Nico didn’t understand that statement at all. She was trying to think of something to say when her stomach gurgled loudly.
Eli laughed. “Hungry already? Josef’s rubbing off on you. Come, let’s go ask about dinner.”
He grabbed Nico by the shoulder and walked her toward the red-bearded man with the ledger who was deep in conversation with Josef. Angeline was nowhere to be seen, and both men looked very grim.
“Ah, Mr. Mayor,” the deputy said. “I’m afraid—”
“We’ve got a problem,” Josef finished for him. “Seems last night a stranger came into town asking for Eli Monpress.”
Eli’s smile faded. “A stranger? Here? What kind of stranger?”
“A girl, Mr. Mayor,” the deputy said. “None of us had seen her before. We took her into custody at once. I must assure you that Home is as safe and secret as—”
“It’s all right, Derrik,” Eli said. “I’m sure everyone here has been playing by the rules. Did this girl say where she was from or why she was here?”
“No, Mr. Mayor,” the deputy said, shaking his head. “She wouldn’t say anything, other than that her name was Pele.”
Eli’s smile faded instantly. “Powers,” he hissed under his breath. “All right, where is she?”
Derrik motioned for them to follow him. “This way, sir. I’ve got her at my house.”
He led them across the grass and toward a large house at the far end of the square. Nico expected him to stop at the steps, but he walked past the front door and around to the back of the house, where a pair of double doors was set into the ground.
“You’ve got her in the cellar?” Eli said. “You haven’t been treating her badly, I hope.”
“Of course not,” Derrik said, unbolting the large lock. “I’ve got a nice little room down here I use for storing grain. It’s dry and comfortable, but this door’s the only way out. I thought it would be best, considering… Anyway, she hasn’t complained, just sits and waits for you.”
Eli nodded and, as soon as the doors were open, started down the stairs. “Wait here,” he said when the deputy began to follow him. “We won’t be long.”
Looking a little taken aback, the man nodded and stepped aside, letting Eli, Josef, and Nico climb down into the cellar.
It was just as the man had said, a small, dry room in the cellar with a lamp and a bed and a stack of books that had obviously been brought down from the house above. Sitting on the edge of the bed was a familiar girl in hunter’s leathers with a long, lovely knife at her hip and dark circles under her eyes, as though she’d been crying.
Eli stopped at the foot of the stairs and gave her a long, serious look. “Hello, Pele.”
The girl nodded. “Eli.”
Eli grabbed a stool from the corner and set it down beside her. “You chose a difficult way of getting in touch, you know,” he said, sitting down with a long sigh. “Why not just get your father to reach me? Slorn has more tricks than any three bears put together.”
“If I could do that, I wouldn’t need you in the first place,” Pele said, her voice going a bit ragged. “My father’s… Slorn’s gone missing.”
There was a long silence.
“Missing?” Eli said at last. “Men like Slorn don’t just go missing.” He leaned forward and grasped Pele’s hand. “What happened?”
Pele didn’t try to take her hand back. Instead, she leaned forward, blinking back tears, and began to tell her story.
By the time she finished, Eli was looking grim indeed, and Pele was sobbing openly.
“After what Sted did to my mother, Father was inconsolable,” she said, her voice quivering. “He locked himself in his workroom and wouldn’t come out for two days no matter how I beat on the door. Then, on the third morning, he came out dressed in traveling gear and said he was going after Sted.” Pele took a deep breath. “I wanted to go with him, but he said someone had to stay and take care of the house. He said he had to go, that he’d made a promise to the League of Storms to keep the seed secret and safe. That it was the only reason the League had let him keep Mother alive in the first place. So he left and I stayed behind. He said he’d contact me when he knew something, but that was three weeks ago. Since then, I’ve heard nothing. Please.” She gripped Eli’s hand. “Please, Eli, you’re one of his oldest friends. You have to help me find him.”
Eli calmly began extricating his fingers from her grasp. “Pele,” he said gently. “I’m a thief, all right? This isn’t really my area of expertise. Surely there’s someone else—”
Pele refused to let go. “But you go everywhere. You know all sorts of things. And there is no one else. Father took all his contacts with him. I only knew where you were because this village is listed as your delivery address in our records.”
“You’re panicking,” Eli said, his voice calm. “It’s been only three weeks. He probably hasn’t even found where he’s going. Slorn’s a powerful wizard. He can take care of himself.”
“But he’s not a fighter!” Pele said fiercely. She turned to Josef. “I know you beat Sted in Gaol. That was why he came to us, to get a new sword that could beat yours. He took my mother’s seed when we wouldn’t give him a sword. Please, I don’t know what else to do. The man is a monster. I can’t let my father face him alone. If you won’t help me, then tell me where to go, or tell me where to find Sted and I’ll help my father myself, just—”
She cut off when Eli stood up suddenly. “All right,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I’ll help you. Just calm down.”
Pele’s eyes lit up. “Thank you!”
Eli waved his hand. For all her gratitude, he didn’t look happy at all. “Come up and have some dinner, and we’ll see about moving you into a real room.”
Pele shot up from the bed, grabbing Eli and hugging him tightly. “Thank you, thank you!”
“Yes,” Eli said, extricating himself from her grip. “Let’s go on up. We’ve been on the road all day and we’re tired. Let us get some food and rest and then we’ll see what’s to be done about our missing bear, all right?”
Pele nodded and, after embracing him one last time, ran up the stairs with a smile on her face. Eli followed more slowly, his smile quickly fading to a grimace. Nico and Josef exchanged a look as they followed Pele and the thief out of the cellar and into the deputy’s house, where he and Angeline were just getting supper on the table.
Dinner was a grand spread. There was pork and braised potatoes; some sort of pea soup, which was green, creamy, and delicious; roasted squash; and a large basket of fresh biscuits, golden and flaky and dripping with honeyed butter. Everyone ate with gusto, even Nico. Normally she despised eating. It felt too much like what the demon did, but her stomach was growling and she dove into the very human pleasure of stuffing herself full of delicious food.
Pele was stuffing herself too. The second Eli had agreed to help her she’d started to look better and was now eating her dark circles and pale cheeks away with a vigor only teenagers can achieve. Josef ate as he always did, efficiently and enormously, much to Angeline’s delight. The only person who wasn’t stuffing himself was Eli. He ate and made conversation, letting the deputy fill him in on what he’d missed being away from Home. Still, to Nico, who spent much of her time watching, it was clear Eli’s mind was somewhere else. He ate his food perfunctorily, not with the energy he usually showed toward a good meal after days of living off hardtack and whatever animal was unlucky enough to get caught in Josef’s traps. Though Eli appeared to be actively engaged in the deputy’s reports, Nico could see the slight glaze in his expression that meant he was really thinking of something else entirely, and whatever it was, he wasn’t happy about it.
After dinner, Pele wanted to discuss plans to rescue Slorn, but Eli gently turned her around and sent her to bed. She put up a fight, but not much of one. It was obvious she’d been sleeping even worse than she’d been eating. Angeline took her off to a bed that wasn’t in the basement while Eli said his good-nights to the deputy. Then, motioning for Josef and Nico to follow, he slipped out the door and into the night.
“Come on,” Josef said, standing up from his chair with a long-suffering sigh. “He’s planning something. Let’s find out what before he just goes and does it.”
Nico nodded and followed the swordsman out the door. They walked across the grassy square, following the dark outline of Eli’s gangly figure away from the bright houses and up toward the hills. When they reached the edge of the valley, he stopped suddenly and flopped down in the scruffy grass. Now that they were away from the
