Chapter 8 #2
They reached Alton in the mid-morning, and set up camp at the inn there.
It was larger than the one in Alina’s town, and she wondered if the team would decide to relocate there for the rest of the investigation.
She might have to take what pay she’d earned so far and go home, if so.
She didn’t like the thought of leaving the twins on their own for more than a couple of days.
It took her very little time to deposit her few belongings in the room assigned to her at the inn. Pausing only to neaten her hair and dress, she made her way back downstairs, entering the group’s private parlor in time to hear a stranger speaking to the prince and the captain.
“—nothing concrete,” the man was saying. “I’ve observed the same reluctance to talk about magic craft here as you’ve described, Captain, and people are certainly on edge. But I can’t say I’ve seen suspicious behavior.”
“I’m not surprised,” the captain said. “Even without the team here, everyone must know we’re nearby. Any perpetrator with any sense would be lying low for a while.”
“Have you identified the ones who made the report?” Xavier asked.
The man nodded. “Aye, Your Highness, the friends of the missing girl live not far from here. I haven’t approached them yet, though, given my orders were to remain undercover until you arrived.”
“Good man,” Xavier said. “We’ll meet with them first, don’t you think, Mitchell?”
The captain nodded his agreement, his eyes darting to Alina as she moved forward. His forehead creased slightly, and she could tell he suspected that she’d been listening for a while before announcing her presence. But she hadn’t been trying to be secretive. She just hadn’t liked to interrupt.
Xavier followed the captain’s eyes, an appreciative grin pulling up one corner of his lips as he took in the effect of her hasty attempts to neaten herself up after the ride.
“Alina,” he greeted her. “A vision, even after a morning of travel. If only you could bottle up that unruffled poise of yours and sell it amongst the women of the court, you’d make a fortune.”
Alina smiled, trying to assure herself that the other men present would know Xavier’s reputation well enough not to blame her for any lack of discretion on his part.
“How pleasant that would be,” she said lightly. “I’d retire to the coast, I think.”
“Leaving us without our guide,” Xavier said in mock dismay. “Not something to wish for, then.”
The captain didn’t look very pleased with the turn of the conversation, and Alina hastened to change the topic.
“Did I hear you say you’re going to meet with the ones who made the latest report?” she asked. “Do you want me to attend, or is that unnecessary?”
“We were expecting you to come with us,” the prince said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you have somewhere more pressing to be?”
“Of course not, Your Highness. I’m at your disposal,” Alina said quickly.
“Are you?” Xavier eyed her. “How fortunate I am.”
Alina wanted to roll her eyes. She should have known he would turn her words into one of his jokes.
But her heart thudded a little as she saw something beyond flirtation in his gaze.
Something that gave him the look of a hunter.
It wasn’t a version of him she found appealing, and she certainly had no intention of fleeing like confused prey before it.
She felt her jaw set in determined lines.
Xavier’s eyes scanned her face, his own features relaxing into the amused expression she was becoming familiar with.
“Will you be ready to leave in fifteen minutes?” he asked, in a normal tone. “There’s some tea and fruit here in the meantime.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” Alina bobbed a tiny curtsy before moving toward the food he’d indicated. She had, in fact, thought she might pursue her own plans if she wasn’t needed. But visiting her aunt and uncle would have to wait.
She didn’t feel she had much to contribute during the two-hour interview with the family who’d made the report.
She listened soberly to their account both of the missing girl’s prowess with the magic craft, and the circumstances of her disappearance.
The only bright spot was that surely the account would remove any doubt about whether the missing people had really been taken by foul play.
The girl had sent all her belongings on with her friend just before making a short side trip to collect a garment she’d ordered by letter—a destination she never reached.
She’d had very definite plans with the family that night, and no history of any behavior that would suggest she was likely to slip away on her own.
“You said she was skilled with magic manipulation.” Xavier’s voice was serious. He at least seemed to believe the tale. He hadn’t so much as smiled at the close friend of the missing girl, who was quite pretty. “Did she ever receive formal training at the Craftsman’s Guild?”
“No, Your Highness,” said the father in the family.
“She had hopes of doing so in the future, but her family was still saving up for the fees. She said she wasn’t good enough to qualify for a scholarship, but she seemed it to us.
Very handy with it, she was. Once slung a rope around her father’s horse and pulled the creature clean out of a ditch, pulling on the rope no stronger’n she might to lift that chair. ” He nodded to a heavy wooden chair.
“That is impressive,” Captain Mitchell said gravely.
“As far as we know, none of those missing in the last town had ever trained at the guild,” Xavier mused. “Even though they were all apparently good with magic. I wonder why that is.”
“Maybe someone trained by the guild would be skilled enough to fight off an attacker,” suggested the mother in the family.
“Maybe.” The prince’s brow was furrowed in thought. “But we’ve had no accounts of unsuccessful attempts to take someone.”
Alina shifted slightly, and his eyes flew to her.
“Do you have a theory?” he asked.
She hesitated, feeling it wasn’t her place to speak. But his gaze remained fixed on her until she answered.
“Someone trained by the guild would be registered with the guild,” she pointed out. “Their disappearance would be much less likely to go unnoticed.”
“That’s true,” the captain acknowledged. “If someone is targeting craftsmen for some reason, it makes sense that those with ability but no official training or connection to the guild would be most vulnerable.”
Xavier’s eyes lingered on Alina’s face for so long she felt compelled to lower her gaze. It was hard not to read something more than a royal’s concern for his subjects in the crease of his brow.
After a late lunch at the inn, Alina trailed the group through several more interviews—these ones thankfully shorter.
Her heart was heavy by the end of the day, and it was only marginally because of how many girls had shamelessly tried to throw themselves at the prince throughout the afternoon.
They were even worse in Alton than they’d been in her town.
That wasn’t her main concern, though. The newly missing girl was clearly not the only one to disappear from Alton in the recent past. Someone was up to something alarming, but whoever was behind it had covered their tracks too well.
“I don’t think it can be simply opportunistic,” said a member of the team.
They were seated around a large table in the inn’s dining area, much as the group had been the night Alina served them at the tavern. It felt surreal to be one of the patrons now, somehow wedged in right next to the prince.
“Why do you say that?” Xavier asked the man.
“The circumstances,” he said. “Same with all the accounts we’ve heard.
If we take it at face value, the abductors got incredibly lucky every time, happening to choose the exact moment and location where their victim’s disappearance would be most likely to go unnoticed for some time.
Once might be luck, twice maybe. But more than that, and it starts to feel like they’ve got inside information. ”
“You think it’s someone local behind it?” the captain asked. “In spite of all the rumors about the refinement workers?”
“Or someone in the community is spying for the abductors, and giving them signals,” the first man said.
“It’s possible,” Xavier agreed. He sounded troubled. “Despicable thought. It takes the worst kind of man to turn on his own.”
Alina noticed the captain looking thoughtfully at his prince. She apparently wasn’t the only one who kept being surprised by the depth hidden under Xavier’s flippant ways.
Zuzu chose this moment to give a loud mew. She’d pushed her way onto the table, nearly knocking Charles’s tankard over in the process, and settled herself beside Xavier’s plate. He could barely get his fork to his food. She was certainly growing.
Everyone glanced at the anzu, in time to see her give a strange hacking cough, sprinkling water onto the prince’s plate in the process.