“So . . . ,” Amelie said, “not long after that, the first attack happened? The soldiers started turning into wolves?”
Mercedes nodded slightly. “Mikolai was killed the first time it happened, and Captain Keegan threatened to make his father complete his contract . . . if we wanted the wages. Uncle Landrien’s joints are too painful to work in those mines, so Marcus signed on to take over for Mikolai, which is exactly what Keegan expected to happen.” She sighed. “But then the attacks continued . . . and this last one that occurred inside the mines proved too much. Even desperate men will refuse to work if they fear something more than starvation.”
“You left those mushrooms for Keegan, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did.”
“Why now? If Keegan has been at Mariah for months, what made you decide to try to kill him now?”
“Your sister,” Mercedes answered quietly. “She woke something inside of me. Right after she left me last night, I went out and picked the mushrooms and ran them to the cook. He was just finishing the stew, and he knows the captain likes mushrooms fried in butter. But I made sure that neither you nor Céline would be sitting at the captain’s table last night. I’d never do anything to hurt one of my own people.”
“What about Quinn? Or Jaromir? Did you ask about them?”
“I don’t care what happens to them. I just want Keegan dead.”
Though Amelie didn’t blame her for hating Keegan, she could not condone Mercedes’s callous disregard for Jaromir or Quinn.
“Listen to me,” she said. “I’ll do something about Keegan. I’ll make sure he leaves Mariah alone and that you’re both allowed to remain with your family. But you need to promise me you won’t try anything else. You have to trust me.”
“You won’t give me away? You won’t tell your lieutenant?”
“No. I won’t tell anyone but Céline. She and I don’t keep secrets. Do you swear to stop, to let me handle this?”
Mercedes nodded again.
Amelie stood up. “I need to get back.”
Though she had established who’d poisoned Keegan, she was no closer to resolving the true reason she and Céline had come here—to find out why these soldiers were turning into mad wolves one by one. But she didn’t believe Mercedes had anything to do with it or knew anything about how it was being done.
Still, there was much to consider.
After heading out the door, Amelie walked through the miners’ camp back toward the path leading into the trees, and a single word from Mercedes’s story rose in her mind. Several times Mercedes had referred to Marcus as a “shifter.” He’d always before been mentioned as a hunter, but this designation as a shifter seemed to give him importance. The word was vaguely familiar, and Amelie thought she’d heard it somewhere before.
Could it be a Móndyalítko reference to one born with a special ability for hunting? Or did it mean something more?
Stopping, she turned and looked at Mercedes’s wagon, wondering if she should go back and ask. But . . . she’d already put Mercedes through too much today and thought it best to just find out on her own.
Jaromir remained sitting at Keegan’s bedside, by himself, well into midafternoon. He’d told Quinn to leave, instructing him to get some rest. The captain groaned and rolled a few times in his sleep, but Jaromir took that to be a good sign, suggesting that Keegan had not fallen into deep unconsciousness.
Footsteps sounded from the front section of the wagon, and he looked over in annoyance, prepared to order Quinn to bed if necessary, but the visitor was not Quinn. Instead, Céline came into view from around a hanging tapestry.
Her hair was damp and hanging loose down her back. She wore her red cloak, but he could see a shade of dark pink beneath the opening in the front.
Smiling tiredly, she lifted the hem of her cloak a few inches to let him see the skirt of her evening gown.
“I feel ridiculous walking around camp in pink silk, but my tan wool is spattered with everything the captain ate yesterday, and it smells terrible. I took it off and washed my hair, and I had nothing else to put on.”
He couldn’t help smiling back.
She looked around. “Is Amelie not with you? I thought to find her here.”
“She’s not in your tent?”
“No, I woke up alone . . . and I can’t believe I slept out so much of the day. But I’m sure she’s not far. Perhaps she’s gone to the provisions tent. I’ll take a look at the captain and then check there.”
However, she didn’t move. Instead her mouth opened once and closed again.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, and we’ve had no time. It could be nothing.”
Growing annoyed again, he half turned in his chair. “Tell me.”
“Yesterday afternoon, when I was coming back from having tended to the miners, I ran into Corporal Quinn, and we had a rather . . . frank conversation about Captain Keegan.”
Jaromir sat straight, at full attention now.
“Apparently, Prince Lieven had trouble getting any of his officers to take up a position as commander here. The last captain died, and the prince could find no one willing to replace him. Quinn told me that Keegan ran into difficulties over a gambling debt and was coerced into volunteering as a result.” She walked closer, looking down at the sleeping captain. “Quinn’s exact words were, ‘He views this assignment as an insult and a punishment, and he feels he’s paid his dues.’”
“What are you suggesting?” Jaromir asked, but he already knew . . . He’d already had his own doubts about Keegan.
“Quinn says that he’s requested a replacement several times, but no action has been taken.”
Jaromir put his hand to his chin, thinking. Keegan had also staunchly refused to allow either Céline or Amelie to read any of his soldiers, and as he appeared to care little for his men, perhaps this reticence was due to the fact that he was hiding something.
“Do you want to read him?” Jaromir asked.
“I’d like Amelie to read him first. Whatever he’s protecting, I think we’ll think find it in his past.”
A groan sounded from the bed. Keegan rolled and opened his eyes. He looked up at Jaromir blankly for a few seconds, and then moved his gaze up to Céline.
“Water,” he croaked through dried lips.
“Of course,” Céline said, hurrying toward a basin and filling a mug.
“Give that to me,” Jaromir said, standing up. “I’ll take care of him. You go and find Amelie.”
Céline checked the provisions tent first, and upon not finding her sister, she headed back to their own tent, thinking perhaps Amelie had already returned there. As Céline walked up, she saw her dark-haired sister coming toward her from the direction of the miners’ camp—wearing a pensive expression.
“Are you all right?” Céline asked.
“Let’s go inside.”
“Jaromir sent me to get you. He has a task for you.”
“Soon enough. I need to tell you something.”
Concerned and curious, Céline passed through the flap into their tent, and Amelie followed.
“Mercedes poisoned Keegan,” Amelie said as soon as they were inside and alone.
“What?” Céline gasped.
“It’s true. Listen. She let me read her.”
And with that, Amelie began to spill out a story of hardship that became increasingly difficult to hear, the story of what brought Mercedes and her family not only to live here, but to end up trapped here. Putting off Jaromir for now, Céline didn’t interrupt or rush her sister. She listened to everything Amelie had to say.
“And after Keegan threatened to banish Mercedes and Mariah,” Amelie finished, “Mariah sold herself to him. That’s why they’ve been allowed to stay.”