Chapter Twenty #2
We step inside to find what at first glance could be any ordinary home. There’s a bench for greeting guests, a dining table with six chairs, and a kitchen built around a stone hearth. In the back corner, a staircase leads to an upper level.
In Nithyria, the residents of a home like this would be considered solidly middle class. Merchants or healers, maybe.
I wonder who Mery is and why we’re here.
“Safe house,” says Ronan, feeling my curiosity. “A place where assets can be kept protected without bringing them to the palace.”
“Assets?”
“Witnesses, errand-runners. Spies.”
People like my mother. I’m sure she knew all about safe houses. She probably operated some of her own back home in Pyka before the war.
I wish I’d known to ask her about it then. There were so many things I could’ve talked to her about if only I’d known to ask before she died.
“Are you alright?” Ronan mutters. The woman from the front door is opening another under the staircase at the back. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in our conversation, but I’ve learned to be careful who I say things around.
I nod in response. I can tell him what’s on my mind later.
The door at the back opens onto another stairway that leads to a cellar. “No weapons,” the woman says, holding out her calloused hands.
I look at Ronan for confirmation before removing my sword and dagger. He removes a dagger from his waist and another, smaller knife from his boot.
The woman is satisfied. There’s no reason not to give up everything; it’s not like we can remove our magic.
I follow Ronan down the narrow stairwell to a corridor at the bottom. There are at least a dozen doors here. Though they’re windowless, there’s a gap at the bottom that lets light through. Only a couple of them appear to be occupied.
“Third room on the left,” calls the woman from upstairs.
Ronan knocks on the door, and a boy greets him.
He’s a teenager, twenty at best, with deep tan skin and black hair shorn razor short. His loose clothes swallow his lean build and have a faint smell of fish about them. A dockworker, I’d guess.
“Mery?”
“Are you the man? I really hope it’s you. I’m late. Maxima will have my head if I’m late. You get that, don’t you?”
Mery gestures us into a small bedroom. It’s sparsely furnished, with only a simple single bed, a small dresser, and a single chair. Mery takes the chair and gestures for us to sit on the bed.
Which we do.
Together.
“We won’t be long,” says Ronan, carefully avoiding looking at me. “And you’ll be free to go once we leave.”
“Oh, thank Arnan. I want to help Vesper, I do, but it’s my job, sir. I can’t lose it.”
So the boy knows Vesper, then. This isn’t just some random stranger seeing someone who matches her description.
“When did you see her?” asks Ronan.
“Day before yesterday. It was just after the noon bells.
I was making a delivery near the temple—the Vahlo temple, that is.
They order from us more than the others.
I was running with my cart through one of the back alleys, trying to get back before I got a boxing ‘round the ears, when I saw her. Her hair was cut short, and she was even thinner than usual, but it was her, sir. I know it.”
“How do you know her? Describe her to me.”
“I saw her at the docks. There’s a tavern there she comes to some nights.
A couple of them, really. Before they took her, her hair was long and red.
Now it’s real short. Almost as short as mine.
Her earrings are gone too, but I was real close.
I could still see the holes. Two up here—” He gestures to the top of his left ear.
“—one over here.” The middle of the right ear.
“And two each on the bottom. I know ‘em because I asked her about ‘em.
She told me a story for each one. She worked hard to get the coin for ‘em all.”
He knows Vesper well, and from the way he talks about her, he admires her a great deal. Maybe even loves her.
“Who took her?” I ask.
“I don’t know who they were, begging your pardon, miss.
But they come running after her. She ran into a door, and I pushed the cart to try to block ‘em, but they threw me back with magic.
By the time I got back up, they were all gone.
Not a trace of ‘em. I looked as long as I could, but I had to get back—”
“—to work. We understand. The alley and the door, they’re the ones you showed the guards? You’re certain of it?”
“Aye, sir. I know it real well.”
“Did you see the people who took her at all? Could you describe them?”
“Not well, sir. One of ‘em was wearing a robe. I thought they might be from the temple, but it were brown instead of black like they wear there. He was a big guy. She didn’t stand a chance, Vayla help her.”
A brown robe. An alchemist? Or maybe a priest of Kerensa, although Kerensa’s temple isn’t close to the temple of Vahlo.
But with the festival going on, it could be anyone from anywhere. Brown robes aren’t exactly uncommon in other kingdoms.
