30 Maerryl
MAERRYL
Zephyra.” I stepped into the room and ducked a bow, heart in my throat. The tiefling watched me, horned head tilted, for a long moment. Then she dismissed the guard hovering behind me with a flick of her hand, and the iron door thudded shut.
I tracked each movement of Dove’s stiff, seated form as she turned slowly. Her face was drawn, but her weary eyes sparked to life at the sight of me. They held anger, certainly, but something else that gave me a small amount of hope. Then she turned away again, and my stomach dropped.
“I trust you received my missive,” Zephyra said, perching sideways on her large desk.
I nodded. “Yes. Your slitlings are very, ah, well-trained.”
Not an hour after they’d taken Dove and I’d come to on the floor with a pounding headache and a panicked Choia and Mx. Bottlecoat crowded around me, another slitling messenger had flown through the window. The folded parchment it carried had chilled me to the bone:
For lying to me in your last report, your little bird will be locked away.
A fitting punishment.
“I must say, I didn’t expect you to show up here like this,” Zephyra said now. “Very bold.”
The glint in her eyes and whip of her tail seemed like what she really meant was stupid.
And likely, I was very idiotic indeed. Coming back here, directly to the guildmaster when emotions were still high from the night’s events.
But I couldn’t leave Dove. Couldn’t let them take her—because if I didn’t at least try now to get her out, it felt somehow like she’d be lost to me forever.
“Zephyra,” I said, swallowing. “Please reconsider. I—I know that I disobeyed your orders. And I lied.”
Her tail whipped swiftly again, as she watched me almost with amusement at my foolishness. I gathered my courage and went on, “Dove did nothing wrong. She’s caught up in all of this because of me. It’s all my fault. My idiocy that got us in this mess.”
“And Petra, that deluded dolt,” Zephyra said with a smirk. “A constant disappointment this year, sadly. What a waste of potential. Though she did find me this lovely jewel mage.”
“Yes, Petra certainly didn’t help matters,” I said slowly.
“But I accept full responsibility. Please don’t take my punishment out on Dove.
Let me make it up to you. I’ll do anything—do whatever assignments or tasks that you want, however long you want.
She’s a good person, with a true heart. I know she seems like just another spoiled noble—”
Dove swung sharply around in her chair to glare at me, daggers in her eyes.
“But! But she’s so much more than that. She’s kind, and brave, and I’ve watched her generous spirit growing every day since she’s started working with the orphans. She gives money to the priory, what she can, and she’s trying to help others. Including my—”
The truth stuck in my throat, but I pushed it out.
Dove’s fierce face was shifting into something softer, and I needed to see this through.
This is what I could offer Zephyra, master of secrets.
It was the Takers Guild, after all. And the only thing she loved to take away from people more than coin was their deepest, most tightly held secrets.
“Including my brother. He’s ill. Dangerously ill, and I’ve been trying desperately all these months—these past years!
—to get enough gold for his cure. When she found out, Dove agreed to help save him.
She was even going to sell off part of her family’s lands for me.
With no strings, wanting nothing in return.
” Before all of this went down. That wouldn’t happen anymore, of course, but the guildmaster didn’t need to know that.
“She was willing to do that for a nobody, an orphan who has nothing to offer her. Just because she doesn’t want him to suffer. Or me.”
The tiefling considered us, intense gaze flicking back and forth between Dove and me. My heart had shoved its way somewhere up my throat, and I struggled to breathe steadily.
“Interesting. I’ve always wondered exactly what it was that held you tied here, Maerryl, though I’d made an educated guess. Hard for me to get eyes inside the priories, though goddess knows I’ve tried,” she said, with an annoyed tail flick.
“Very odd, for a noble. Caring for orphans. Giving your wealth away freely…” Zephyra peered at Dove curiously. “Is this all true, little one?”
Tears in her eyes, Dove looked away from me and nodded.
“And I—well, I’ve been hoping to turn the manor into an orphanage with time,” she said, biting her lip. “Turn my home into a place for all of them. The children left parentless from the raid, Balfie, any others who we could take in. With lessons, and healers, and—well, and safety.”
