Chapter 42 #20
Kia was efficient in her inspection of the wounds and applying the salve. Then she packed up her first aid kit and said, “A quiet day at home. If everything looks good tomorrow, and you feel a bit adventurous, you can come out on a perch or platform.”
Which were high off the ground. She should have asked if there was an instruction manual that came with a new form. Then again, the Arcana didn’t know what form she would take, so they couldn’t have prepared her for the changes.
Just as Lucas closed his hands around her to lift her back into the cage, Faulkner flew over to the platform. Suddenly Rachel was glad to be inside a nest made from Lucas’s hands.
“Faulkner,” Lucas warned.
Ignoring the man, Faulkner leaned toward her, holding something red in his beak. A piece of strawberry?
Rachel considered the offering. Birds ate fruits as well as seeds, right? And Lucas was there, so if she took a nibble of the fruit, he’d protect her from the big crow, right?
She stretched her neck out enough to reach the strawberry and take a tentative taste. Different taste. Different taste buds? She had a lot to learn.
She nibbled a little more, then withdrew to the safety of Lucas’s hands. He returned her to the cage and secured the door. Then, with a sigh, he moved the platform so that it was in front of her door.
“Do not unlatch her door,” Lucas said.
“Caw,” Faulkner replied.
“I mean it.”
“Caw.”
“I won’t be far away.” Lucas left the room.
Promise or warning? Probably both.
Rachel studied Faulkner. Faulkner studied her. Then he balanced on one foot and stretched a leg and a wing. After a moment, he performed the same move on the other side.
Bird yoga? Rachel watched him do the sequence a second time before trying to imitate the moves. Legs were legs—sort of—but wings instead of arms? She would need to learn how to fly.
Faulkner flew off. He returned a minute later and shoved a raspberry between the bars of the cage, being careful to push it halfway so that it didn’t fall into the sand at the bottom of her cage. When he flew away again, he didn’t return, but she could hear him cawing somewhere outside.
She nibbled the raspberry and dozed—and thought that having a bird friend who knew where to find the berries might not be a bad thing.
39
Lucas made a quick patrol around the ornamental lake and the area of Destiny Park that was usually seen by visitors. The Arcana who were as still as stone during the daylight hours, and were mistaken for statues, were in their places, keeping watch.
Satisfied that all was as it should be, he entered the pavilion to see if Justine and her sisters had anything to tell him.
They did.
“Trouble is coming from an unexpected source,” Zerah said, looking up from her cards.
“Trouble for who?” Lucas asked.
Lysandra turned her sketch pad around for him to see. “The lark and the crow.”
Below the sketches of the birds was a sketch of Beth Fahey. “She is the source of that trouble?” Anger washed through him—and disappointment. “I expected better from her.”
“She is young and doesn’t yet understand what she is,” Justine said. “Give her a chance to learn.”
Lucas met his wife’s eyes, then looked at the scales on her table. “And risk two lives?”
“No.” She held out a bone disc that had the number 1 burned into it.
Understanding the decision made by the Ladies Three, Lucas approached Justine’s table and took the disc. “When will the young detective arrive?”
Zerah selected another card. “She’s already on the water.”
“Then I’d better be at the dock to meet her.”
Lucas strode out of the pavilion and up the stairs.
He paused a moment to rein in his anger.
A Sorcerer King’s anger—his anger—could unleash uncontrolled veins of the strange on the other side of the river.
That wasn’t something he wanted happening right now.
But if Beth Fahey was coming to Wyrd to do harm, she would learn how much a life could be twisted by a limited but controlled vein of the strange.
40
Was it a good sign or a bad sign that Lucas Frost was waiting for her when the ferry docked?
“Are you the welcoming committee?” she asked when she reached him.
“That depends on why you’re here. This way.” Lucas turned and strode up the boardwalk and then along the dirt path that would take them close to the cabins.
“I need to go to the pavilion,” Beth said as she trotted to keep up with him.
“No, you don’t.”
There was a finality to those words that chilled her.
He led her behind the cabins to a set of stairs that ended at a wide woodland path.
Following that, he walked for another minute before stopping in an alcove.
