Chapter 20
Prince Enhart trailed after me like a mildly irritated shadow as we headed into the city.
His features were now hidden beneath a cowl following an encounter with a subject who’d nearly turned her horse’s head into a signpost at the sight of him.
I’d watched, bewildered, as the woman fawned over the prince, the child strapped to her back staring up at him with wonder.
“Does that always happen?” I asked, suppressing a grin as we traipsed through the muddied alleyways.
“If you didn’t know me, you might act the same,” he replied stiffly.
I rolled my eyes, wondering if that might be true.
My boots splashed in the snowmelt as we turned into another alley.
Since the night of the attack, I had returned to the city only in my nightmares.
The sight of the path ahead set my teeth on edge.
As we approached the familiar spot where Ewan’s life had ended, I came to a halt, my eyes trained on the cobblestones before me.
“Now what?” Enhart asked, fixing me with a stare.
“Look for clues?” I posited, coaxing a snort from the prince.
“I’m starting to think your seneschal friend had a point. You don’t have a plan?”
My brow creased. “What do you mean?”
“Your hushed conversation in the corridor some weeks ago?” he offered.
“You heard that?” I asked, bewildered.
He gestured at his ear. “Vampire, remember?”
My cheeks warmed. Who knew what else he’d overheard. Forcing the thought from my mind, I squinted at the scene in front of me, rubbing my temples as an idea formed.
I’d read about trace magic some weeks ago, first invented in times of war to help track down escaped prisoners. I’d never tried it, but it didn’t seem that difficult. I just needed to concentrate on what I wanted to see.
Magic thrummed behind my eyes, three pairs of golden-hued footsteps appearing before us.
I smirked at Enhart, who rolled his eyes in response.
When I examined the trail, it wasn’t difficult to determine whose footsteps were whose.
Mordric’s, the largest pair, were planted squarely in front of a tangled mess of Ewan’s and mine.
Suppressing a shudder, I traced our footsteps backward to where they diverged.
I had entered the alleyways from the direction of Adele’s home.
Ewan, on the other hand, had approached from the Artisans’ District to the east.
“Which one of you was running like an oaf?” asked Enhart, frowning as he peered down at the haphazard pattern of prints.
I scowled. “Do you really have to ask?”
He raised his eyebrows at me pointedly. “Ewan,” I said.
“There was something strange about the way he moved that night. It was as if he was being propelled forward by strings.” The hairs on my arms stood up as I recalled the nearly imperceptible moment when he’d lowered his blade as I pleaded with him to come to his senses.
I could have sworn that I had seen the briefest pall of consciousness flicker across his gaze.
“What else do you remember?” he asked.
“The air,” I said finally.
He cocked his head. “The air?”
“There was this air around him,” I said, gesturing to the empty space around my head.
“Like an aura?”
“What is that?”
“It’s a sort of energy that surrounds magical beings. You have to focus to see it, but it’s what makes it easy to discern between us.”
I stared at him blankly.
“I said focus.”
I groaned, but did as he said. If I narrowed my eyes, I could discern the slightest tinge to his silhouette.
It was barely perceptible, but I could tell it was a cool blue, like a delicate film of ice stretched across a pond.
I glanced down at myself, unable to distinguish anything even when I squeezed my eyes tight.
“Could Ewan have been a witch?” I wondered aloud.
“You don’t think he would have told you that?”
“We didn’t talk much.”
A wicked grin spread across Enhart’s features. “Well, well, well.”
I waved my hand dismissively at him, turning so that he might not see the flush warming my cheeks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“I didn’t actually say—”
“Can we refocus?” I interrupted.
“Of course,” he replied gleefully. “What color was your friend’s aura?”
I paused, conjuring the image in my mind. “Black, I guess.”
“Witches tend to have more of a golden hue.”
“How many witches have you met, exactly?”
“Three. Including you.”
I glanced up at him. So few for a vampire who had already lived a long life and traveled to the far reaches of the map.
He straightened, gesturing in the direction of the footsteps. “Shall we?”
I wound my way through the city with Enhart on my heels.
Few people milled about the shops, the air thick with the scent of smoke from the fires burning in every hearth.
The tip of my nose stung in the frosty air.
The footsteps eventually led us around the back of a crooked building I recognized as the blacksmith’s workshop, and disappeared down through a locked cellar door.
