“The saboteur, Gregor. It’s obvious he did this.”
“Of course it was him. This is payback for saving Kari’s life and turning the entire village against him. He likely thinks the only way he’ll win now is by taking us out of the competition.”
“Exactly. And what do you think he did with all your tools? He’s not smart enough to get rid of them. I bet he even thinks he might use them to craft his own item from fire.” I gestured at the missing rack of tools. “He’ll be hiding them. In his house, I bet. I say we take them back.”
Rivelin shook his head. “We can’t just storm into his house in the middle of the day. He’ll expect it.”
“Exactly. That’s why we go tonight.”
21
DAELLA
After breakfast, we hauled the doors off the hinges and collected the debris from the shop floor, placing the wooden shards in piles out front. A few neighbors popped by to help. Milka, a dwarf from down the road, wandered over with some freshly baked bread that was much appreciated. Mabel brought us some mushroom pasties, and Tilda finally introduced herself.
She was a human of about thirty with deep brown skin and sleek black hair, and like Rivelin had said, she was about my height. I thanked her for the steady supply of clothes, but she just waved me away and carried off some of the broken crates to mend. Even Odel and Haldor joined in once the news travelled. They didn’t say a word about who’d done it, but I could tell by the looks on their faces they had their suspicions, too.
In the late afternoon, Lilia swung by with jugfuls of a sweet, lemony concoction that tasted like sunshine itself. As she watched me sweeping the floor, she folded her arms with a deeply troubled look on her face.
“Gregor did this, didn’t he?” she asked.
I paused my sweeping and nodded. “We don’t have any proof, though.”
Lilia shook her head and gazed at the villagers sorting through the rubble we’d pushed out into the road. “I should leave Wyndale for the rest of Midsummer. This all started because of me, and I don’t want Rivelin to lose the competition because Gregor is still angry I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“Leave? And go where?”
“Back up to Milford, and then Riverwold eventually. They’re lovely villages, too. And then after the Elding moves along, I can sail over to Oakwater for a while. It’s one of my favorite places in the Isles.”
“But Lilia…everyone in Wyndale adores both you and the Travelling Tavern. From what I can see, it’s an integral part of the Midsummer Games.”
“My presence is agitating him.”
“Fuck Gregor,” I said firmly. “I’m going to prove he was the one who ransacked this place and stole Rivelin’s tools. That means he broke the law, and he’s out of the competition. You don’t have to go anywhere.”
The sides of her lips turned up. “You mean that?”
“Absolutely.”
She nodded. “All right. If you’re going after him, I want to help.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Rivelin’s stare from where he was polishing the anvil. A little tremor quaked my heart when he smiled. I found myself smiling back.
* * *
By the end of the day, we’d cleared out half the shop. Weariness had settled over me like a fog. My body was still healing from my swim in the lake, and I wanted nothing more than to take a bath and climb straight into bed for a long, long sleep. But the idea of getting revenge against Gregor rejuvenated me enough to keep me from nodding off while we waited for darkness to swallow the last remaining dregs of sunlight.
I sat on the roof sandwiched between Rivelin and Lilia, two silver-haired elves I hadn’t known two weeks ago but now felt like part of my crew. Together, we were going to resolve this Gregor issue, once and for all.
“You know you don’t need to do this, Lil,” Rivelin said, taking a swig of her infamous brew from a tankard etched in swirling elven designs. “Daella and I have this handled.”
Daella and I.My heart thumped a little faster at the sound of those words.
“You two are very capable,” the elf replied crisply. “However, you’re not invisible. You need someone to distract him while you’re rooting around his house. That someone obviously has to be me.”
“I don’t like it,” Rivelin replied.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be in and out quickly,” I said, gladly taking the offered tankard. The brew went down sharp but sweet. “She won’t have to talk to him for long.”
