Chapter Three Plan Faster #2
“I don’t think Lady Tarm is that wealthy,” Jubilee said.
Saeldian had to play their part. “Is your garb fine enough that you will look like nobles of Waterdeep in them?”
“No,” Lorzok said. “They’re well made, not high fashion.”
“We’ll come up with something,” Kell said. “Not servants, not lords…entertainers. Do they only hire second cousins of the scullery for that?”
All Saeldian would have to do was grab a couple of things and be on the road. Not the road. Too close to sundown, but there was a sailing tide right when the party would start. Enough gold to the right priest would buy a cursebreaking—
Saeldian stumbled as their vision went black. Pain lit tiny flames on their fingertips. Their right foot couldn’t hold on to the ground, and that was so strange, they only realized they were falling when someone caught them.
Someone strong. Who—what was happening—
The vow. The vow bound in the stone they carried.
The vow that Saeldian would absolutely uphold, of course!
Saeldian wouldn’t dream of trying to escape.
They had promised to bring the Kiss of Enduring Love back to where it belonged as fast as they could, and they would use every trick in the book to make it happen, whatever it took.
The flames of pain snuffed. Strength flowed back into their limbs. Saeldian had sworn a fey oath before, but not one that hurt so much at even the thought of breaking it. Their vision returned, and Saeldian beheld Lorzok’s concerned face as he held them in his arms.
“Are you well, Saer Charmhand?”
Of course it had been Lorzok. Kell would have let them collapse in the street first.
Saeldian summoned everything they had to smile at him. “I felt faint.”
“You did faint.” Lorzok brushed curls away from Saeldian’s brow to place his hand on their forehead. “Warm. Let me—”
“Save it,” Kell said. “Saeldian can swoon in a heartbeat and weep in the next. Whatever the occasion calls for.”
“Kell. My friend,” Lorzok said, his tone as mild as a Waterdhavian who was ready to punch someone. “Shut up, please.”
Lorzok’s hand cooled, and that feeling—like a brook laughing over stones, the water colder and cleaner than even magic could make it—filled Saeldian with peace and strength.
Lorzok let them stand on their own. “Steady now?”
“Steady,” Saeldian agreed. “Thank you. Maybe I’ve had too much sun.”
Jubilee tried to take Lorzok’s place in steadying Saeldian, but they didn’t need it. Another pinch of fleece had the spell working again. “We’re back. Where were we?”
“Sheld, you fainted in the street. Are you—”
“I said, we’re back.” Saeldian strode forward.
Jubilee huffed but kept up. Kell muttered something non-complimentary as he and Lorzok fell in behind them. Saeldian was being an ass now. But they had to keep moving. They were in a trap, and there was no way out but through.
It was time to be strong. It was time to look strong.
Saeldian ran through all the steps Osalor had taught them about posture.
Posture is the foundation of disguise. How you stand tells people who you are.
Their patron had drilled them in posture, movement, control—hours spent looking at a mirror that held their own reflection and the sight of Osalor, patiently instructing and doing his best to hide when he was disappointed.
“I’m sorry, Jubilee,” Saeldian said. “You didn’t do anything to deserve being snapped at.”
“I know it wasn’t about me. Kell said they could come in as entertainers, right? That will work,” Jubilee said. “If they’re good.”
“Kell is good,” Saeldian said. “He could sing a robin right out of the trees, even without being a bard.”
Lorzok made a surprised noise. “I’ve never heard you sing, Kell.”
He hadn’t?
“You haven’t,” Kell agreed, “because I don’t.”
Yes, he did! What—
Saeldian looked over their shoulder. Kell turned his face so they couldn’t see his expression. He didn’t sing anymore. Since when?
Saeldian knew since when. And he blamed them for that too.
Saeldian pressed their amulet against their breastbone, but it didn’t volunteer any guidance on demand. It never had. But it had thumped in the tearoom, and the amulet had never been wrong. Unless…had Briona been touching them when it knocked against their breastbone? They couldn’t remember.
But if Briona had been? She could have used a spell to fake the amulet’s guidance. But to know to do that, she would have to know something about Saeldian that only two people in Faer?n did. And that made sense only if—
“All right.” Jubilee used the patient tone she wielded on her younger siblings when they were clashing. “We still don’t have a plan, so we need ideas. Kell, you still fiddle, I see. Lorzok, do you sing?”
“No. I can do birdcalls,” Lorzok suggested.
“I’m sure they’re excellent,” Jubilee said, “but that’s not quite what we’d need.”
