duration. Naneth faded from view.
'It's done,' Arvin said. 'What now?'
'Are you quick on your feet?' Marasa asked. Arvin nodded.
'Then let's get moving. I know where Naneth
CHAPTER 7
They arrived at Naneth's residence just as the baron stormed out the front door, sword in hand. 'Glisena's not here,' he gritted. 'Neither is Naneth. But the Eyes will round her up, soon enough.'
Two of Foesmasher's soldiers emerged from the building, one of them holding the arm of a frightened-looking woman whose long black hair was starting to gray at the temples. She looked vaguely familiar, but Arvin couldn't place her.
'I've done nothing wrong,' she protested. 'We just want to question you,' the soldier holding her arm said.
'I simply came to pay Naneth for her services,' the woman continued, drawing her cloak protectively around herself with her free hand as the soldiers led her away. 'I don't know where she is.' She turned to the baron, a pleading look in her eyes. 'Lord Foesmasher, please. Whatever quarrel you have with the midwife, I have no part in it.'
Foesmasher ignored her. 'Have one of the Eyes question her,' he said. 'Find out if she does know where Naneth is. And send a detail of soldiers to secure this house.'
The soldiers nodded and led the woman away. 'Baron Foesmasher,' she pleaded. 'Please don't imprison me. I've done nothing wrong.'
Foesmasher stood, hands on his hips, scowling as she was led away.
Marasa, still panting from the run through the streets-the residence was more than two dozen blocks from the palace-exchanged a look with Arvin then hurried after the baron. 'Thuragar,' she said in an ominous voice. 'You face Helm's wrath for what you ordered Naneth to do. You must atone before he-'
'I have other matters to attend to, first,' Foesmasher snapped. Turning on his heel, he strode away.
Marasa hurried after him. 'Thuragar, wait! Hear me out.'
Arvin, only half listening, stared at the residence. It was a narrow building, two stories tall and sharing a wall with the building on either side. All of the windows were shuttered against the cold. His eyes ranged from one window to the next as he calculated the distance between them. If there was a wall that was a little thicker than it should be-enough to conceal a person- he'd find it when he counted off the paces inside.
The front door was open. Arvin walked up the short flight of steps that led to it and knocked-loudly.
'Naneth?' he called out, hoping that, if she was still here, she might recognize his voice.
No one answered.
A long hallway ran the length of the first floor.
On the left was a kitchen; on the right, a sitting room. A flight of stairs at the rear of the hall led to the second floor. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
The kitchen was warm and steamy; water boiled in a large pot on the stove. Bundles of drying herbs hung from the kitchen's ceiling beams, filling the air with their aromatic scents. Arvin moved the pot to the table, setting it beside a stack of neatly folded squares of white cloth, and the bubbling noise slowly calmed. He listened, but heard only the hiss of dried grain spilling from a sack that had slumped over inside a pantry cupboard. The doors of the pantry stood ajar, as if they'd been yanked open.
The sitting room also showed signs of the baron's intrusion. A tapestry lay on the floor beneath a broken curtain rod; a chair was on its side; and a shelf had been yanked away from one wall, spilling books onto the floor. One of them was on the hearth, its pages starting to curl from the heat of the fire. Arvin picked it up. Flipping idly through it, he saw that the book contained a number of illustrations: male and female pairs of various humanoid creatures-orcs, two-headed ettins, cloven-hoofed satyrs, lizardfolk, and several other races. Next to each figure was an enlarged drawing of that creature's genitals; the female illustrations were accompanied by a drawing showing a baby growing within the womb.
He had no idea what the text of the book said, but here and there he spotted a line that he recognized as Draconic. The spine of the book was deeply creased, as if it had been referred to many times, and one of the pages was marked with a ribbon. Flipping to it, Arvin saw an illustration of a male and female yuan-ti. Dmetrio Extaminos, it seemed, had been no aberration. It was common for a male yuan-ti to carry two swords in his scabbard… so to speak.
Closing the book, he set it back on the shelf.
A quick pacing of the first-floor rooms and a few knocks on walls determined that neither the kitchen nor the sitting room had any hiding places. There was a cupboard under the stairs at the back of the hall, but a glance inside revealed nothing but dust and cobwebs.
'Glisena?' Arvin called. 'Are you here?'
There was, as he expected, no answer.
The stairs led to a landing with three doors. All were open. The one to Arvin's right looked as though it had been kicked open, splintering the door frame; it must have been locked when the baron arrived. Arvin glanced into the other two rooms first-a small washing-up room and a bedroom, its bed dragged to one side and its wardrobe open and spilling clothes-then turned his attention to the third room. He eased open the broken door.
'Glisena?' he called. 'Naneth?'
As the door swung open, the stench struck him. Small and shuttered tight against the cold outside, the room reeked of snake. The walls were lined with tables; on these stood square containers made from panes of leaded glass, each with a wooden lid that had been drilled with holes. A different type of snake slithered around inside each container. One was a brown-scaled boa, coiled tight around a feebly twitching rat. Its body flexed, and the rat stopped moving. In the container next to it was a clutch of small green snakes, tangled together in a mating ball. Next to these was a flying snake from the southern lands, its body banded in light and dark green, its wings a vivid shade of turquoise. It fluttered inside its glass-walled container, hissing.
Arvin shook his head. Naneth certainly had odd taste in pets.
As he stepped into the room, a reddish-brown viper with a thick band of black at its throat reared up and spat a spray of venom onto the glass. Arvin eyed it warily, glad that the lid prevented it from getting out. The container next to it, however, was open; its lid sat on the table beside it. A saucer lay upside down inside the glass-walled cage, next to the gold-and-black-striped snake that was coiled there; this was where Naneth had been standing when Arvin contacted her with his sending.
Arvin picked up the lid and set it cautiously back in place, closing the cage. The snake inside, he saw now, was coiled on top of a clutch of eggs. Its body covered most of the small, leathery ovals, but as the snake shifted, Arvin caught a glimpse of something strange-it looked like a symbol, painted in red, on the egg that was closest to the glass. Squatting down for a closer look, Arvin saw he was right. The symbol was in Draconic. What it signified, he had no idea. He touched a hand to the glass the egg rested against, and it happened. Just as it had on the ship. For the space of several heartbeats, he stared, with naked eyes, into the future.
A pool of blood spread around someone's feet. And a finger-thin stream of red flowed away from the pool, toward a dark shape Arvin couldn't quite make out. Yet somehow he knew that it was something evil, something monstrous. The creature looked down then lifted the stream of blood from the ground with one hand-the hand of a woman-and began drawing the blood toward itself like a fisher hauling in a line.
Arvin's ears rang with an anguished scream-a woman's scream. Startled by it, he jerked his hand away. Only after his heart had pounded for several moments did he realize the sound had been part of his vision.
The snake shifted, covering its eggs once more. It looked at Arvin through the glass, tongue flickering in and out of its mouth, and gave a soft, menacing hiss.
Shaken by the premonition, Arvin stood.
Someone was going to die. Naneth?
He forced his mind back to the job at hand. Had
Naneth still been in this room when the baron kicked the door in? If so, the room might hold a clue as to
