They slipped into a narrow walkway between two buildings that ended in a cliff-side. At their backs were the cliffs they’d entered from—and if the bluffs before them were anything like those, then these too had countless passages winding within them, no doubt attached in some way to the building.
“What’re you looking for?” Taavin breathed, his back pressed against the wall as Vi leaned forward slightly to peer into a window.
“Anything.” It wasn’t a good answer, but her mind was moving too quickly. She barely had time to form her thoughts, let alone explain them to him. The elfin’ra she’d seen was inside, standing at the side of a table surrounded by four others—one more elfin’ra, a morphi, and what appeared to be two humans.
Vi brought a finger to her lips, motioning to Taavin for silence. Leaning against the wall on the other side of the window, Vi pressed her ear to the frosted wood of the building. She covered her other ear with a hand, closing her eyes and focusing on the muffled words, only catching every few.
“… patrols are…”
“So far there’s no sign…”
“They’ll… up soon…”
“Adela will want… keep them alive…”
“… prisoner?”
“Guard change will happen… far he’s being quiet and…”
“… keep a close eye.”
Vi struggled to piece together the missing blanks. She listened until her pounding heart drowned out the soft words. Was she hearing correctly? Or was her mind playing tricks on her and feeding her what she wanted to hear?
They had little else to go on. Her suspicion that Adela would keep the elfin’ra close was supported by the conversation. Surely they were talking about her and Taavin showing no sign of coming to rescue her father.
There was a shuffling of chairs and Vi leaned forward slightly. Whatever little council she’d been overhearing disbanded. The two elfin’ra headed back, the others started for the door. Vi motioned for Taavin and they stepped back further into the shadows of the alley as half the group left the building, none the wiser that the very people they were on the lookout for were right under their noses.
Vi kept her ear against the wall, hearing the creaking of wood, the closing of doors, the dull metallic thud of locks being engaged and disengaged. She ran toward the back of the building, getting ahead of the elfin’ra moving through it. Leaning forward, Vi peered through the frost clouding the window of a dark room.
She squinted, making out shapes moving within it. A flash of red. Vi pulled back, pressing herself flat against the wall. Taavin mirrored her motions, trusting her without word or explanation.
“… thought I saw something.” One of the voices from earlier drew near.
Vi wriggled her fingers, keeping her magic at the ready. The spark was eager, curling like lightning right at the edge of each of her movements.
Another voice said something Vi couldn’t make out.
She glanced at the window, trying to make herself as flat and small as possible. The heat radiating off her beaded the frost into water at the bottom edge.Please don’t let them notice, she silently prayed.
“It’s nothing.” Footsteps thudded away, carrying the voice with it.
Vi closed her eyes, breathing, counting to twenty. The room was completely still for the second half of her count. She dared to lean forward, peeking through the lower corner of the window.
The room was empty.
Vi stood, stepping around Taavin, pressing her ear back to the building. There were no more sounds of doors. No more footsteps.
“We’re going in.” Vi started for the main street with wide, hasty steps. She had no idea when, or if, the previous three people would return. Or if another group would soon arrive.
No one stopped them as they rounded the front. Vi’s hand fell on the metal handle, pushing on it. But it didn’t move.
A scream wriggled up in her throat, but it escaped as a few hushed words.
“Juth calt.” The metal around the lock splintered, cracking. Vi pushed her way in before anyone on the street could look in their direction. Rushing over to the table, Vi propped up a chair against the door underneath the handle. It wouldn’t stop someone for very long, but it would at least keep the now-broken door closed at a glance, and make noise if anyone tried to follow behind them.
“Was that wise?” Taavin asked, as though she could somehow change her actions now. Vi shot him a dumb look that seemed to communicate the fact. “The morphi have a way to sense when Lightspinning has been used in their lands. What if Fallor has set up the same here?”
Vi hadn’t considered that. “Even if he did, it’s likely as Arwin said: he’s the only one who would’ve been able to sense it. And even if there are morphi here who can sense it—they have Lightspinners on their crew, remember?”
