“Not soon enough,” Lowe remarked.
The trip back to the Pelf went slower, Calya’s feet beginning to drag as weariness set in. Between trekking through the mountains, falling down them, and the incomplete mending, sleep beckoned.
Dulled as she was, Calya perked up when the sound of Brint’s voice was carried to them by the wind. She looked around, spotting two figures going toward the mages’ office across the street. Brint was trying to speak quietly, which, from him, only made the conversation sound more suspicious.
Though Calya tried to slow down, Lowe kept her walking. “Don’t draw attention,” he murmured. “But look at who he’s with.”
Brint and his companion stopped outside the office door, directly under its lamp. Calya couldn’t hear their parting words, but before the other man went inside, she had a clear view of his profile. Rhellian, wearing a tatty cloak.
Excitement flared to life in her chest, burning off any lingering exhaustion. It was the same Rhellian man she’d seen meeting with Brint back in Renstown. The same man who was supposedly just off “checking on another site” for the Coalition’s planted mages posing as Sylveren folk.
Eren Galwynd had returned.
Chapter Fourteen
“I definitely need to search Brint’s room,” Calya said with poorly contained glee.
As he followed Calya back into the inn, Nocren didn’t try to hide his dismay, but she ignored it all the same. For all her insistence to the contrary, the beginnings of fatigue were starting to show, and not even the return of the Rhellian mage could truly cure it. He’d get her back to his room. Maybe have food sent up instead of letting her go back out and do something foolish. Like breaking into Avenor’s fucking room, or spying on the mage, or… who knew when it came to Calya and her plans.
She needed a distraction, and if that meant putting her in his bed, so be it. He’d remind her that she wanted him. For a time. For now. Careful phrasing to hedge bets against their unlikely future. Nocren didn’t care. A primal urge in him suggested that once he had Calya upstairs, he wouldn’t be inclined to have either of them going back out this night. If a clear-minded Calya was half as ravenous as the one fueled by the Scarlett Kiss had been, then he doubted she’d have any interest in leaving, either.
“I’m going to have a chat with Froley,” Calya murmured as they entered the inn’s main room.
Nocren eyed her, making no attempt to hide his skepticism.
She nudged him toward the bakery. “Get us some food to take up. I’ll be right back.” Then she left, chasing after Froley as they went down the hall.
Nocren filled a bag with the last of the pastry case’s goods, then went back in search of Calya. He looked over the inn’s moderately full main room, not yet accustomed to how the Pelf also served as housing for most of the scholars and graduate students doing research in the Landing. It wasn’t nearly so crowded as the Mighty Leaf on any given day, but almost a dozen or so people were seated at various tables around the large room.
“Hey, ranger. Lowe.”
Nocren registered the voice only after he’d turned at the sound of his name. Avenor had returned from his shadowy meeting and tucked himself into a lonely corner table.
Nocren cast a last, desperate glance around for Calya, but she was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t snub Avenor, who was waving to get his attention, so publicly.
Swallowing his contempt for the man, Nocren pasted what would have to pass for a neutral expression on his face and went to join him.
At the man’s emphatic gesture, Nocren dropped into a seat across from Avenor, even though it put his back to most of the room and left him feeling exposed.
“You called?” he said, dipping his head in a small nod of greeting.
“Seen Calya lately?” Avenor asked, folding a copy of Grae Port News, the periodical from the capital city, and setting it beside him.
“Earlier, at the dock.” No point hiding it, especially if Gormund had reported their visit like a good little lackey.
“I didn’t think the Sentinels would stoop to work with the likes of Graelynders.” Avenor laughed, the sound loud and too practiced to Nocren’s ears.
“It’s not a formal partnership,” Nocren said with a shrug. “Our interests happened to align, that’s all.”
“A word of advice, ranger…” Avenor wagged a finger at him. “She can’t be trusted.”
Nocren forced himself to remain still, for all that Avenor’s declaration made him inwardly bristle. “Your company partners with Miss Helm’s often. Do you not trust your business partners?”
Avenor’s lips formed a smile, but his eyes remained hard. “We’re in the business of making money. If your work here has a fraction of warmth to it, Caly will ice it out. She’s ruthless when it comes to HNE, and she’ll pick it over anything else.” He settled back in his chair, legs invading Nocren’s space. “She turned her back on her own sister when her dreams went against Caly’s vision for HNE.”
Nocren said nothing. It wasn’t anything Calya hadn’t already said—warned him of—herself, though in different words. The sourness in Avenor’s tone was likely as manufactured and false as the rest of him.
I’ll never love you…
