Chapter Seven Faith of Selûne
Chapter Seven
Faith of Sel?ne
In Which Kell Smiles and Won’t Stop
That older couple was Saeldian and Jubilee in disguise. The majestic silver-haired woman gave Saeldian’s quick, fluttering sign they used to identify themself. The woman with the long scar on her face winked.
Saeldian was even better at illusion magic now, if they could hold one on themself and Jubilee at the same time. Kell tapped Lorzok’s arm and crossed the ballroom to bow in greeting. “I hope you are enjoying the party, Saers. Do I guess correctly that you would like to dance?”
“We’d like nothing better,” the woman hiding Saeldian’s true face said. “I’m Tevailia Trueshot, and this is my wife, Madenhal Dawnsinger.”
Tevailia Trueshot and Madenhal Dawnsinger? The other half of the Golden Guardians? Saeldian was out of their mind. Everyone knew who the Silver Arrow and Lathander’s Fist were. Everyone! “It’s an honor, my lady. Truly an honor. I’m dying to know how many of the stories are true.”
He offered his hand and pulled Saeldian to the safety of the dance floor before anyone could walk up and start talking. If anyone figured out those two were impostors, it would be over. So Kell put on his best starstruck smile and lifted his posture to impress.
“Tevailia” matched his step perfectly as he led the way to a space for the four of them. The moment the counterfeit ranger settled into the first dancing position, the music started. The musicians didn’t have singers, but Kell knew the words by heart.
“ ‘Bobbins and Skeins,’ ” Saeldian said, with syrup all over their voice. “My favorite!”
Saeldian hated this song. Would anyone overhearing their impersonation of Tevailia know whether that was true?
Kell brought Saeldian to the center, where the four of them clasped hands, closely bunched together.
The song about a pretty young spinner, the mason who loved her, and the jealous chancer’s daughter scheming to tear them apart sang inside Kell’s head.
Jubilee muttered, “Lover’s cross. I’ll tell Lorzok what we found.”
It was the right choice of dance. Lover’s cross—or the gossip wheel—was a dance designed for private conversation between pairs, whether for flirting or muckraking. Everyone danced with the other three people for one turn, then returned to their first partner for the last.
They laid their hands together, forming the cross, and turned in a circle while facing one another. Kell got right to it. “What do you know?”
“The gallery is a Conundrum Chamber,” Saeldian said into the small space between their smiles.
They stepped into the circle, elbows, forearms, and hands meeting.
“Divination spells on the walls, pressure-activated floorboard triggers with abjurations, and some kind of transmutation hidden in the shadows of the crown molding.”
Lorzok blinked in surprise, but Saeldian stopped speaking just as the verse would have ended with Then the dancers call, ho!
They all stamped their feet in a quick triple step and clapped. Kell broke the four-person figure to hold Saeldian in a cloak-step promenade and led them through a circle of steps that shuffled and twirled through the verse.
Kell tilted his head to Saeldian’s ear. “How many times can you change how you look?”
“A hundred times, if I want,” Saeldian said. “The perks of patronage.”
Saeldian had pleased their archfey patron that much, then. “A Conundrum Chamber. Suddenly, all of this makes sense.”
Saeldian’s grimace was an essay’s worth of agreement. They spun and came back to his hold. “No idea how Briona knew where to find us, both conveniently in Waterdeep at the same time.”
“We came into town for Waukeentide,” Kell said. “We’ve been here half a day.”
“Do you show up for every Waukeentide?”
“No. We had the idea that we could sail to Caer Callidyrr.”
“You were going to Dernall Forest, looking for a way into the Feywild,” Saeldian guessed. “That explains why you dared set foot in Waterdeep.”
“I dared set foot? You live here. How do you explain that?”
Saeldian smiled. “It was the one place I was sure you’d never show your face.”
Every moment of betrayal Kell had felt since that morning slipped right between his ribs. He must not look at his dancing partner like that, much less one of Waterdeep’s homegrown heroes.
Saeldian was too busy chasing along the path of reasonable guesses to notice. “Briona had to know about the storm harp, but how did she know we…”
Saeldian’s realization on a stranger’s face looked so odd. “It was you.”
Shit. Of course Saeldian turned it around to blame him, but they had hit the target. Kell signaled a traveling spin, and they whirled in perfect response, speaking through clenched teeth.
“It was you. Briona said you owed the Zhentarim. This is them collecting your debt.”
Kell didn’t spin lies much these days, and he’d never be able to fool Saeldian, who could spot them as readily as they spoke them. “Yes. They helped me escape from Baldur’s Gate.”
