When she returned and stuffed her clothes behind the bench, she pulled a blanket out and placed it on the seat. Leesil, Byrd, and Chap concealed themselves beneath a canvas tarp in the wagon's back. Emel shifted his sacks toward the rear, giving the illusion that the wagon was merely packed with stores.
"I hate this," Leesil whispered from beneath the tarp. "I'm sick of hiding."
"We don't have a choice," Magiere murmured back, and climbed onto the bench next to Emel. "Now, for the last time, be quiet!'
She draped the blanket over her legs, hiding the short skirt. Emel took the reins and steered them into the open street. They followed the main way through Venjetz.
As they left the upper-class district, Magiere looked back to be sure Leesil remained covered. A spark of light glinted from somewhere to her left, and she twisted around.
Magiere looked at the buildings as the wagon continued on its way. Perhaps she'd only seen the light of the sparse street lanterns reflecting off something. A glass window?
Another quick glint came from farther behind on her left.
"Stop the wagon," she whispered.
Emel pulled up. "What is it?"
She peered along the row of buildings-a narrow two-story inn, two smaller structures she couldn't name, and then a tanner's shop. All appeared quiet and dark. She felt foolish that her nerves had gotten the best of her.
"It's nothing," she said. "Move on."
Emel glanced back once with a frown, examining the street, then flicked the reins.
When they finally approached the main gates, none of the soldiers even questioned Emel as he ordered them to open up. One in a well-worn chain vest over quilted padding gave Magiere a long glance. His eyes drifted downward from her face, and he turned away with an amused smile and a shake of his head. She breathed a sigh of relief as they left Venjetz behind.
Emel clucked to Port and Imp and turned them onto the main road. Magiere kept her eyes forward, not caring to see the rotting decorations upon the wall's outer iron spikes. It was bad enough that she smelled a thin stench and heard the low metal creak of a crow's cage swinging slightly in the low breeze.
The forest thickened around them as the city fell farther behind. The near-full moon shed some light on the open road. Frozen mud ruts made the wagon lurch and jerk too often. Magiere stayed quiet, finally risking a glance back to see that the city walls had disappeared behind them.
"Where to?" she asked.
"This road heads west into the foothills," Emel answered. "We'll stop soon, and go on foot through the forest back to the lake."
"Can the cargo get up now?" asked Byrd, voice muffled beneath the tarp.
"Yes," Magiere answered. "I doubt anyone travels the roads on so cold a night."
Thrashing in the wagon's bed made her look back. Byrd, Chap, and Leesil shoved blankets, tarps, and other covering aside. Byrd rose up on one knee, looking into the forest.
"We're close enough," he said, and pointed toward a spot ahead. "Hide the wagon and horses there."
Emel steered the wagon in between two trees to a small brush-filled clearing. Everyone climbed out, and Leesil gathered blankets from the back. He held one up, and Magiere changed clothes in moderate privacy. Once she had the dress off and her shirt on, he strapped on his blades and lashed his toolbox to his back with a length of rope.
Magiere buckled down her hauberk. Leesil handed their two lanterns to Emel and Byrd. He looked more like himself, now that he had something to act upon. He handed her a sheathed dagger, which she tucked into her belt. As soon as all were ready, Byrd led the way deeper into the forest.
It was a short walk before they emerged to moonlight shimmering upon the lake. Across the water was the black silhouette of the keep, its towers' crowns marked by the red-orange glow of their top braziers. Chap began sniffing the shore.
"It is a sound design," Emel said. "Anyone approaching across the water would be picked off by archers, and the city itself makes for a difficult frontal assault. Either way, the keep is out of the reach of most siege engines.
Magiere gazed out across the lake.
"Don't light the lanterns yet," Leesil warned. "They might be seen from the ramparts. Moonlight will serve us for now."
Emel frowned. "What exactly are we looking for?"
When Leesil didn't answer, Magiere began with her own questions. "How could any escape route from the keep allow Lady Progae to cross the lake? Would there be a boat hidden in the lower levels, something small that might go unnoticed? Chat won't help us get in, not until she's already out.'
Byrd shook his head. "Too risky. Any escape route in case a siege breached the defenses would have to provide protection for those fleeing. If an enemy force took the keep, their own archers could pick off those in flight across the lake. No, it has to be something created when the keep was built, back in the days of King Timeron."
Leesil approached the lake, and Magiere watched him stare at the water, lost in thought.
"Not across it," he whispered, watching the soft ripples of water. "But under it."
"What nonsense have you got in your head?" Byrd asked.
"The keep was built on a flat depression in the land," Leesil answered. "The lake came afterward."
Magiere didn't follow this. "No one could swim the lake all the way underwater, and especially in the cold."
"That's not what I meant," Leesil replied.
"Oh, bloody deities," Byrd whispered.
Magiere was about to tell him to shut his mouth, but Byrd stared at the water with Lees ills same knowing expression.
"If the keep was here before the lake," Leesil continued, "then what else might Timeron have built down there, hidden beneath the water?"
Byrd shook his head slowly. "It's been right here in front me… all these years of searching."
"A passage?" Magiere asked. "Under the lake?"
Leesil didn't even nod. "We have to get in the water and search below the surface."
Emel finally joined in. "If it is under the lakebed, what could we possibly find?"
Leesil cast a scowl toward the baron but remained civil in his reply. "Anything that would hold up under that water over decades would have to be strongly reinforced. I wouldn't bury it, since flooded water would hide it well enough. And I'd make it out of thick stone that wouldn't decay."
"Yes, but this winter is so…" Byrd paused, at a loss, looking at the thin ice over the lake's edge. "All right, we'll try it."
They all began stripping off gear, and Leesil was chosen to stay onshore to watch their weapons. Magiere stepped into the lake, its fringe ice cracking as her boots sank into the water. Byrd and Emel followed.
Icy cold burrowed into her legs before the water even topped her boots. Both Byrd and Emel began panting quickly as they too felt the cold. She'd expected the water to be bitter, but it was on the verge of freezing. She stepped back out as her toes became numb.
"This is insane," Emel said. "Even if we find something, we will not be fit to breach the keep if we are half-dead with cold."
Leesil stepped past Magiere into the water. He hurried back out, bending to rest his hands on his knees with a moan of frustration. When he looked up at Magiere, there was more doubt in his face than discomfort.
"When you're in… your other state," he asked, "do you feel the cold as much?"
Magiere didn't like where he was going with this. "Not as much, sometimes not at… But I can't just make it happen. That level of… hunger… it has to start, before I can do anything with it."