But they’d tried that, and didn’t turn anything up. Torin’s notion was as good a one as any.
“What’s wrong?” Torin asked.
“Hm?” Danthres looked up. “What do you mean what’s wrong?”
Torin smirked. “I expected at least a grouse about what a pain it is to paw through records when we should be questioning people.”
“What would be the point?” Danthres said with a dramatic sigh. “Besides, I used up most of my invective this morning with those shitbrains at Forak’s.” Waving off the platitude Torin was likely to espouse, she said, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Let’s get to work.”
“Well, we can’t until-”
One of the castle page boys came in, laden with massive rolled-up parchments, and looking nervously from side to side. “Lieutenant bin Givald?”
Chuckling, Torin got up. “Close enough. Over here, lad.”
The page boy dashed over to Torin’s desk, dropped the parchments unceremoniously on its surface, then dashed out of the squad room as fast as his spindly legs would carry him.
“No doubt concerned about overexposure to the thugs,” Danthres said irritably, using the word far too many of the aristocrats in the castle used when speaking of the Castle Guard.
Torin grinned. “No doubt.” He unrolled the dried old parchments, one for each floor of the house.
Danthres got up and walked around to Torin’s desk. As she started to peer down at the blueprints, she noticed that Torin was wearing new boots. “What happened to your boots?”
Shrugging, Torin said, “I couldn’t get that muck off, so I sent them to be cleaned, and they issued me a new pair.”
“I should mark this day down,” she said dryly. “In ten years, I think that’s the first time you’ve changed boots without being threatened with bodily harm.” She was also impressed that Torin had managed to convince the service to do the job in the first place.
“It takes forever to break them in,” Torin said testily. “I have wide feet.”
She shook her head. “They’re boots, Torin, not pets.” Not wanting to get into this argument again, she looked down at the ragged material. “I’m amazed these things haven’t fallen to pieces. Aren’t they over a hundred years old?”
“Magic, probably,” Torin said, “cast when it was realized that they were, in fact, falling to pieces.” He studied the first floor. “Interesting. There isn’t a design for a closet-but there is a space there.” He put his index finger on the spot where the closet was now. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
“Feel that.”
Looking at her partner as if he were crazy, she asked, “What?”
“The parchment, on the spot where the closet is, feel it.”
Shrugging, Danthres did so-and was surprised to feel something etched into the parchment. “It feels like a character of some kind.”
Torin looked up just as Jonas came zooming in, a cloak in his hand. “Sergeant, could you fetch Boneen, please?”
Jonas handed Danthres her cloak in the manner one would give a diseased rat to a waste disposer. After Danthres snatched it out of his hands, the sergeant said to Torin, “He’s on a call right now-Dru and Hawk found that invisible robber’s house, and he needs to do a peel-back on it.”
Nodding, Torin said, “Fine, when he gets back, could you ask him to tell us what the sigil is on this section of the parchment?”
Jonas looked at where Torin was pointing and nodded. “Oh, by the way,” he said as he turned to leave, “they couldn’t do anything for your boots. The Cleaning Spell didn’t work for some reason.” With that, the sergeant left the squad room again.
“You know, it might not even be a sigil,” Danthres said, “though I agree that’s the most likely thing.”
“Either way, best to sound sure with Boneen-otherwise he’ll yell at us for wasting his time.”
Danthres snorted. “Like he won’t anyhow.”
“Fair point. I wonder what the problem was with the boots.”
Shrugging, Danthres said, “They probably got a cheap Cleaning Spell that doesn’t actually work.”
“Probably.”
“Lieutenant?”
Since no name was given, both Torin and Danthres turned at the sound of the voice, which came from one of the guards assigned to the castle. Danthres couldn’t remember his name, so she just thought of him the way she did most of the guards: he was the stupid one.
“Yes?” she said.
“There’s someone here to see you both-she says it has to do with the Jaros case.”
“Who is she?” Danthres asked.
The guard said, “Her name’s Amaralla, and she says she-”
Suddenly, a very short, dark-haired woman barrelled past the guard and said, “Enough of this, I’m busy, dammit, don’t have time for this. Are you two Trestle and bag Wyverin?”
“I’m Lieutenant ban Wyvald,” Torin said slowly to make sure the woman realized just how badly she’d mangled their names, “and this is my partner-”
“Yes, yes, yes, you’re the ones investigating what happened to the Jaros house, right?”
“We are,” Torin said. “How may we-”
“You can do your damn jobs, that’s what you can do. You’re supposed to be able to stop this kinda thing, right?”
“Actually, no,” Danthres said with as insincere a smile as she could manage-which was pretty insincere indeed. “Our job is to find who did it and stop them from doing it again.”
“Well, then who’s responsible for stopping it?”
“I’m sorry, who are you again?”
Sighing dramatically, the woman said, “As I told this mouth-breather with the mite-sized brain-” She indicated the guard, who took the insult with aplomb. “-my name is Thea Amaralla, and I represent the Amaralla Cleaning Service.”
That’s two cleaning services in Cliff’s End I despise, Danthres somehow managed not to say out loud. “And what is your connection to the Jaros case?”
“If you’d just listen, I’d tell you. They hired us to clean up the mess in their place.”
“In that case,” Danthres said, “the answer to your question is you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You wanted to know who’s responsible for stopping it. It’s a mess, you’re a cleaning service-I would think the answer would be obvious?”
Turning to Torin, Amaralla asked, “Is she always like this?”
“No,” Torin said cheerily, “usually she’s belligerent. Madam, I’m afraid my partner is correct, cleaning up the mess is your job. We simply need to find out who did this and-”
“Not did.”
“I’m sorry?” Torin frowned in confusion.
“Not did. Is doing. The mess is getting worse. And every attempt we’ve made to clean it up has met with failure. Nothing will make it go away-and now it’s growing.” She stomped her foot. “So will you please figure it out? The Jaroses are demanding their money back!”
Just as Danthres was about to speak, Torin cut her off. “I’m afraid that issues of payment must be worked out between you and the Jaros family, madam. However, you can rest assured that we will be looking into this new development.” He looked over at the guard. “Will you please escort the lady out?”
Smiling nastily, the guard said, “Gladly, Lieutenant.” He grabbed Amaralla by the arm and yanked her toward the door.
“I will not be treated this way! Let go of me! This is an outrage! This is-”
Whatever else it was became lost in her rapid, guard-aided retreat. Danthres made a mental note to be less nasty to that guard in the future.
Torin looked at her. “There would appear to be more to this than we thought. I suggest we go back.”
Danthres desperately wanted to argue the point, but she found she couldn’t. And that only made her mood worse.