Chapter Nine #2
Granny snorted. “Just my delivery girl. After I pay her, you can get on with your reason for interrupting my peaceful afternoon.”
Mitch tried to guess what was going on from the sounds, but apart from the footsteps, the rustling was too generic. He did hear the clink of coins moments before the front door opened and Tasia accepted her compensation.
“N—” Rebane’s word cut off.
Mitch suspected Granny had something to do with that, because a few moments later, she moved away from the front of the cottage and closer to the window he was hiding under, then spoke, “She’s gone.”
“Estutu is feeling pressure to make up the numbers since Pozik’s route was blown up. And when Estutu is pressured, I am pressured. You won’t like how I deal with pressure,” the dark voice threatened.
“Oh, hush,” Granny scoffed. “I have socks that are older and scarier than you.”
Mitch imagined Rebane’s scowl was etched pretty deep at that sentiment. The man had never taken well to being anything less than the most intimidating person in the room.
Granny continued, “I have three more deliveries before the winter dance in Boschivo. With that amount, we can subdue the whole village from here to the markets. That should make up for the shortfall.”
Another beat of silence that Mitch wished he could witness. There was no way he would endanger Tasia by poking his nose above the window ledge, though.
“The whole village?” Rebane sounded uncertain, and a cushion squeaked. “How are you going to explain a whole village disappearing overnight?”
“With fire,” Granny answered with eerie calm. The clink of porcelain suggested she was having tea.
Mitch heard nothing for a long moment.
“You idiot. Do I have to explain everything?” Pure scorn dripped from her words, tainted with anger.
Her next clink was more of a crack. “My thugs are ensuring that the whole village will go up in flames after the dance. Our village informant will doctor the punch or what-have-you with filemu; we’ll round everyone up, start marching them south, and the evidence will go up in flames.
Boschivo has been having quarterly dances for decades.
It will be tragic that a fire started at the dance and left no survivors, but nobody nearby will question it. ”
“Ah.” Rebane switched tactics. “Why are you involving an outsider?” he demanded.
“I’ve had eyes on me for a while now. But no one pays any attention to that twit. In fact, they go out of their way to ignore her.”
“A win for us.” To Mitch, it sounded like Rebane was trying to reclaim the authority he thought he had possessed when he waltzed through Granny’s door. She wasn’t inclined to let him keep any.
“Tell Pozik to be ready for the influx. Depending on our rate of travel, we should be able to hit the Diomland markets by the second month of winter.”
“Provided the snows—” Rebane cleared his throat. “Right. You have the resources to deal with snow.”
“Indeed.”
Rebane responded to the ice in her reply by standing up and taking his leave.
Mitch hunkered down in the shadows at the base of the wall and waited until he was sure that the villain had left and that Granny wasn’t going to start recapping her full plans aloud as Tasia had hoped.
When he felt safe doing so, he crept away.
The restraint he displayed while putting sufficient distance between himself and the cottage exacerbated his anxiety about returning to Tasia’s side.
Revealing his presence—or worse, leading their enemies to Tasia—was undesirable in every way, but his heart pumped with a ferocity that made not running the hardest thing he could remember doing.
In the safety of the trees, he allowed himself to pick up the pace.
Tasia’s scent soothed him as he followed it away from Granny’s and into the woods.
Despite her assurances, the inattentive girl had not walked in the correct direction for more than a few minutes.
Her scent trail veered off-course toward a section of the forest that Mitch knew contained some steep drop-offs.
Visions of finding her broken body at the bottom of one of these had him almost sprinting.
Only the topography of the landscape and the hidden patches of ice kept him to a reasonable pace.
“Mitch!” Tasia’s welcome voice called to him in what she probably considered a reasonable stage whisper. It was more of a stage shout, but his nose and ears told him that nobody else was within range when he slid to a stop beside her.
Not stopping to consider the consequences, he transformed into his man shape and wrapped her into an embrace that lifted her off her feet.
His pounding heart finally slowed with the realization that she was safe in his arms. As he became aware that she wasn’t stiff and uncomfortable, but actually hugging him back as well as she could with her many layers, his heart picked up speed for a different reason.
In a move that was abrupt yet gentle, he set her back down and took a step out of reach. “You’re safe,” he said, stating the obvious.
A breathtaking smile lit her face. “Yes! As are you.” The laughter faded from her expression as she looked him over. “What did you learn? I didn’t expect to see you for hours.”
“I’ve got bad news.” He scanned their surroundings, taking them in now that the panic was wearing off. “We need to get back on the path.”
The ice was still tricky in places, but Mitch wasn’t going to give up his ability to speak as they walked, so he maintained his human form.
This had the added bonus of allowing him to hold her hand under the guise of supporting her balance.
His mind scoffed as his heart wondered how soft her fingers were inside the thick gloves.
“We were right,” he began as they moved away from the drop-off Tasia had managed to avoid. “Granny is up to no good, and she’s working with Olev Rebane.”
Tasia’s grip on his hand tightened as she stepped through the crust of ice covering a patch of mud and stumbled. He steadied her, and she spoke as though she wasn’t seconds away from faceplanting on the forest path, “From the way you said his name, I take it he is a bad guy.”
“A very bad guy,” Mitch confirmed. “Remember when I said that I’ve made some . . . lousy choices in the past?”
She nodded. The look of trust in her eyes threatened to undo him. He refocused on the path.
“Most of those choices came about while working for him. Discovering he works with the dwarves in the underground slave trade helped me break free.”
“Dwarves run the slave trade?” she asked. “Wait. There’s a slave trade?! But that’s illegal!”
“Pretty sure that’s why everyone involved keeps it a secret,” Mitch dryly observed. “And I don’t know that all dwarves are slavers; I just know about two of them.”
They met up with the correct path and turned toward Boschivo.
As they walked (and slipped), Mitch recounted the conversation he had overheard at Granny’s.
He also explained the nuances that Tasia missed in her innocence.
At one point, she stopped walking without notice, jerking his arm when he kept moving forward.
“So I’m being paid with slaver money?!” Her face twisted in disgust. “I can’t accept dirty money!”
Mitch stepped in front of her. “Every coin they pay you is a coin they aren’t using for evil.
” He wrapped her other hand more firmly around the basket handle when she looked like she was about to chuck it in the bushes.
“You deserve it. This money is going to get you away from those—cousins who take advantage of you.”
A single tear hovered as she looked up at him, nearly breaking his heart. “But I am doing evil,” she whispered. “I’m delivering filemu.”
“And we’re going to figure out a way to stop the whole plan.”
Resolve straightened her spine. She pursed her lips, nodded once to Mitch, then began marching forward. In the wrong direction. Not wanting to ruin her brave display, he silently nudged her onto the correct path.
Though they discussed possibilities for dismantling the slavers’ plan the whole way home, nothing definite came out of it.
It seemed good to both of them to somehow ruin the remaining deliveries of filemu so they couldn’t be used, but Mitch couldn’t condone any method that would place Tasia in more danger.
And even though they knew what the villains were planning, they didn’t know how, which limited their ability to thwart it.
As they neared the village and prepared to separate, a giant, outlandishly loud sneeze disturbed the quiet of the encroaching dusk.
“Prince Frank?” The look of hope and pleasure blooming on Tasia’s face squeezed thorns into Mitch’s tender heart.