came to sit beside Harp.
“If you’re going to show us those ruins, we should leave soon,” Boult said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his legs. “Before the sun gets too hot.”
“Maybe we should just go to the ship,” Liel said after a moment.
“You don’t want to go to the ruins?” Boult asked.
“Maybe you could take me home,” Liel said.
“We can do that,” Harp said with relief. “If that’s what you want, I think that’s the best plan.”
“I don’t know,” Boult said. “I’d like to see the ruins.”
“You don’t care about the damn ruins,” Harp said.
“IVe seen that disease you talked about last night, Liel,” Boult said, abruptly changing the subject.
“Which disease?” Liel asked with confusion.
“The one that swells up the tongue and chokes its victim,” Boult reminded her. “You didn’t have time to heal him?”
“No, he died within moments,” Liel said.
“You’ve seen a lot of people die in the jungle,” Boult said.
“I’d rather freeze to death in a snowfield than spend another day here,” Liel said.
“What about Cardew?” Boult asked. “Yesterday you said you wanted to get proof of what he’d been doing.”
“She’s changed her mind,” Harp said irritably. “And just wants to go home.”
“Where do you think Cardew got the map?” Boult continued, ignoring Harp’s obvious frustration.
“The one with the sites marked on it?” Liel said. “Queen Anais must have given it to him.”
“But why would she issue a writ for a colony? Why not just send down mercenaries to search the ruins?”
“To keep up appearances? To satisfy her accomplices? How should I know? I wasn’t privy to those discussions.”
“Accomplices. That’s an interesting word.”
“The queen has interests that she keeps well hidden,” Liel said in a monotonous voice. It sounded like she was reading a line of text from a book.
“Is that so? You learned a bit while in Cardew’s keeping, then?”
“Boult,” Harp warned.
“You said he discovered the parchment with the portal spell in the ruins?”
“I have no idea where he found it,” Liel said. She looked perplexed, but there was no anger in her voice. It was same thing Harp had noticed when they were talking the night before. It was as if all her emotions had been extricated from her body. Harp remembered wishing there was a way to do that in the months after he got out of prison. He had wanted to hollow out his insides so that he was just a shell without any painful memories or recollections of joy.
“But you said it was ancient magic,” Boult continued.
“That’s what I thought,” Liel explained.
“I don’t understand why he dragged you to Chult when he could have hired a sorcerer the same way he hired the mercenaries.”
“Why does it matter?” Harp said, suddenly feeling more alert. Boult was being annoying, and the direction of his questions was unnerving.
“Appearances,” Liel repeated. “Cardew will do everything to keep up appearances.”
“Were the mercenaries killed?” Boult asked
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Cardew came back from the ruins alone.”
“Do you think he used the portal?” Boult was firing questions so rapidly that Liel barely had time to answer. Harp couldn’t help wonder why Liel kept answering them, why she didn’t tell Boult to shut his mouth. But she was so compliant. That was another part of her personality that had not been there during their time in the Moonshae Isles. The Liel he had known was anything but compliant.
“I think so.”
“How did you find the cavern with the machine?” Boult asked.
“I was getting water from the river.” “There are closer watering holes to the camp than that one,” Boult pointed out.
“I’ve been looking all over the jungle.” “For ruins?” Boult asked.
“For whatever Cardew has been planning,” Liel said. “Had Cardew been to Chult before?” “No. Yes. I’m not sure.”
“But you’re his wife. How could you not know?”
“He would go away sometimes,” Liel explained. “I thought he was at Anais’s court, but he could have been anywhere.”
“Even running around the jungle? Constructing machines that operate using skin and blood?”
Liel’s eyes widened, and Harp laid a hand on her arm. “Stop it, Boult,” he warned. “She doesn’t know all the answers.”
“Are you sure, Harp?”
“What are you getting at? Because you are starting to”
“Here’s what I know,” Boult interrupted. “I know that Cardew didn’t build the machine or the cages. He probably didn’t even know about them.”
“You don’t know that,” Harp said, staring at the dwarf. “Do you?”
“I think whoever sent Cardew to Chult has been here for a while, making things, collecting things, generally doing bad things in the jungle,” Boult continued. “What do you think about that theory, Liel?”
“That might be true,” Liel said slowly.
“Who do you think that is?” Boult asked.
“Queen Anais,” she said promptly.
“What does Queen Anais want with ancient magic?”
“I don’t know.”
“Speculate,” Boult ordered brusquely. “The Torque is very powerful,” Liel said. “The queen wants the Torque.”
“What Torque?” Harp asked.
Liel’s coppery skin grew pale. “Torque?”
“You didn’t mention that last night,” Harp said.
“Didn’t I?”
“What did Cardew say about a torque?” Harp asked.
Boult piped up before Liel answered. “Liel, Harp got a nasty sting from some bastard flower. Do you think you could heal him?”
“It’s nothing,” Harp said, annoyed that Boult had distracted Liel from answering his question.
“When we go to the ruins, we should be as strong as possible. What do you think, Liel?”
“I think he’ll heal on his own,” Liel murmured, looking at the ground.
“So, what about the cups?” Boult asked.
“What cups?”
“And the food on the plates?” Boult continued.
“Stop asking me questions,” Liel said in a low, tense voice. For the first time in the conversation, there was an unmasked warning in her tone. But that didn’t stop Boult. From the smirk on the dwarfs face, Harp knew that getting a rise out of her was what Boult had wanted all along.
“Have you even been in the dining hall? Cardew left almost a tenday ago. I’d think you might have cleared out the rotting meat before the maggots moved in. Except you’re the maggot, aren’t you?”
“Boult!” Harp said.
“And no one used the portal spell, Liel. I found it in the house.”
“Give it to me,” she ordered, glaring at the dwarf.
“Why don’t you use some magic and take it from me?” Boult taunted. He would have expected Harp to snap at that, but instead Harp seemed to taking a closer look at the slender elf sitting next to him, her body rigid with
