“The Bay of the Child is hardly the raging sea. Besides, it’s a straight shot from Rhell’s riverway to Desmond’s Landing. None of our ships have taken damage or gone missing. No unreported changes in the delivery schedules. There’s been… nothing. Nothing of this at all.” Calya forced her lips into the shape of a tight smile. “I’ll ask Wembly. He reviews all our records too, so maybe he’ll remember.”
Anadae gave her a look that said she saw through Calya’s blasé tone, but she didn’t press. “I’m surprised you’re still here. You left Eunny’s party a while ago.”
“I had a meeting.” Calya recounted her proposed business with the Sentinels, making sure to keep the details general. “Ollas told me about the complications I caused the Sentinels when I kept Bioon’s cronies from sailing to her aid,” she concluded. She didn’t regret breaking into the Coalition’s storage shed or helping to incite something of a citizen’s detainment of the Coalition delegates. But the Sentinels did good work, and Calya didn’t enjoy acquiring collateral damage.
“Caly has a heart,” Anadae teased in a singsong tone.
“Never.”
Anadae laughed, snagging another candy before Calya stuffed the pouch into her cloak pocket. “Are you planning to go to the Landing?”
“I wasn’t.” Calya gave her sister a shrewd look. “Should I?”
Anadae sucked on the candy, expression turning thoughtful. “I— Okay, this is all rumor, so don’t read too much into it. But the colleague I met with earlier? She’s coming off a consulting job with AG that had her in Central District a lot.”
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of Calya’s stomach, and this time she couldn’t blame it on the motion of the ship.
“There are some rumors going around that Brint is maneuvering to get back on the Guard’s board.” Anadae placed a steadying hand on Calya’s arm. “Small, very vague rumors. Not even enough to get the Grae Port News hounds sniffing. So, it might be nothing.”
The periodical that circulated in Central District’s capital thrived on such gossip, so for it to be quiet should’ve been a comfort. Yet suspicion lingered in Calya’s mind.
“How is that even possible?” she asked, though she didn’t expect a response. It was Brint. Censure by the Coalition of Trade and removal from his family’s company’s board for sabotaging the joint protection route deal should have been a career killer—Calya’s father would have held it against her ever having a position of power in Helm Naval again—but Brint had a way of slithering out from under consequences.
Calya glanced at her sister. Concentration had turned Anadae’s expression serious. Solemn, almost eerily like their mother, whom Anadae had always taken after more with her Hanyeok features than Calya and her square jaw ever could. They were half-Graelynder, but Anadae’s hair would always be closer to their mother’s shade of black than Calya’s chestnut, her skin closer to the light brown with a golden undertone where Calya’s was Graelynd pale and pink and burned like it, too. Not that the sun was anything to worry about in the dreary Valley.
“You’ve got Mother’s thinking face on,” Calya said.
Anadae’s nose scrunched up.
“Well, not now. Wrinkles, sister dearest.”
Anadae laughed, though there was a wryness to the sound. “I can reach out to some of my old AG contacts, see if any of them will share anything.”
Calya waited a beat, made sure her voice held a concerned note instead of rampant eagerness when she asked, “Are you sure?”
Anadae likely was still friendly with people within Avenor Guard who might know more about the younger Avenor son and his motives. She had been unhappily affianced to the man for years and handled plenty of administrative tasks between the families’ two companies. Her connections ran deeper than Calya’s, but they were from a life Anadae had put behind herself with a vengeance when she’d chosen to break free of Brint. She’d left Helm Naval all to Calya to run so she could return to school and become the mage she’d always wanted to be. All she’d wanted was that life, and a man who’d actually love her in return.
“You don’t have to,” Calya said. As much as she might wish things were different, she knew she had to accept that Anadae wanted a life so different than previously envisioned.
“I know,” Anadae said, gently. “I want to for you.”
Calya never quite knew what to do with kind moments. Ones of gentle, earnest sincerity from someone she cared about. She cracked a smile before hiding behind her teacup.
“Besides, Ez wants to know what happened to our wards, too,” Anadae continued. “But the kingdom can’t get involved. Resources, diplomacy, you understand.”
Calya rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
“I’m staying with a friend in Renstown tonight, but I’ll come by the HNE office tomorrow afternoon.”
The thinned-down shards of the ginger candies crunched beneath Calya’s teeth. She grimly plucked a fresh one from her small cache. A quick glance toward her sister revealed Anadae pulling a book from her bag and settling back to read. The very notion of reading was enough to make nausea rear its head.
Are you planning to go to the Landing?
Calya mulled over the prospect. The Sentinels needed the fastest windrunner HNE could provide—speed enchantments the mere thought of which had bile threatening to rise in her throat. Such a voyage would be tough to weather even with a chest full of the motion sickness candies.
But Lowe would be there. Not as a fantasy lingering in the corners of her mind, but in the flesh.
A flicker of heat stirred in Calya’s belly. She let her eyes close once more, thoughts drifting back to the gruff ranger. Traveling by windrunner all the way to the Landing? Perhaps it wasn’t so unappealing after all.
