Chapter 24
They went north west,following Marchant.
Theo made sure Melodie was happy there were no traps with every turn they took in the clearly marked path.
He still couldn’t believe she had found him in that pit. He had felt entombed in the shallow hole, and he knew magic must have been at work. He had drunk in the sight of her as he brushed leaves out of his hair and eyes, relieved and elated beyond words.
He’d felt like an idiot. He had been so focused on checking Marchant’s hidey hole’s line of sight in relation to where he planned to hunker down, he hadn’t watched his feet.
But Marchant hadn’t found him, and Melodie had frightened the spell caster off.
Theo didn’t like it that he knew she even existed.
“You’re brooding.” Melodie shot him a slightly amused look.
He couldn’t help the quick uptick of his lips. “I don’t brood. I glower.”
“Ah. Apologies.” She smiled.
“How did Marchant find you?” he asked.
“He said he saw the glow of the net, but he couldn’t have. I only took it out when I heard him running toward me.”
“What do you think it was, then?” Theo kept his voice low, but they would need to understand this before they confronted him again.
“I think it was the paint box. It almost blinded me when I first saw it, and he said he saw a glow.”
Theo had forgotten about the paint box. “You brought it?”
She shrugged. “No use to us back in the inn. And it could be useful.”
But was also a beacon for Marchant.
“Let’s wrap it up.” Theo shrugged off his pack, opened it up, and lifted out a spare shirt Captain Draper had given him.
Melodie shook her head. “That won’t do.”
She crouched down, opened her own pack, and took out the paint box. She set it on the ground, and then began to pull out everything inside her pack.
“Why won’t the shirt do?” Theo asked.
She looked up at him. “It’s spelled itself. The glow is barely there, but it isn’t nothing.”
“What?” He had to force himself to keep his voice down. “Spelled, how?”
“With protection.” She held his gaze briefly, then looked back down at the pile she’d made on the ground. “Almost all the Kassia and Cervantes soldiers wear those shirts. If I see one walking around Illoa without one, then my guess is the protection shirt is in the wash.”
“We all wear shirts that are spelled to protect us.” He said it quietly, and a picture came to mind of the queen sitting in the afternoon sun, needle and thread in hand, with a pile of shirts beside her.
He had always thought it was an endearing tradition, that every soldier in the army received a shirt hand-stitched by their queen when they were accepted into the corps.
She had been protecting them all. The thought was staggering.
And then he remembered little Viviane, sitting by her mother’s side, learning how to do it, and a wave of fear so icy-cold swept over him, he gasped.
“What is it?” Melodie had frozen in place, her expression fearful.
“I . . .” He swallowed. “I think the princess is why Marchant was attracted to the students. I think . . .” He shook himself. “We have to move fast. He knows we’re here now, he knows we’re close. If he’s going to move the children, sell them or whatever he does with his prisoners, he’ll be doing it even faster now.”
“Viviane is responsible for the shirts?” Melodie said, shaking her head. “I thought she was only thirteen years old.”
“Not her.” He didn’t want to say anymore.
Melodie slid a book out of a leather pouch, worked the paint box into it, although the fit was tight, and drew the drawstring closed. She frowned at the book, then shoved it right at the bottom of the pack, put the pouch on top and then the rest of her things.
She stood, then walked around it, studying it, and finally satisfied, slung it back over her shoulder.
“Her mother?” she said, as if the break in the conversation hadn’t occurred. “The queen?”
Theo lifted his shoulders, but it was the obvious conclusion.
“I knew someone, long ago, who had that magic. She saved my life.” She glanced at him. “No one will ever hear anything from me about this.”
Theo gave a nod, shoved the precious shirt right to the bottom of his own pack and then secured the top so it was completely closed. “We have to go.”
“It can’t be far,” Melodie said, as they started abreast on the path again. “We’ve been walking for at least fifteen minutes.”
She was right. Just ahead, Theo caught a glimpse of roofs, and put out a hand to stop Melodie.
She looked carefully around them, searching for traps, and then they stepped off the path into the forest.
He made sure they moved together, and when the way got harder, he let Melodie go in front.
Eventually they worked their way to the outer edge of the wood that encircled Marchant’s compound, which was set on a little plateau on the side of the hill.
Theo crouched down against a thick tree trunk and Melodie sat down and leaned back against it, facing down the hill, the way they’d come. She pulled out her water flask and drank, then offered it to him.
Theo took a few sips, his gaze on the buildings rising up in front of him.
There were four.
A small cottage, which looked unkempt on the outside, with overgrown flowerbeds below the windows and paint peeling off shutters.
There was a stable, and he could smell horses on the light breeze, and then two other buildings.
One was set a little away from the other three, and whatever it was for, it looked the best maintained.
He was about to ask Melodie to take a look at the area around the buildings for any signs of spell work, when Marchant stepped out of the forest that curved around to the left of where Theo had hunkered down. It looked like he’d come down the hill.
Melodie must have been watching him, because she rose up into a crouch at his reaction and moved right next to him so she could also see Marchant as he walked along the path to the cluster of three buildings.
He moved slowly, stopping twice to catch his breath, and his hand went to his side.
Theo felt a surge of satisfaction. He hadn’t known exactly where he had stabbed Marchant, but he was sure now it was in the side.
Marchant stopped again, but this time it was to move off the path, then stepped back onto it a few steps later, and Theo committed the place he’d avoided to memory.
There would be a nasty trap there, of that he was sure.
He guessed Marchant would go to the cottage, but instead he stepped onto a gravel path that led to the building next to the stables, unlocked it, and stepped inside.
He wondered whether it might be where Marchant was keeping his prisoners, and then Marchant appeared again, pushing someone in front of him.
Viviane. Her dark hair was pulled into a long braid down her back.
Marchant prodded her all the way to the fourth building, and then disappeared inside with her.
The relief Theo felt was immense. She was alive, and looked uninjured. And he knew where she was.
Everything else could be fixed.
While the coast was clear, he rose up and stepped out of the tree line. Melodie came to stand beside him.
“He came out of the forest over there.” Theo pointed.
“I wondered where he was?” she said. “Checking over the hill on the confusion spell, maybe? Gus told him it wasn’t working anymore.”
“Maybe.” It would explain why he had been moving with such difficulty. It had to be a mile at least, up and down hill from here to the clearing in the forest.
“That’s his house, the stables, his prison,” Melodie murmured, looking at the three buildings grouped together. “So what’s the purpose of the one he’s taken Viviane to? His workshop?”
His workshop? That sounded all too possible. And frightening.
Because a man like that worked on nothing good.