And still there was Wynn's pain… caused by the hatred between himself and Magiere.
Chane forced himself to wait at the top of the inn's stairs and followed the cloaked woman only after he heard the inn's front door close. Outside, he expected to find her heading down the street toward any other place still alive with activity at night. Perhaps to an eatery more suitable to her upper-caste appearance.
But she was gone. He let his senses open wide.
Footsteps. To the left. Resounding from frozen earth.
Chane saw the space between the buildings around the inn's left corner. He slipped into it, stepping softly toward the inn's rear, and glanced around the corner.
His prey stood in the alley with her back turned, and she was not alone.
A man waited for her, half leaning and half sitting on an emptied ale barrel. He pulled his cloak's hood back, exposing a yellow scarf tied over his hair.
Chane held his place, watching two figures of such different social castes meet in the shadows.
"Wynn!" Leesil snapped, more threateningly than he'd intended, and grabbed the blanket's edge. Magiere squirmed in his arms, but he held fast and pulled the blanket up behind her to cover them both.
"That's it!" Magiere shouted. "You're going home on the first caravan out of here! I don't care if I have to sell our horses to pay for it."
Wynn peered hesitantly around the door's frame as Magiere thrashed out of Leesil's lap to a more dignified-and better-covered-position. Wynn did not back away, though her embarrassment made her voice unsteady.
"Byrd was downstairs talking to an elf," she said.
Leesil stared at her. Any brief escape from the world that the sage had interrupted washed away. Even Magiere paused at struggling to reach her breeches lying on the floor.
"They left together," Wynn added softly. "And they seemed well acquainted. They were meeting a woman, and Byrd reacted as if this were a change in some previous arrangement."
"An elf?" Magiere asked. "You're certain?"
Before Wynn answered, Chap reappeared and nearly knocked Wynn over as he bolted into the room with the talking hide clenched in his jaws.
"Wynn, turn around," Leesil said, and grabbed Magiere's clothes from the floor as he retrieved his own.
By the time he and Magiere finished dressing, Chap had rolled out the hide with his nose and paws. The instant Leesil said he was dressed and Wynn turned about to peer in, Chap began pawing at the elvish symbols. Wynn scurried in to watch the dog's movements.
"Anmaglahk, "Wynn whispered. "How would Chap know?"
Leesil sat on the bed, hands planted firmly on its edge. One of his mother's elven caste of assassins was here in the city? And how, for a fact, would Chap know, unless this one dressed the same as…
"Was it Sgaile?" Magiere demanded first, and crouched before the dog. "Was it that butcher sent to kill Leesil in Bela?"
Chap barked twice for "no."
Magiere looked up at Leesil. "You said we could trust Byrd. What's he doing with one of them?"
"Byrd was my father's friend, not mine," Leesil returned. "And I never said we could trust him-any more than anyone in this city."
Leesil's thoughts were too thick with suspicions. Of all places and people, why was it here with Byrd that he ran across more of his mother's kind and caste? He turned his attention back to Chap.
"He was an Anmaglahk?" Leesil asked. "You're sure?"
Chap barked once to confirm this.
Leesil remembered Wynn's outburst when she'd first intruded. Byrd was up to something more than walking a thin line in service to Darmouth. They did need to search this place.
"Start downstairs," he told Wynn. "Look for letters, scrap notes, or anything out of sorts for an innkeeper. Anything that looks like it doesn't belong. If Byrd comes back, say you were hungry and went to the kitchen. Say it loudly, so we can hear you."
Wynn nodded and headed for the door, pausing once. "And I am not leaving on any caravan, Magiere."
Leesil waved Chap out, and the dog went after the young sage.
Magiere's anxious expression told Leesil that she wanted to leave, drag him out of this city and never return. Leesil shook his head slowly, and she sighed.
"Let's find Byrd's room," she said.
Her hair hung down around her ivory cheeks, and Leesil turned his eyes away to keep his emotions in check. Sgaile was the one who'd hinted at Nein'a's fate, that she might be alive. If anyone knew more of her or what had happened to Gavril, it would be the Anmaglahk. One had been right here in the inn, and he'd missed his chance.
"We'll get the answers," Magiere said, and put a hand upon his shoulder, leaning close. "But don't you even think about going after that elf."
She kissed him on the mouth. Leesil pulled away slowly. This place- this city of his first life-was a pit he'd toppled them all into. He couldn't afford another distraction, even if Magiere thought it best he forget for a little while. Leesil dug out his tools from their chest.
They checked each door on the upper floor, and he wasn't surprised to find one of them locked.
"Pick it or break it?" Magiere asked.
Leesil frowned.
It was unlikely that Byrd arranged surprises for anyone snooping about. The risk of a wandering patron stumbling into the wrong place was too great. But when he began studying the door instead of the lock, Magiere backed to the side, understanding his caution.
Leesil started with the hinges and then checked the entire frame before carefully inspecting the latch. Finally convinced it was only a locked door, he took a thin hookwire from the toolbox's lid and slipped it into the keyhole. A click answered his efforts.
Byrd's room was ordinary at first glance. Not much different from any at an inn where someone might settle to stay for a while. The belongings seemed sparse, but Leesil remembered how few possessions he'd had in his life with his parents. Beyond a wide trunk, there was no more in the room than could be taken in flight. This was also the way he and his parents had lived, even if leaving were but a wishful thought.
The bed was made, and clothes were neatly folded inside the large trunk. The small table and chair were solid, with no hollows to hide anything. Leesil found no openings or edifices in the walls or the shuttered window. Magiere paged through leather-bound papers left on the table as Leesil dropped down to study the floor. No cubbies or holes, not even a loose board, were there to be found, but this meant nothing with people like Byrd and his parents. Leesil searched the bed and mattress, though he knew Byrd would never hide anything in so obvious a place.
"Nothing," Magiere said. "Ledgers and stores lists."
And not a thing remained to inspect in the room.
Leesil crouched before the chest and started on it for the second time. He emptied it completely, piling the clothes on the floor and lifting out all the trays within supported by side rails. He fingered the interior sides and then the bottom, which flexed when he leaned too hard on it. He could smell cedar beneath the linen lining adhered to the wood. The fabric was folded and sealed continuously across all edges and corners, leav-ing nothing that could be lifted or pulled away without splitting the lining. And there was no split.
He leaned against the side and stared into the empty trunk.
"There's nothing here," Magiere said. "And I can't see him hiding anything in the other rooms, if patrons are housed there. We should help Wynn downstairs."
Leesil repacked the trunk, got up, and headed for the door behind Magiere. He still felt the lingering flex of fabric-covered wood on his fingers. Magiere disappeared out into the hallway, and he stopped and looked back.