Moira grinned. “It’s an optical illusion. There are doors at the bottom. They’re just hard to see. The main window is a balcony of sorts. It’s where their sentries fly in and out. There’s another lower one on the other side for the regular swans.”
“That thing must be twenty stories tall. I wonder how many swans live inside.”
“Not many.” Moira dropped her binoculars. “There are two sentries tonight, but we can easily evade them if we time it right. They go to sleep by 10:30, and they’re a little militant about their bedtime. It’s 11:30 now, so everyone but the sentries should be asleep.”
“I’m going to send some magic out to check the land. Keep an eye out?”
“Always.”
I sank to the ground and pushed my fingers into the dirt, slowly inching my way forward until I crossed the land’s boundary.
Sadness and grief. So much sadness. I sucked in a breath and had to force myself not to withdraw.
The land didn’t speak to me the same way people did. Not usually. I received images and feelings, and these were overpowering. Underneath it, the land pulsed with health. Whatever faults the swans had, they cared for their land and took care of the earth. The soil was fertile, and in warmer weather, the Keep would be bursting with color. Dahlia and anemone bulbs rested under the soil. Seeds dropped from last year’s perennials slept, awaiting springtime once more.
There were no signs of children or innocence. I loved reading land that hosted a lot of children. Joy resonated through the soil. The earth loved kids, and kids loved the earth back. They were still in awe of the land’s bounties, where adults might have taken such for granted. But here, there was no such joy, only a deep longing.
I kept moving, closer and closer to the Keep and stopped, searching for any greenery inside.
There. Something in a hallway, I thought. I withdrew and touched the houseplant. A pothos. I grinned. The most common houseplant in the country always offered a way for me to spy.
Fat glossy leaves and moist soil filled with nutrition spoke to a healthy and mostly happy pothos. There was less grief here as houseplants were usually planted with store-bought dirt and not dirt from the land. This pothos hadn’t experienced the land’s grief. I waited, my conscience linked with the plant, but there was nothing but silence.
I stayed for several minutes until I was sure there was no activity. Moira was right, the Keep was asleep.
I came to with Moira still crouched beside me.
“Good?” she asked.
“Everything’s quiet inside.”
Moira grinned. “Let’s go.”
I followed Moira’s cues, stopping when she said stop and moving when she said move, until we were at the door. Moira reached out and turned the handle.
It opened smoothly.
“No way,” I whispered.
Even Moira seemed surprised. “They have no natural enemies within the shifter communities.”
“Really? But they suck.”
Moira snorted softly. “They do, but they’ve never been a real threat to anyone before.”
“Where should we start?”
“We find either a library or an office and search through everything.”
Moira opened the door, and we both slipped inside.
Two hours later, we’d found absolutely nothing.
“This is useless,” I whispered. “How are we going to find anything in this mess?”
“Mess is right,” Moira said as she looked around at the piles of paper and scattered books. “I don’t even see a file cabinet.”
“I hate swans.”
