Never mind the message she supposed Acair had tucked into his purse with the other one he’d been given in Tor Neroche.
“Let’s go fetch our pony and be away,” Acair said. “Lovely night for flying, what’s left of it.”
She had several things to say about any sort of night that might require them to fly andlovelydidn’t find itself on that list. But she was traveling with a black mage who was being pursued by a nameless enemy and he’d just added an angry monarch to his own list of unlovely things.
She sincerely hoped that might be the last of the unpleasant things they would need to putthere.
Six
Acair kept to the shadows, though he had to admit he wondered why he bothered.
I’m watching you, but you knew that...
He did, though he’d be damned if he had any idea who that watcher might be—and that in spite of now having had two of the same sort of messages delivered to him. It was obviously a poor jest. His brothers were too stupid to have concocted such a dull piece of sport, so perhaps when he had an opening in his diary he would take the time to speculate on which of his enemies might have had the wit to combine the same. It would be an extremely short list, to be sure.
That he might not haveanyname to put on that list was what was leaving him looking over his shoulder far more often than he usually did. It was that looking over his shoulder that wassurely the only reason he almost walked himself and Léirsinn directly into a clutch of mages.
He pulled her off the street and into a darkened corner so quickly, he feared he had caused her to squeak. That she didn’t bloody his nose for the way he wrapped his arms around her and voiced a few endearments of the sort a man with a paid companion might offer was something of a mercy.
“To the eastern gates, then,” said a voice behind him. “We’ll lie in wait for him there.”
“Won’t he be expecting the like?”
There was a lengthy discussion about where the most advantageous spot for snaring an unsuspecting mage might lie. Acair suppressed a sigh. It was honestly a wonder he hadn’t simply perished from boredom long before the present moment. So few decent mages possessed the ability to execute a decent bit of mayhem. Obviously, based on what he was hearing, Simeon wasn’t able to pay what a more exclusive worker of magic would require.
A tap on his shoulder almost sent him pitching forward into Léirsinn, but he maintained his composure and limited himself to a grunt of annoyance.
“Seen any suspicious lads in the area,” asked the mage behind him, “or were you too occupied with your very pedestrian business there?”
“Oy, master,” Acair said in his best workaday accent, “I’ve only a bit longer ’afore me witch at home wakes, so I’ve no time for lookin’ about.”
The cluster of fools laughed, entertaining themselves with comments about the superior nature of their magely endeavors and the substandard entertainments of the local rabble before they walked off. Acair shook his head in disgust. He despaired for the future of his profession, truly he did.
He waited until the hunters had disappeared around a corner before he pulled back and looked at Léirsinn.
“My apologies,” he whispered.
She looked unsettled. He wasn’t sure if it was because of him or those feeble lads he’d just avoided, but decided abruptly that it might be best just not to know.
“The king’s mages?” she managed.
“If they could be termed thus,” he said, “aye.”
“What are we going to do now if they’re hunting you?”
“We’ll do our best to keep our unflattering comments on their skill to ourselves and settle in for a bit of a wait. It might be useful to have somewhere to hide.”
“But we’re not going to look for Mansourah,” she said, shaking her head as she said it.
Acair took that as a sign that she didn’t particularly want to go look for their companion and he was happy to agree. He suspected that not even that notorious busybody Soilléir of Cothromaiche could determine the whereabouts of that bumbling prince of Neroche, who had admittedly done a fine job of allowing them time to get out the window but was currently making up for that by not being anywhere he could be easily found. Acair could only hope they weren’t trapped thanks to the delay.
He considered the things he could do to keep himself awake for the foreseeable future and settled for the idea of having a quick peek at Simeon’s spellbook. It might be the only thing that kept him out of trouble where that red-haired horse miss was concerned.
“Let’s find a bit of light,” he said. “I’ll have a look at my prize whilst we’re waiting.”
She pursed her lips, which he supposed said everything he needed to know about her opinions of his activities, but what elsecould she have expected? For all they knew, he was doing the world a very great service by removing a dangerous book of spells from the grasp of a king with just enough magic to get himself tangled in the proverbial weeds.
Altruistic to the last. He would have that inscribed on a headstone and tuck the damned thing in his mother’s garden for future use. He could do nothing less.