Then the dancers call, ho!
Saeldian stamped and clapped as if they weren’t ready to curse Kell on the spot.
They turned away from him and bowed to Lorzok, ready to change partners, and all their fury vanished from their face when they took his hand.
Saeldian was so good at switching to smiles or whatever expression would get the best results from a mark.
Why did he ever think he knew the truth about their feelings?
Jubilee came to Kell with a graceful smile, and Lorzok switched to the lead steps with Saeldian without a stumble. Jubilee started their meeting with a bow, lead to lead.
Weaving trouble, spinning strife, gossip from the cooper’s wife!
Saeldian blamed him for this job. Two leads dancing meant showy steps that mirrored the other, and Jubilee carried off the posture and movement of a woman who had been in prime physical shape before settling down to relax with her years.
He smiled companionably and hooked elbows with her.
Kell did owe the Zhentarim. They ran in Baldur’s Gate.
A few questions in the right ears—exactly the right ears—would bring enough gossip for them to figure out that Saeldian was his partner back in Baldur’s Gate.
Their network was wide enough that someone could bring back the story of a warlock living with a family of retired adventurers trying to make the best of a “reward” that needed a fortune of gold to restore.
Jubilee bumped Kell’s elbow and fluttered her toe on the kick step. Was the retired war priest she impersonated that skilled a dancer? “They told you about the Conundrum?”
Kell stepped to Jubilee’s left, backed up, and repeated on the right. “They did. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
Jubilee put her palm in the air, and Kell matched it, circling as two leads dancing would. She smiled under the wrinkles and scars of a dashing human woman. “They said the two of you beat one once.”
“Don’t think you get to slack off,” Kell said. “The two of us barely made it.”
“How?”
“We have to get up there,” Kell said. “Arming the trap is disarming it in reverse. We should know as much as possible.”
“Right. I studied the floor plates and made a map. Sheld can point out the spells—”
Jubilee had a good ear for verse. She was right on time with the stamping and clapping, then swept Saeldian into a cloak step so they could promenade and flutter-kick.
Kell circle-stepped with Lorzok, who looked at him, concerned. “Are you well?”
“Can you ever leave anything behind you?” Kell asked.
“If you only leave miles behind you? No,” Lorzok said. “But I apologize. I was asking about the plan.”
“I was too.”
Lorzok nodded. “You mean the Conundrum Chamber. The trap that Saer Madenhal said you had succeeded in defeating with Tevailia Trueshot.”
“That’s Saeldian and Jubilee.”
“They are,” Lorzok agreed, “but that’s not what their names are right now.”
“Right.”
Lorzok led their weaving steps around the square, raising his palm at the end of the sequence. He and Kell circled the spindle created from their arms meeting, palm to elbow.
“Did Saer Madenhal mention anything about the plan?”
“We have to go see it,” Lorzok said. “After this dance, we’ll need to sneak upstairs.”
Kell glanced at the stairs. One family climbed them together, and that was all. But the “Silver Arrow” and the “Fist of Dawn” going up for a look…What if someone asked why they had attended and Bastion Dawnshield and Serenity Surefingers had not?
“Kell?”
Kell clapped his hands against Lorzok’s. “Right. After this dance?”
“Has to be,” Lorzok said. “They’re closing it soon.”
Lorzok shuffled and hopped his way back to Jubilee, and Saeldian slipped back into his hold just in time for the last verse. They had no smiles for him. That cursing glare was back in their eyes the moment they settled into their floating, unthinking follow.
“I didn’t tell them about you.”
“So you claimed you stole the Storm Harp by yourself?”
“I didn’t tell them your name.” Kell slipped them into another cloak-step promenade, and Saeldian’s hand lay in his, soft as rose petals. “And you know that’s true, if you stop to think about it.”
That made Saeldian close their mouth on their retort. If Kell had named them, they wouldn’t be here right now. Kell guided their spin, and they landed back in his arms.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
Saeldian’s scowl smoothed almost immediately. “Right. Your shining, golden morality.”
Ten years ago, Kell hadn’t wanted to believe they would just leave him like that.
He spun an escape plan from Wyrm’s Rock and expected them to be halfway through their own rescue.
After Kell got free, he wondered if Saeldian had left signs showing which way they’d gone.
There were none at the villa, at their favorite inn, or at the docks.
Saeldian didn’t come to rescue him. They didn’t leave a mark to follow. They had vanished, and finally, it had sunk in: Saeldian had left him to die.