Ronan asks a few more questions, but it’s clear that the boy has told us everything he knows. He says something to the woman upstairs that causes her to release him despite originally limiting us to only ten minutes, and the boy gratefully rushes past us as we’re leaving.
“I really hope you find her. She’s a good one,” he says.
“We’ll do our best,” says Ronan.
I wonder what the boy would think if he realized he’d just spoken to his king.
“To the alley?” I ask Ronan once we’re outside.
He nods. “The guards have already checked it out, but I figure another pair of eyes can’t hurt.” He checks his weapons, which the woman returned to us, and I do the same.
But we had no need to be concerned. The alley is as empty as the boy described. Ronan carefully shines a light in the dark corners, but I grab his hand and stop him. It’s too risky to be seen doing light magic around here. “I can see in the shadows just fine. What are you looking for?”
“Blood, hair, a scrap of fabric. I don’t know.”
“It’s a city alleyway. Even if we find something, it could be from anyone. What about the alchemist angle?”
“I’d be surprised if it’s someone there. Zara runs a tight ship. I don’t want to ask them directly or to even let them know we’re looking, but it would be good to find out which alchemists match the description. Tall and heavyset, male.”
“I can think of one alchemist that matches that description.” Our own alchemist, Hermes Magnus. And, come to think of it, I haven’t seen much of him since we arrived. He’s been spending a lot of time down at the Guild.
“Yours?”
I nod. “I could try to see if he’s up to anything. Tell him I need more silphium elixir or something.”
Not that I was looking for an opportunity to mention an elixir known for its contraceptive properties or anything.
Ronan-as-Soren looks reasonably shocked to hear me mention it. “Do you? Need more of it?”
“No, we brought plenty,” I say matter-of-factly. Not that he should remember that fact later. It’s just information that happens to be true. “But it makes him uncomfortable to hear me speak of it, so I could take advantage of that to poke around a bit.”
“Devious,” says Ronan with admiration. “I’ll see if Quinn can think of any other alchemists that fit the description. She has a better memory for names and faces than I do.”
“What about the priests of Kerensa—”
He holds up a finger to silence me—there’s a noise down the alley.
My hand reaches for my sword, and I lower the shadow we’re in just a bit. It’s not perfect cover, but it should do well enough without being too obvious.
We wait together for a long moment, dangerously close to touching. I shouldn’t have mentioned the silphium. Now it’s all I can think about.
There’s another rustling sound a few doors down from where we stand. Ronan tenses at my side, his hands up and ready to strike.
Then, there’s a commotion: a flurry of wings and a cacophony of terrified screeches and squawks. From the eaves, a black bird with subtly iridescent feathers swoops and dives at a smaller grey bird with long wings. They appear to be fighting over a small, shadowed hole beneath a window ledge.
It’s a vicious fight. The smaller bird can’t untangle itself from the black bird’s talons, can’t escape the relentless pecking of its yellow beak. Feathers fly in unnatural whorls, drifting to the ground as the smaller bird twists and turns, its efforts only tightening the black bird’s grip.
Ronan races towards the battling birds, caution be damned. He shouts, arms raised, and the black bird shrieks in protest but finally flutters off. The grey bird lies awkwardly on the window ledge, its breathing shallow and labored, too hurt to even attempt to escape.
I approach Ronan slowly, on the lookout for any more surprises hiding in the shadows. When I reach him, his hands are cradling the injured bird, his fingertips bathing it in soft, golden light.
He’s healing it.
I watch in amazement as the beak wounds on its back, its neck, its eyes close in only moments. The bird, now whole again, pauses for a moment in confusion, unsure what to make of being helped rather than hurt.
I understand its feeling. It has no context for its situation.
There’s nothing in nature that can do what Ronan did for it, nothing in nature but violence and survival.
It doesn’t know to be grateful. It flits away, frightened, but it doesn’t go far.
It perches near the roofline as Ronan approaches the gap in the wall they fought over.
A little woolen nest woven with bits of straw, leaves, and lint is hanging from the cavity, half broken. There are two cracked white eggs inside, each about the size of a gold coin.
“Damn,” says Ronan as he sees them, shaking his head. They’re beyond saving. Then he leans forward and picks up something from the ground beneath the nest.
It’s another white egg. He holds it gingerly in his hand, turning it over. There’s not a crack on it.