The light from the windows had faded and died before I closed my last book.
Gertriss was bleary-eyed and yawning. Lady Werewilk had retired an hour ago, citing some pressing House business.
But I’d found what I was looking for.
The stakes had been laid out right in the bed of a creek that once cut right through the Werewilk estate. The creek was gone now, and had been for a century, sipped empty by a series of irrigation canals north of here. The tiny trickle that remained fed into the cornfield and never emerged.
But it had been mapped, in those first books. And there was no mistaking it. The surveyors had even marked the creek’s four small tributaries, one of which ran through the very spot where Skin would one day tend his precious bees.
The creek had meandered on, heading South, ending or joining a bigger one somewhere well beyond the concerns of any ancient Werewilk.
What Lady Werewilk’s forebears had mapped was intriguing.
There was the creek. There was the Old Road. There was an old quarry, abandoned even before the first Werewilk laid claim to the oaks.
And there was something else, a place mentioned only twice in the fifteen old tomes we’d read.
They’d just called it the Faery Ring. Called it that, and then issued some pretty stern warnings about “Disturbing, Molesting, or otherwise visiting or Trespassing on this ancient and malevolent Site.”
Literal shivers had run up my spine when I read those faded old words.
Instantly, I wondered who else had read them. During the War, as one old estate after another fell to the Trolls, the Regent made it law that scribes could come in and copy any private library, belonging to anyone, at the whim of the local governor. Even after the War, the law stood, the intent being to prevent unique historic treasures from being eaten by termites. I’d heard getting scribes in to some private libraries required troops and scuffling.
I asked, keeping my tone casual, if the Regency had ever copied the Werewilk books.
“I told them library was destroyed in a house fire a century ago,” Lady Werewilk replied. “The bastards,” she added.
I grinned. The Faery Ring was right on the creek the mystery surveyors were mapping. In fact, I was nearly ready to bet my good boots that the Faery Ring was what they’d been looking for all the time.
Which meant that whatever once lay within that Ring might be more than just a local legend. Someone else out there had a map, a map that hadn’t been drawn by a Werewilk. Even Weexil had never dared Lady Werewilk’s rooms-of that she was sure.
The light had nearly failed. Lady Werewilk took her leave, citing the need to oversee the preparation of the evening meal. I suspected she was instead dying to know whether Marlo had actually taken Burris and headed for Rannit, despite her directives to the contrary.
I figured he’d done just that. I pondered that dark, narrow path beneath those shadowed boughs and I wished them both well.
Gertriss was seated close beside me. She’d been marking our maps with the stake locations and the route of the old creek.
She stabbed her pencil down in the center of the Faery Ring she’d just sketched.
“I don’t think there’s enough daylight left to head out today.”
“We won’t be heading out at all, Miss. Not there, anyway.”
She frowned.
“Why?
I rose and stretched my arms. “Let’s say we’re right in this. Our camping friends have sorcerers in their number. They left a killing trap in a campfire. What kind of nasty surprises do you think they might have hidden at the location of the buried treasure?”
“You think it’s old gold?” She was perking up.
“I have no idea what it might be. I know some very determined and well-financed people want it, and they want it badly enough to kill for it.” I rubbed the bruises on my neck. “Marlo and his axe might not be enough, next time.”
Gertriss rose and joined me in a round of pacing. I reflected that my office back in Rannit was too small to accommodate us both this way.
“So what’s next, boss?”
“Supper. Afterward, we speak alone with Lady Werewilk.”
“About?”
“About our clever plan to keep her and her household safe. Now scoot. Check on Serris. Find Lady Werewilk. Get her permission for us to enter the gallery. I want to look at those paintings. All of them. And, Gertriss, bring me more corn bread. Buttered, of course.”
“Coffee too?”
“Beer.” I stood in the dying sunlight, let its feeble rays cast a barely perceptible warmth over my face. “And bring me a blanket. Nothing a dog has slept on. Wool. Plain.”
She made a puzzled face, but nodded and closed the door softly behind her.
Alone at last, I rolled my neck around on my shoulders and worked the pops out. Then I took my boots off and engaged in some first-class sock-foot pacing, trying to put together the clever plan I’d mentioned to Gertriss before Lady Werewilk came around eager to hear it.
I had my beer, my cornbread, and my blanket. I put my boots back on, combed my hair, and even shaved. My fresh scratches gave me a faintly piratical appearance.
I knew Lady Werewilk would insist on speaking after the evening meal. That suited me just fine. It was much lighter outside than indoors, so I spent some time before supper wandering around the borders of the House lawn, whistling and generally making my presence known to any spectral howling ladies who might be hiding just inside the ranks of massive blood oaks.
I selected a spot not far from the angelic statue I’d used before. I folded the blanket and placed it in the crook of a crape myrtle, and I left the cornbread on top, wrapped in one of my own linen handkerchiefs. I also left a small bowl of beer, in case Buttercup fancied an evening nip.
I sat under the spreading branches of the myrtle, for a while. I talked, about nothing, about everything, on the off chance my voice was being heard. I got no replies, but wasn’t expecting any.
I did draw numerous odd looks from a couple of gardeners, but they scurried away whispering when I waved at them.
I was ready to head inside myself when Gertriss came out to fetch me. If she had opinions about my preferred method of banshee hunting, she kept them to herself.
“That clever plan you mentioned? Got it all plotted out?”
“Indeed I do, oh junior member of the firm. Plotted and hatched. Another mystery made mundane, another client rendered a bit poorer but far wiser.”
Gertriss frowned at me. We were walking toward the big doors, and she stopped and stopped me by taking hold of my elbow.
“Really? You know what to do next?”
I adopted an expression of deep hurt.
“Have you truly known me long enough to have arrived at such a low opinion of my skills already?”
“You know what I mean, boss.”
I grinned and motioned for her to start walking. “I know. But my answer is the same. There is a way out of this, a way that protects Lady Werewilk and her House and, incidentally, you and I.”
“Which is?”
I was at the door. I put my hand on it but didn’t open it.
“You know you and I can’t take on a small army with sorcerers in the ranks.”
She just nodded. Her relief was obvious.
“We’re not going to just walk away, either. But there’s another way. You’ll see.”
I opened the door. It still wasn’t locked. The sounds of the kitchen staff setting out plates and utensils while engaging in hushed conversations filled the hall.
“Let’s go see the paintings, first. Did Lady Werewilk have a problem with us looking?”
“She told me ignore anyone who protested our presence. Well, she used different words, which I won’t repeat, but that’s what she meant.”
I chuckled. “And Marlo? Did he leave?”