Then, as he had been directed, he placed the gold disk against his left eye and murmured the words to activate the embedded spell.
The medallion grew warm against his skin.
“Who has the Memory Eye?” he whispered. “I need to see who has the Memory Eye.”
Instantly, the world around him faded. The effect was dizzying. People became ghosts, and buildings thin mist. Only one thing remained solid-a black stain slipping down one of the Arena’s great gilded domes. It clutched a bundle to its chest that, to Kalev’s spell-enhanced gaze, glowed like a beacon. The skulk shambled across the roof, lifted a trap door, and jumped through.
And all the world was solid again, and Kalev was staring at the Arena with one eye covered.
The skulk was in there, somewhere. The skulk and Vix, who had spun him a story of blackmail and simple thievery. Kalev felt his jaw harden and he narrowed his eyes at Sheroth, standing straight and still in front of the stage door with its massive arms folded. Time was slipping rapidly away.
The direct approach, then.
Kalev took a deep breath and pelted across the street, dodging horses, carriages, and pedestrians alike. Sheroth looked up, and his jaw dropped.
Kalev didn’t give him any time for questions. “Sheroth! The skulk’s in the Arena!”
Warforged were fine tacticians and decent strategists, but Kalev had yet to meet one who could lie worth a damn. So Kalev was certain the surprise that stiffened Sheroth’s stance was genuine. As were his next words.
“I have to warn Vix.”
“It went in through a trap door in the roof, to the southwest of the smaller gilded dome,” said Kalev quickly. “Is there any way you can check that out quietly while I let Vix know what’s happened?”
“If it gets down into the bowels of the Arena, we’ll never find it,” Sheroth muttered, and Kalev held his breath until the warforged met his gaze. “Vix’ll be in her dressing room. Second stairs on your left going in, two flights up, first right, third door on the lefthand side. Got that?”
Kalev nodded and Sheroth went on. “Tell Vix I’ll meet you at door twelve. Door twelve. Got that?”
“Door twelve.”
Sheroth opened the door. “Quick.”
Kalev nipped inside the Arena of Unparalleled Wonder, and into another world.
Kalev had attended Arena performances many times. He was familiar with the gilt and glitter of the front of the house, every aspect of it designed to amaze. This was nothing like that.
It was a world of timber, painted canvas, and shadows. All manner of effigies hung from fine black lines, looking disconcertingly like they were floating in midair. Ropes as thick as his wrist connected systems of huge pulleys. A steam elemental sat in a brass housing at the center of a complex conglomeration of wooden cogs and metal gears that drove shafts reaching up into the ceiling and down into the floor.
Actors and dancers in glittering costumes darted like butterflies between the stagehands in dark tunics and breeches. Burly men hefted boulders and pillars on their shoulders. The floor vibrated from the motion of feet and carts and machines. Humans and half-elves trudged back and forth, burdened by boxes or great piles of cloth, or hauled on ropes, or signaled up to the catwalks to the ones handling the massive glowing crystals that lit the stages.
Those catwalks made a network overhead that stretched farther out and higher up than Kalev could see. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he caught glimpses of stairways traveling up and down, and arched doorways leading to darkened corridors.
You could hide an army in here, Kalev thought.
Kalev was also very aware that despite standing in shadow, as the only one present without any clear purpose, he stuck out like a sore thumb. It was only a matter of moments before someone noticed him. He shifted his demeanor so he projected confidence and strode to the second stair on the left leading upward. As long as he didn’t do something clod-brained, like getting in someone’s way, he would probably be ignored.
He hoped.
The third door after the first right had the name Vixana Fairlight scrawled on it in chalk, a sign of how quickly things turned over in the Arena. Kalev knocked, but did not wait for an answer before he walked in.
Vix, in her guise as a dark-haired human woman, started to her feet.
“Get out of here!” she cried. “I don’t need more trouble!”
“Neither do I, but…”
Footsteps sounded outside. Vix swore and shoved Kalev backward behind a folding screen draped with layers of dresses and cloaks. “Keep quiet!” she hissed.
The space smelled of old perfumes and powders. Kalev stepped back from the screen to keep his silhouette from showing, and breathed shallowly. He heard a faint swish as the door opened on well-oiled hinges.
“There you are, Vixana,” said a rough male voice. “What’s the news?”
“Nemar.” Vix sounded anything but glad. “It’s good. I’ve almost tracked down the… it.”
So, this Nemar was Vix’s employer. “Almost tracked it down!” Nemar exploded, then he seemed to remember he didn’t want to be overheard. “I told you where it was!” he hissed.
“Unfortunately, Duke Arisor got himself murdered by a skulk,” replied Vix evenly, but her voice was taut as a harp string. “Which stole your precious item.”
“A skulk stole something?”
“Yes,” replied Vix coldly. “Strange, don’t you think? A creature that has no place in Fairhaven shows up and kills the duke shortly before I got to his study.”
“None of your lip, thief.” Nemar’s voice turned truly ugly. “You swore you’d have it for me tonight!”
“I’ll get it.”
“You’d better.” Heavy footsteps crossed the floor, cloth swished and wood creaked. Kalev tensed. He didn’t want to show himself but he wouldn’t stand by and let Vix be hurt. “You’ve got one too many secrets to fail, you and that warforged lummox.”
“Leave Sheroth out of this!”
“I’ll say what I like, Vix,” sneered Nemar. “You just be sure you finish your job.”
The door opened and shut, and footsteps walked away.
Kalev emerged from behind the screen. Vix said nothing, just sat down at the table of cosmetics and slowly began opening boxes and jars.
“Who is Nemar?”
Vix dipped her fingers into a paint pot and spread bright red cream across her lips. “He’s the manager for stage eight. My employer.”
“And your blackmailer, if I don’t miss my guess. How’d he find out you were a changeling?”
“I took a fall one night,” she murmured, watching her reflection. What’s it like to stare into your own false face? Kalev wondered. “Almost broke my leg. The pain was bad. It’s harder to hold a shape when you’re hurting. He… caught me changing.”
“And are you a thief?”
“I used to be.” She wiped her fingertips on a towel. “No one hires changelings, so I fell in with a pack of adventurers. But I like living more than I like gold, so I came to Fairhaven to try to make a new start.”
Kalev thought about the ugly snarl in Nemar’s voice, and how he was the one who sent Vix after the Memory Eye. If a changeling thief was caught in a room with a corpse, how much further would the city guard look to find the murderer? “And Sheroth?”
“If you want to know his business, you can ask him,” she snapped.
“I see.”
“Do you?” She glowered at him in the mirror. Kalev made no answer, just met her gaze.
Vix blinked first. “I’ve got a performance.” She got up and made to brush past him.
“You’ve got more than that,” he said. “The skulk’s in the theater somewhere.”
“What!”
“It got in through one of the roof trap doors. It’s in here, and it’s got the Memory Eye with it.”
For a moment, Kalev saw the changeling’s pale coloring through the human’s warmer flesh tones. “What in the name of all the hells is going on?” she demanded.
“That’s a very good question,” Kalev agreed. “Do you know what Nemar’s connection to the Memory Eye is? Or Duke Arisor?”