Beth caught a glimpse of the ornamental lake—a small comfort since she had the unsettling feeling that she could be in another place or time, and Lucas’s presence was the only thing keeping her grounded in the here and now.
“Say what you came to say, then leave,” Lucas said.
Nothing friendly or tolerant about the words. This was a decree made by a ruler who allowed no challengers. Was this change of attitude the reason Captain Forrester had warned her not to ask about the other women?
“Yesterday, police from several towns along the river investigated some linked and puzzling cases involving missing persons,” Beth said, feeling her way as if the words were thinning ice and one mistake might cause her to crash through—and not be able to surface.
Lucas said nothing.
“A woman named Rachel Nightingale called the thirteenth precinct and asked for me. She said there was a man watching her and she was afraid. She abandoned her phone while at a library in King’s Hill.
Now she is missing.” Beth paused to see if there was any reaction from Frost. “People who care about her are worried about her.”
“People who truly care about her already know they don’t need to worry about her.” Lucas’s voice held the kind of cold that could burn, but he wasn’t unleashing a blast at her. Not yet, anyway.
“Then why doesn’t…?” Beth thought about the precision of the words. Thought about a writer doing research on women’s shelters and what that might mean beyond a story—and why women usually sought such places. “These people know where she is?”
“No. But they know she is safe—and out of reach of her enemies.”
Enemies? “Her fiancé doesn’t know where she is.”
“As I said. She’s out of reach of her enemies.”
Beth considered all the things she wanted to know about yesterday’s events and realized Frost wouldn’t tell her about any of them. Not now. Maybe she could confirm one thing. “You were given the PIN for her phone?”
Frost gave her a look that made Beth feel like she was being dissected. “Rachel Nightingale was here. Now she is gone, and whatever was of interest to her enemies has vanished with her.” He waited. “Something else?”
Beth hesitated. Then she opened her purse, took out the missing persons picture of the boy, and held it out to Frost. “Do you know anything about him? He’s been missing for several months now. His family…They want to find him, bring him home.”
Something feral and dangerous suddenly filled the alcove. Something that emanated from Lucas Frost. His voice held the timbre of primeval forests and forbidden places. “I’m sure they do want him back. It’s hard to keep secrets hidden behind closed doors if one of the victims escapes.”
Beth stared at him. Victims? “Do you know…?”
Frost reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a bone disc with the number 1 burned into it, and held it out to her.
“You owe us three favors. This is the first. You will never again ask about Rachel Nightingale or this boy. Not here. If you’re required to investigate, keep your investigations confined to the other side of the river. Don’t bring them to Wyrd.”
“If I can’t oblige?”
“Then I will ban you from the Isle of Wyrd and make sure you never reach us again.”
“You’ll tell the people at the pier not to let me board the ferry?”
“Whether you’re allowed on the ferry is the Ferryman’s choice.
I will make sure you never get beyond the beach, that you never get beyond any part of the island’s shore.
You will be banned, Beth Fahey, personally and professionally.
” Frost held out the disc again. “You made a bargain with the Arcana. Do you really want to find out what happens if you break it?”
No, she didn’t.
Defeated, Beth took the disc. She folded the picture of the boy and shoved it in her purse. “Rachel Nightingale was afraid and called me for help—and I didn’t get there in time.” The words were a confession, an apology for overstepping boundaries.
Frost said nothing. Then he huffed out a breath. “Come with me.”
He took another route, but in a couple of minutes, they were back in the area of the park within sight of the ornamental lake and the pavilion. Neutral ground. Limited safety—as long as a person obeyed the rules.
Frost didn’t head for the entrance to the pavilion.
Instead he walked toward what looked like solid walls until he was a few feet away.
Then a solid archway became a doorway that led into a big room with windows that let in light and provided a view of the park.
A big conference table was on one side of the room.
The rest of the room looked like a CEO’s office. Expensive. Expansive.
Frost walked to another arched doorway and went into another room.
As Beth followed him, something in the doorway seemed to catch hold of her for a moment before letting her through.
That something caused a momentary disorientation, had her seeing multiple versions of the room—had her almost seeing something so terrible it could break a person’s mind.
Then the room righted itself, and Lucas Frost watched her.