her guardian, you will have ample opportunities to …” He trailed off, cleared his throat, and smiled. “To persuade her to your cause.”
“Indeed, indeed!” Laphroig sounded positively enthusiastic at the prospect. He began to pace, as if by doing so he were actually getting somewhere. “Well, then, we must find her right away before she has a change of heart!” He wheeled on Cordstick.
“I must?” His scribe did not sound in the least convinced.
“Yes, of course! Who else can I depend upon?” He dropped his voice to a near whisper. “Who else, but my future Minister of State?”
Cordstick gave him a calculating look. “I was just about to hand in my resignation and retire to the countryside, my Lord.”
“No, no, we can’t have that sort of talk.” Laphroig was at his side instantly, patting him on his good shoulder. Gently, he walked him over to the window, where they could look out over the countryside together. “That sort of talk is for weaklings and quitters, not for future Ministers of State!”
His scribe frowned. “Would you care to put that in writing?”
Laphroig gritted his teeth. “I would be happy to do so.” He could always deny he’d written it.
“Witnessed by two nobles of the realm?”
The teeth gritting turned to teeth grinding. “Of course.” He could always have the nobles put to death.
“With copies to be sent to a personal designate for delivery to the King should anything unfortunate happen to me?”
“You are starting to irritate me, Cordstick!” Laphroig hissed. But he saw the look on the other’s face and quickly held up his hands. “All right, all right, whatever you say. Is there anything else you require?”
Cordstick was edging toward the doorway. “I will find the Princess, my Lord. You have my word. But this time I will require a personal guard so as to avoid all the unpleasantness of this past outing. I think perhaps fifty or sixty armed men would …”
He ducked through the doorway just as the brass candlestick Laphroig had flung flew past his head and crashed into the wall beyond. The padding of his limping feet could be heard receding into the distance.
Laphroig closed his eyes in an effort to calm himself, and he unclenched his teeth long enough to whisper, “Just find her, you idiot!”
THE VOICE IN THE SHADOWS
Mistaya returned to work in the Stacks the following morning and did not speak to Thom even once of the voice. She listened for it carefully, but the hours passed, and no one called out to her. The longer she waited, the more uncertain she became about what she had heard. Perhaps she had only imagined it after all. Perhaps the shadows and the overall creepiness of the Stacks had combined to make her think she was hearing a voice that wasn’t there.
By midday, she was feeling so disillusioned about it that when Thom declared almost an hour early that it was lunchtime, she didn’t even bother to argue.
Seated across from each other at the wooden table in the otherwise empty kitchen, they ate their soup and bread and drank their milk in silence.
Finally, Thom said, “You’re not still mad at me for yesterday, are you?”
She stared at him, uncomprehending. Yesterday? Had he done something?
“When I told you I didn’t want you going back into the Stacks by yourself?” he added helpfully.
“Oh, that!” she declared, remembering now. “No, I’m not mad about that. I wasn’t mad then, either. I just wanted to have a look at what was back there because I thought I heard something.” She shook her head in disgust. “But I think I must have imagined it.”
He was quiet a moment. Then he said, “What do you think you heard, Ellice?”
His face was so serious, his eyes fixed on her as if she might reveal mysteries about which he could only wonder, that she grinned despite herself. “Actually, I thought I heard someone calling.”
He didn’t laugh at her, didn’t crack a smile, didn’t change expression at all. “Did the voice say, ‘Help me’?”
Her eyes widened, and she reached impulsively for
