“What are you going to do?” Branwyn heard the boy ask.
“Go and find her, of course. Any bit of information you can give me will help, but not until you’ve drunk at least half that and eaten three bites of the cake. You’ll be more harm than good talking until you get yourself steady. Gods help me, I know that.”
Branwyn heard the muffled noises of eating and drinking, as well as footsteps. Zelen was pacing, she guessed.
“When you’ve finished,” he said, “and not before, let’s start with the obvious question. Why did you think I was the one who’d kidnapped Tanya—or all of the missing, going by what you said earlier when you were trying to break my jaw with your head? By the way, old man, excellent effort, but I’d have thrown the tea at me first off, were I in your place.”
The boy laughed nervously, but almost immediately began. “We were playing before dinner. In an alley. I wasn’t daring her to do nothing dangerous, not after she broke her arm, so we stuck to ground. I was hiding and she was looking for me, that was all. Except she didn’t find me by time, so I headed back to the start…and I saw her. She—” The flow of words sped up and became ragged. “There were two men dragging her into a carriage. One had his hand on her mouth so she couldn’t scream. The other was a man I’d seen before. With you. When you said you were trying to find my brother.”
* * *
No wonder we didn’t find a damned thingwas Zelen’s first thought.
His second thought wasn’t really a thought at all. It was pure rage, unfiltered by words. His family was the immediate target, but he himself wasn’t far behind. The connection between the missing children and the demon, not to mention Gedomir’s talk of “expeditions” and “supply,” was obvious in retrospect. If he’d reflected on it more…
That didn’t matter. The boy—Mitri—was staring at him, waiting for a response. Tanya was in his family’s grasp, waiting for a response as well.
“Well,” Zelen said, “trying to stab me was basically sound. Just a tad misdirected, and you weren’t to know.” Mitri blinked. “Never mind. I’ve found out a few things about my family recently. This is one more. Finish up the rest of the food. I don’t suppose you’ll wait quietly here while I take care of matters?”
“Like Sitha’s arse I will!”
“The right spirit, I must say.” Zelen went to the door again. “Idriel, if—”
“He’s just coming back,” said Branwyn. “Get me a paper and pen. I’ll write a message to Lycellias while you’re getting dressed and having the horses saddled. I dress very quickly when I need to, and your grooms won’t listen to me quite as well as they will to you. You don’t think she’s in the city, do you?”
“No,” he said. “They wouldn’t have brought a coach, and”—he glanced over his shoulder at Dimitri, who was staring past him at Branwyn—“the situation’s at the house in the country.”
Zelen did the math as he turned to retrieve writing implements, calculating how long it would take to get out of the city earlier in the evening and the speed of a laden coach compared to that of fast horses. “We might make it,” he said quietly, handing parchment and pen to Branwyn, “but not if we wait for others—not even if they act at once.”
Human sacrifice required specific times, didn’t it? Or was that merely a device of plays, which said that all murders must take place at midnight, preferably in thunderstorms? Zelen could only hope that the truth was in their favor, but he couldn’t count on it.
“I know,” said Branwyn. She was writing quickly, steadying the paper against the wall and covering both wall and wrist with ink as a result. “Twelve guards might be a problem, even for both of us, and magic will be worse.”
Idriel came back down the hall then, the two grooms trailing behind him. Zelen considered them as possible allies, then rejected the notion. Lena was strapping enough, and Jander nimble, but they had no real training in armed combat. They might have done for hunting down a few criminals, but he couldn’t in good conscience take them up against the guards of Verengir, let alone whatever magical tricks Hanyi might pull.
“I’ll need Brandy and Jester ready to ride as soon as you can get them saddled,” he told the grooms. “Idriel, take this to Tinival’s temple as fast as you can.” Zelen passed over the folded message as soon as Branwyn handed it to him. “And bring the boy along. He’s an important witness.”
That would make Dimitri less trouble, gods willing.
He took Idriel’s armload—tunic, trousers, boots, and belt, complete with sword—and began changing then and there.
“Come along, lady,” said Lena to Branwyn. “There’s a set of my clothes that’ll fit you.”
Zelen only realized then that he’d either been expecting Branwyn to have clothing ready or to go fight armed men while wearing his dressing gown. He would have been embarrassed about that oversight as well, except that he had every confidence she could have done exactly that and triumphed under most circumstances.
* * *
“You’ve got two guards on the front,” Branwyn said, swinging up onto the roan mare that Lena had provided for her and looking to Zelen on his brown gelding, “and two at…what, the servants’ entrance?”
“Outside the stable building, yes.”
“Any chance we can catch the carriage and waylay that?”
“Not much. Might catch them as they arrive.”
“Tactically sticky.”
Zelen, who knew the city better than Branwyn, nudged his horse into the rapid start that the young animal seemed eager for, and they were off as fast as they could go. Heliodar’s streets slowed them down, though, so they made plans while the horses jogged.
