Coira slumps down at the other end of the table and drags the plate of bread towards her. “Sparks, I hope not. Leth still can’t fucking stand him. Kind of nice having them both out of the house.”
“Evain is seducing his way into… something or other,” Melanne says, marginally more helpful than her sister. “Leth is visiting his family.”
Ronan swallows another chunk of crust and feels the warmth settle into his stomach. The brightly lit kitchen, the friends and companions gathered around the table with him. All three women have been working on this mission with him, on and off, for years. His teacher introduced him to Dansa seven years ago. He found Melanne and Coira in the Praian merchant’s guild a few years later. He trusts them all, and after months of running, it’s good to be back.
“So, what’s the situation, boss?” Coira asks.
The tension returns full-force with the expectation in their eyes. He almost forgot he has a role to play here too. The confident leader. Ronan sets the bread down and starts filling them in.
The Locksmiths stole the Crown of Sephine from a Sephinian church over two months ago, in the heat of summer. Ronan, Evain, and Coira went in together, and afterwards, Coira teleported herself and Evain back to base with the relic. Ronan took a horse and rode north. They needed someone in visible flight so the Charaini orders wouldn’t suspect them of having transport magic.
“The first part went according to plan,” Ronan says. “I made it past the Rising Run, and I found a merchant who could get a letter to your father.” He points to Dansa. “I told him you’re still busy curing orphans and penitent Riverswords on the Lyrisenian border.”
“You didn’t.” Dansa covers her eyes. “He already thinks I’m a saint, it’s humiliating. I can never go home again.”
“The trouble came after that.” Ronan pulls another piece off his bread, but doesn’t eat it. “Or, I realized the trouble after that. The Varans found themselves someone with tracking magic.”
“You’re warded though, right?” Dansa says with a frown.
Ronan shrugs. “Not well enough.”
Coira swears, and Melanne asks, “Is it the boy you brought with you? He’s powerful, then.”
“That’s him,” Ronan says. “I realized they were onto me before I could meet with Coira in Riverwatch like we planned, so I tried throwing them off by running north. I thought the wild magic from Lyrisenia might interfere enough to help, but it didn’t work. They caught me three weeks ago, and we didn’t pass a town with a safe house until Marrick.”
Something soft bumps against his ankles. Ronan leans sideways to see the cat under the table. Sleek and silver, with wide green eyes. Dansa adopted Alice with the excuse that they needed a cat to keep mice away, but Ronan has yet to see her catch a mouse. He keeps his hands on the table. She’s learned to expect treats in the kitchen, because Evain and Coira are softhearted, and he doesn’t want teeth in his fingers if he reaches down empty-handed.
Ronan continues explaining how he broke out with Karis, and what little he knows about Karis’s tracking magic. When he’s done, he sees Dansa going through some of the same mental calculations he’s already thought through.
“I don’t want to recruit him yet,” he says, too sharply.
“But if he could track the Dravansword, that would save so much time.” She reaches down and scoops Alice off the ground, cradling the cat in her arms like a baby. Alice twists around trying to escape, then gives up.
Ronan feels a little bit like Alice right now, twisting, not sure where he wants to go. Struggling against the certainty that yes, tracking magic could be invaluable to the Locksmiths’ cause. He isn’t sure how to explain his reluctance to his allies when he doesn’t really understand it himself. All he can think of are the constellations of freckles, like cinnamon against sun-kissed cheekbones. But that’s not a reason.
“Karis is stubborn,” Ronan says at last, flattening all his concerns into the most logical justification. Nothing about freckles and auburn curls, or an arrogant smile that feels like a mask. “And he doesn’t trust me. I can explain everything to him, but that doesn’t mean he’ll believe me.”
“Ah,” Coira says. “You should have just said you were playing the long game.”
Her older sister frowns. “He looked really young.”
Freckles and curls, smooth lines of sleek muscle, sunlight in amber eyes. Red marks around thin wrists. Ronan shakes his head and leans back in his chair. Tries to put Karis out of his mind for a minute. “Later. Now, tell me what’s been going on here.”
?
CHAPTER NINE
KARIS
Karis spends about ten minutes exploring the bedroom, twenty minutes trying and failing to pick the lock on the door with a splinter of wood, and an unknown amount of time sprawled across the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Before he flopped down on it, feet hanging over the edge, the bed was neatly made, with fresh linens. If this is Ronan’s bedroom, then the other people here knew he was coming back. Whoever these people are, they have communication channels. Likely magic.
Not much is visible through the cracks in the window shutters. The carvings along the windowsill and baseboards, floral shapes twisting around geometric edges, are a familiar Charaini style. His parents paid for their windows to be carved like this, years ago, because his mother wanted to look wealthy.
I’m probably still in Charain, right? Not that I know what Praian windows look like.
He feels hollow and weightless inside. Like he’s on the precipice of something. Like he’s already stepped off the cliff, in the instant of stillness before he falls.