“Maybe it’s just me and Jubilee on the inside,” Saeldian said. “There’s no way I can hold disguises on both of you. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
“Oh dear. Just when I thought we were having a good time,” Kell said. “It will not be just you and Jubilee. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
What? “I have to rest for a bit if I’m going to have my full potential on hand.”
“And you can do that,” Kell said, “where I can be sure you’re not running out on me again. Our rooms at the Golden Rose are quite nice.”
Saeldian stopped too fast for Kell to keep from bumping into them. He caught Saeldian mid-stumble, one hand around their arm and one at their shoulder. Saeldian sprang away and scrubbed the touch off their arm.
“Are you hurt?”
It still tingled. “No.”
“All right, then. Let’s go wherever you were headed. Where you go, I go.”
“Sheld…” Jubilee said. “It’s okay. The bath is finished. Dad fixed the leak. There’s plenty of room, and you know Ma always fixes too much for dinner.”
Kell chuckled. “You’re staying at her parents’ house?”
“They live at my house,” Jubilee corrected. “With my family. Who adore them.”
“Do they.” Kell’s voice was dry as sand.
It wasn’t up to Saeldian to say whom Jubilee could or couldn’t invite to her home, but Saeldian hated the idea of Kell walking through the gates and sneering at Righthoof Manor.
“It’s a bit of a walk,” Saeldian said. “I’m sure you’ll find an old lady to help across the street on the way.”
“Funny,” Kell drawled. “Maybe you should be an entertainer at the party.”
“All right, let’s play nice,” Jubilee said. “You’re a big fellow, Lorzok, but…druid? Am I right? I thought maybe ranger, but after the healing you just did, it makes sense.”
“I am a steward of the wild, yes,” Lorzok agreed. “I love the balance of nature, and I have been blessed with many of its gifts.”
Jubilee patted his elbow. “Solid. Cities aren’t your favorite, then?”
“Nature is here, friend.” Lorzok lifted one finger, and an iridescent speckled starling landed on it. “Nature is never gone from a place unless it is eradicated…and even that never lasts for long.”
“Lorzok’s powers are impressive,” Kell said. “Animals adore him, of course, but animals always know who’s worthy of trust, don’t they? They know faster than we do.”
Saeldian’s insides went dull and heavy. Kell hated them. He sometimes had moments when grief and fury wrapped him up—those days when he couldn’t help but look for a sign that the Feywild had pushed close enough that he could enter. But today he was cold, unforgiving stone.
Saeldian watched Kell out of the corner of their eye. He just happened to be in Waterdeep at the right time—was this his scheme? Was this revenge?
It didn’t matter. Saeldian had no choice about doing the job. They just had to be wary of Kell Redsong, whatever that took.
“Jubilee’s a fine lockpick and building infiltration specialist,” Saeldian said. “I’m a warlock. My patron’s an archfey, though, not a devil. Kell is…What do you do, Kell, since you don’t sing?”
“Good deeds,” Kell said.
Oh, this was going to be wonderful.
Kell shaded his eyes against the sun and watched Saeldian walk ahead of him as if taking a stroll alone. The ten years he earned being someone without Saeldian Charmhand had crumbled the moment he walked in the door and saw them, and nothing he thought he’d say or do came to pass.
Suddenly, nothing mattered but making his ex-partner—his ex-friend—hurt. He needed to get under their skin like he needed to breathe. When they lost their temper, it was like a shot of cask-strength spirit swallowed in a gulp; the feeling was too much, and not enough.
“Kell?”
He could hear Lorzok. He could feel the sunshine’s warm touch on his hair and his shoulders. He could smell feast cakes baking, but—
The Flaming Fist had dragged him to Wyrm’s Rock barefoot. They had herded him into a chamber that had nobody in it but a magistrate and a secretary, who had recorded every careful word he’d said.
The way the magistrate talked about the theft without saying exactly what the object was for the official records was sneaky.
Anyone could hang for any theft, but they didn’t want the details of this theft known.
The clever white-haired dwarf in charge gave a guilty verdict and smirked when he told Kell he would see the gallows the next time he saw the dawn.
Then they shoved him in a cell. He had stood in a puddle on the floor, and the wet was wicking up the hem of the rough uniform they’d made him wear.
He was trying hard not to think of what that puddle might be.
His entrance had interrupted a conversation among the cell’s occupants, and he stood in that puddle while three sets of narrowed eyes bored into him.
All men. The man with the fiercest glare had the kind of hair that went dull and colorless cooped inside but brightened to blond in the sun.
He’d been punched one time too many, judging by the slant of his nose.
In the middle was a handsome dark-skinned gent who smirked after he’d sized Kell up.
The last was hardly old enough to shave.