“A florist?”
Toran snorted. “A florist Pinyak is not.”
“The prison guards call him Thornyak,” Quint said, “because he’s a constant thorn in their side.”
“Have the prison guards mentioned anyone else? A girl by the name of Invy Grastol?”
Quint frowned. “You’re supposed to be looking for the Witch. Not a girl with light brown hair, blue eyes, and hundreds of freckles on her face.”
“How—?”
“I heard you ask the guards patrolling the perimeter of the Drowning Square after yesterday’s attack,” Quint said.
Toran had talked to every guard he could find about Invy, but none recognized the name or remembered the girl who’d tried to warn them. The only mention of an “Invy Grastol” he could find was in the prison records—the rice-stealing eyeball-piercer from the Ditch. He was beginning to suspect she’d given him a false name.
“Why are you searching for this girl? You think she’s the Witch?”
He thought back to the panic he’d seen on her face right before the platform exploded. “She’s something.”
“But not the Witch?”
She’d saved his life. No Witch would do that.
“You didn’t see her at the Drowning Square. She knew it was goingto explode before it happened. Perhaps she’s like Pinyak—addicted to magic—and instead of roses sprouting from her fingers, it gives her some sort of precognitive abilities.”
He thought back to those brief moments before the platform exploded. How she had clutched her throat as if it was already burning. How she had held her nose like she could smell the smoke before the flames erupted. And how her gaze had held him so desperately, a clear warning to anyone who dared meet it. There was an answer in the memory, something he needed.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I have this feeling—if I want to find the Witch, I need to find her first.”
Quint settled himself against the edge of Loriana’s old bed, running a large hand over the quilt’s fine stitching. “Okay, so let’s find her. What else do you know about this girl?”
“She’s from the Ditch. Her boots had a ring of dirt rising up around the soles.”
“That’s not much to go on,” Quint said. “Have you talked to the shop owners around the Drowning Square? They wouldn’t have left the area after yesterday’s drowning—maybe they remember her?”
Toran perked up. “Good idea.”
“If I were you, I’d head over there soon. I heard Captain Fell has another drowning planned for tomorrow, so the shop owners might get their facts mixed up if you wait.”
Toran shut the book of prison records. “Another drowning? How? The platform was blown to bits.”
Quint stood. “They started rebuilding it the second they removed the guards’ bodies. It should be ready by tomorrow morning.”
“For magic’s end,” he cursed. “I’ll go to the Drowning Square. Can you stall Fell?”
“I’ll do what I can, but he does rank above me.”
Toran stood from the desk. “If only personality was taken into account when deciding ranks.”
Quint smirked. “If that were true, then I’d be the one ruling this country.”
He laughed. “If that were true, you’d be ruling the world.”
Quint was right.Just like he was about nearly everything else.
Toran stood on the perimeter of the Drowning Square, watching as two men laid down another board for the new platform around the Witch’s Well. It’d be ready long before morning came.
None of the shop owners in the square were helpful. Two remembered seeing a girl with him after the explosion, but neither one knew who she was or where Toran might find her. He let out a long breath. He still had one shop to visit.
