the people in the world below, a vessel for her quiet power.
Some days it seemed as if it would suit him far, far better than being her weapon, most often after a night where he gathered his powers from Selune without haste, the gift of powers as familiar and easy and untouched by time as sitting with an old friend. Other times it felt more like a rush, powers pouring into him before he could ask for them-Selune knew what he needed.
And now and again, there were nights where the communion made clear the extent of the goddess’s powers.
Mira, he thought, staring up at the moon poised among the shining fragments they called her Tears. The night Mira was born he’d been away and racing back, knowing he would be too late the moment the midwife’s sending faded. Truly, knowing from the moment he’d left Athkatla, but he’d agreed months before to accompany Viridi into Tethyr. He wasn’t supposed to have a child, her mother, Laeyla, wasn’t supposed to know how to contact him, and he wasn’t supposed to know how to contact her. He wasn’t supposed to be entangled with the rest of the world-for their safety and his own.