She and the tiefling exchanged a long look while I watched, absorbing the shock of Dove’s revelation. An orphanage… this woman contained more than even I ever knew.
Finally, Zephyra spoke.
“As useless as she was in some regards, Petra probably could have taken care of the art heist on her own months ago. But she couldn’t, despite her efforts, crack you. I needed to know just how you and your darling family had come into their new fortune. And what a delightful revelation it was…”
The tiefling’s gaze bore into Dove, and I restrained my impulse to dash forward, to clutch her shoulders reassuringly.
“You’re very lucky, my little bird, that I have a soft spot for orphans.
And for pretty ladies with big hearts, and bigger dreams.” She slid from her perch to lounge back in her armchair, long hands steepled in front of her slight smile.
“Jewels and coin I have plenty of. And now both of your delicious secrets too. I will let you go.”
My heart leapt.
“… On one condition. A favor, of sorts. Think of it as one final job—if completed, we’ll consider this matter settled.
You may go home, sweet Dove, and open your orphanage.
” She slid her eyes to me. “And you, Maerryl. I will release you from the guild. Permanently. I’ve always suspected this place wasn’t meant for you.
Took you a while to figure out the same. ”
She wasn’t going to make it easy. Clearing my throat, I said, “And what is the job?”
Absentmindedly, Zephyra plucked up a tiny, bejeweled knife and balanced it on the tip of one long finger. I tensed.
“I’ve heard tell over the years of an enchanted stone kept hidden by a certain nearby priory that you happen to have access to. A moonstone, passed from prioress to prioress. I assume you’re not able to replicate it, little one?”
This last, she directed to Dove, who shook her head. “Even if I was able to hold it, then replicate the stone itself, a mage-cast enchantment wouldn’t pass over to the new stone. It would only contain magical properties if they were naturally imbued in the type of stone itself.”
Zephyra nodded. “Ah, well. As I suspected. You’ll have to steal the original then.”
“Steal from a priory?? But that’s impossible,” Dove sputtered. “Their gates and walls prevent it. Everyone knows that—the goddess would never allow someone wishing harm on a priory to enter her peoples’ sacred space.”
Spinning her dagger like a top, the guildmaster gave a flippant shrug.
“Convenient that I have a thief so well-acquainted with the priory then, isn’t it?
If anyone could find a way, I think our highly motivated Maerryl can.
” She flicked a glance up at me that felt like a whip, quick and burning.
“You may go with her, little dove. I trust the two of you will figure something out.”
I glared back at her, trying and failing to rein in my emotions. “And if we don’t? What’s to stop us from staying in the priory forever, where you can’t reach us?”
Zephyra’s gaze hardened slightly. “I don’t think that will be an issue, my dear.
After all, we could always pay a visit to that talented chef back at the manor—what was her name…
Choia? And her besotted new paramour, Mx.
Bottlecoat?” Dove let out a soft gasp. The guildmaster’s lips curled back, sharp incisors glinting.
“I hear the Lady and Lord Wistrallo have been settling back into the city as well. Good for them! In fact, I have their inn’s address here somewhere… ”
My stomach twisted. “Alright, you’ve made your point. We’ll do it.” As if we have any other choice.
“Marvelous! One of my guards will escort you back to the manor. You have two weeks to get me that stone. If you succeed, everyone wins. If you fail, well, I’ll expect to see you back here in two weeks’ time to begin your new duties within the guild…
or I’m afraid we’ll have to begin making some house calls.
” With a toss, her dagger flipped up into the air and came down hard on the desk, point embedded in the dark wood. I heard Dove gulp.
“Now go.”
Dove, stock-still, suddenly jerked up from her seat with a start. Placing her mug on the desk, she moved toward the door as if afraid the tiefling would change her mind. As she exited, with me following close behind her, Zephyra’s silky voice trailed after us.
“I’ll have my eyes on you two…”