In Shade and Shadow

She took it and stepped around him along the side of the stable. Leaning her staff against the wall, she dropped cross-legged on the ground and opened the scroll upon her lap. Holding the crystal above it, she touched its black surface.

'This is why you came to Calm Seatt,' she said, not even looking up. 'Why you came after me again.'

Chane crouched beside her but thought better of mentioning the dog like Chap that he had followed at first.

'Domin Tilswith and other sages in Bela would have never trusted me long enough to ask anything.'

'May I keep it, for now?' she asked. 'I need to take it back for further study. There may still be one or two people willing to help me.'

A flash of anxiety overwhelmed Chane at relinquishing the scroll. But more than one phrase from Wynn's lips left him wondering. What did 'further study' actually mean, since there was nothing in the scroll that could be studied? And her last words implied that she, too, now had few people to trust in the world, even among her own kind, it seemed.

What had happened to her in the guild branch of her homeland?

But he trusted her above all others, and he could only cling to the belief that she trusted him a little.

'Of course,' he answered, handing over the case and cap.

Wynn carefully rolled the scroll and slipped it back into its protection. Then it struck Chane that he could not—could never—go back to the guild with her, as one more she could rely on in deciphering this new mystery.

'I should get back,' she said, rising. 'Where are you staying?'

Clearly she wanted to be away from him. Chane would never blame her for that.

'Better you do not know,' he answered. 'I will send word soon, when and where we should meet again.'

He stepped into the street, heading away from her.

'Do you still… kill to survive?' she wh srvi

Chane did not let those words make him falter, not until he rounded the nearest turn.

He stopped there, half collapsing against a shop's side wall. Peering back around the corner, he watched Wynn until she slipped beyond his sight.

Wynn's heart pounded so hard that her ribs ached. She forced herself to walk calmly without looking back. She'd almost forgotten the long, clean lines of his face.

Chane was part of a past she had given up. Once she'd heard Leesil mutter to himself, 'One should never walk backward through one's own life.' It was trite, of course, but a sound thought nonetheless.

Yet, how long had it been since she'd spent even moments with someone who actually cared for her—who knew her? Someone who not only believed her accounts of undead, but who knew more of them than she did.

He was one of them—akin to that robed monster murdering her people—and yet he'd come across the world to seek help and to help her. She needed help from someone, anyone, who fully realized what her guild faced.

Part of her longed to linger in his company, but he hadn't answered her last question. His omission spoke volumes—like any accounting of all his victims.

Wynn slipped the scroll case and her crystal inside her cloak.

As she walked, she kept the staff from striking the cobblestones and making any sound that would attract attention. In spite of her warring emotions over accepting Chane's assistance, a flicker of hope seeded in her thoughts.

Her superiors had finally granted her access to translated passages and the codex. Now Chane had provided her with Li'kän's chosen scroll. The combination might lead to answers—if she could find a way to uncover what was hidden beneath a coating of old ink, written in the dried fluids of an ancient undead. She tried not to think about such impossibilities, or her seeds of hope might be ground to dust. She turned down Leaful Street, headed toward the Old Bailey Road.

Two patrolling men in red surcoats stepped out from the intersection's left side.

Wynn quickly scurried over against a shop's front wall. She held her breath beneath the awning's deeper night shadows.

She'd seen only two of Rodian's men when she'd slipped out of the keep. It never occurred to her that he would've put even more on patrol around the whole grounds along the loop of the Old Bailey Road. She listened as their boots clomped slowly along.

How was she going to reach the gate, let alone get past the pair stationed before the gatehouse? How many guards had Rodian sent out here?

She'd been gone only a short while, but if she didn't hurry back, someone might miss her—especially if il'Sänke turned up at her room. She had certainly badgered him enough about learning to use the staff.

Wynn swallowed hard.

If she were caught outside, in defiance of Premin Sykion's mandate, it would most certainly weigh against her. It might even cost her access to the translations.

Wynn crept along the shops and peeked around the corner.

The guards were still too close to the intersection for her to slip past behind them. Her hand clenched the staff, and she turned back down Leaful Street.

With a frustrated exhale, she cut into the next street paralleling the southeast side of Old Bailey Road. She stuck close to the buildings until she spotted a narrow walkway that would take her back to the loop around the keep. When she ducked in, she could just make out the alley's far end. Beyond, she spotted part of the wall across Old Bailey Road. She needed a vantage point farther behind the patrolling guards to check for any others circuiting the guild. And as yet, she still had no idea how to get past the two at the gatehouse.

Wynn padded along the narrow space and suddenly came upon a widened area midway. It opened on her left, and for an instant the change confused her in the dark.

A quick staccato of scratches filled the space. Wynn backed against the alley's opposing wall.

Digging in her pocket, she was already scanning the dark area as she pulled out her crystal. Light washed over a wide alcove behind the building.

Tall, narrow barrels and a few crates were stacked around three worn wooden steps leading to a rear door. A tawny rat darted across the alcove's floor stones into hiding beneath those stairs.

Wynn took several slow breaths. Her nerves were so on edge that now she was startled by vermin. Wouldn't that have given Leesil something to gibe her about, after all the dangers they'd faced in their journeys?

Fearful of revealing her presence, she stuffed the crystal back in her pocket and turned toward the alley's far end.

There was only darkness ahead. No faintly lighter space showed where the alley opened into Old Bailey Road. Only impossibly deep black filled the narrow alley.

Wynn backed up.

The dark began moving. Flowing up the alley, it seemed to eat what little light came from the street beyond. Chane turned down the street's gradual arc. He knew he should stay away from Wynn for her own good. Yet she had asked him questions laced with eagerness for his help, and hints concerning her life at the guild left him wondering.

Was she lonely among her own kind? Enough that even the sight of a familiar monster was welcome? Or was it just that he wished it so? He could not let himself wallow in false hopes, and he headed off toward the Graylands Empire and his small attic room.

The beast inside him rumbled in agitation.

Chane's fingernails instinctively hardened as he halted. He spun sharply around in the empty street. Barely an itch inside him, but still, something pulled at the edge of his awareness.

s' w, bSince entering this city he had taken to wearing Welstiel's ring of nothing at all times. The longer he wore it, the duller his awareness became. But he felt something wrong, something that made the feral beast within him rise in warning.