I paused, glancing sideways at the prince.
“You won’t report me to the guard for opening this, will you?”
“No, but if Mordric asks, I’m saying that you brought me here against my will.”
“Fair enough,” I muttered.
Gripping the steel padlock, I let my magic seep into the keyhole. Rivulets of ice formed, breaking the lock from the inside. It came apart in my hands and I pulled back the wooden door, revealing a dark cellar but no ladder that I could see.
“I suppose all of these little tricks you’re displaying are a sign that you do listen to me,” said Enhart, squeezing past me and dropping into the darkness without hesitation.
“Of course,” I called after him. “I take this to mean that you’re finally interested in helping me?”
His face appeared at the bottom of the opening. “Not at all, but if there are any other murderous apprentices roaming around down here, Mordric would have me drawn and quartered for letting you drop into their laps.”
I smirked. “Drawn and quartered, strung up like a lamb. Is His Majesty truly this creative in his punishments?”
“Let’s not ask questions to which we don’t want the answers.”
I blanched.
He beckoned for me to jump, but I hesitated. “I’m not going to drop you,” he insisted.
I steeled myself and slipped into the cellar, his hands wrapping around my waist to slow my fall.
My breath caught in my throat as he lowered me into the dark, and when my boots touched the creaky wooden floor, I found myself mere inches from his face.
For a brief moment, his lips parted, as if he were about to speak.
Instead, he cleared his throat, stepping back and running a hand through his inky black hair.
I snapped my fingers and the torches hanging from the walls sprang to life, the light of the flames flicking across the small room.
The chamber was littered with spare tools typical of a blacksmith.
A cracked grinding stone stood in the corner, and leather aprons were stacked haphazardly on crooked shelves.
The air was musty, as if the dust had been gathering for months.
“He never brought you here?” asked Enhart, eyes flicking around.
“No,” I replied. “It just looks like storage.”
“I think there’s actually more to this place than meets the eye,” he mused.
“How do you know?”
He paused. “The smell.”
I sniffed the air. “It just smells damp to me.”
“There’s something else. Death.”
I swallowed. “You can smell death?”
He nodded. “It’s faint, but there’s a distinct stench of decomposition. Something, or someone, died here recently.”
The hair on my arms stood on end as he ran his fingers along the wall, coming to a halt where some of the clutter had been cleared.
A click sounded as a wooden panel slid noisily out of place.
I forced myself forward, my footsteps creaking on the wooden floorboards until I could see over Enhart’s shoulder.
My stomach churned at the sight before me. Four skeletons lay on the floor of the cramped room, arranged anatomically from skull to toe. A symbol with five points was etched faintly into the wooden slats beneath them. In its center sat a small copper basin.
Enhart stepped into the room, frowning. “It’s a pentagram.”
“A what?” I croaked, my nails carving half-moons into my palms.
“The symbol on the floor. It’s an arcane shape, sacred to certain magical sects.” He slipped into the room, crouching at the head of one of the skeletons.
“Are they … the missing girls?” I whispered.
He glanced up at me. “Perhaps, although the remains look much older than they should after only a few months. But I suppose if they were stripped of flesh somehow …” He trailed off, peering closely at the remains.
I wavered at the entrance to the room, resisting the urge to look away.
“These two appear to be significantly older than the others,” he continued, gesturing at the skeletons on the north and west arms of the pentagram. “Especially this one. See the dust?”
I did not, as I was actively trying not to look at them too closely.
The prince picked carefully through the contents of the basin, laying an assortment of items before him.
A tarnished coin. A silver pendant with a swan etched into the surface.
A clay bracelet with beads of all different sizes, as if crafted by a child.
Finally, a small blue vial, which I was certain I had seen before in the window of a perfumer in north Valnar.
I released a shallow breath. “What is that?”
He shrugged. “Junk to us, but these items may have been important to their owners. The coin proves my theory though,” he said, holding it up to the light. “It’s been out of circulation for decades. How old was your man?”
“He wasn’t my man,” I said quickly.
“Fine, how old was your casual acquaintance?” he replied.
“Not much older than me. Nine and twenty, I think?”
“Then unless he’s been killing since before he could walk, at least two of these victims aren’t his.”