Tythonnia faltered. All their work, traveling and eluding those renegade hunters … all of it hinged on her answer to that question. The problem was her response depended on whoever was asking the question. Was it a hunter who had her in his sights, or Berthal’s lieutenant? And if she answered wrongly, she risked their only potential contact with Berthal by admitting she was a Wizard of High Sorcery.
Tythonnia closed her eyes and prayed the odds played out in her favor.
It was hard not to run, but run where? The speaker was hidden somewhere, and if she ran, was she running toward him, or away?
Tythonnia was too stunned to answer. Her mind grasped at the greasy thoughts, but they squirmed free. Her face contorted in confusion, and she quickly shut her mouth when she remembered the warning not to cast spells.
The barkeep maneuvered in the narrow corridor behind the plank of wood. The stools were in the street and had to be moved when a horse came by, and the drinks were all served from barrels stacked behind the bar.
Kinsley sat upon one of the stools. He nursed a weak pint and watched the barkeep go about his business. The man was thin and unsympathetic looking, but at that point Kinsley was too tired to care. He hated the neighborhood. He was sick of it with its scrunched-up buildings and scrunched-up people with their sour faces and sour attitudes.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said to the barkeep.
The man grunted in response and served a man with sea-blue eyes seated two stools down. The barkeep wasn’t interested.
“Look,” Kinsley said, pointing at the mug in front of him. “How many mugs of this armpit sweat you call a drink do I have to buy from you to get information?”
The barkeep considered it carefully. He held up all the fingers on both hands.
“Nine?” Kinsley repeated. “I won’t survive one.”
The barkeep looked at the bare stub of his missing pinky and wiggled that too.
“Fine, how about I just
The barkeep shrugged.
Kinsley sighed. “Shrug yes? Or shrug no?”
The man shrugged again.
“Here!” Kinsley said and dropped a couple of pieces of steel on the bar. “I’d like to buy a letter from you. Perhaps a whole word if you’re feeling generous.”
The barkeep walked over to Kinsley and cleaned his spot on the bar with a rag. The coins vanished and the barkeep leaned against the wood, waiting for Kinsley’s question.
“I’m looking for strangers,” Kinsley said.
“He’s a stranger,” the barkeep said, nodding toward the blue-eyed man.
Kinsley offered a patient smile that said he was anything but. “Three strangers, two women and a man. My age.” He began describing what he could of the trio, from the bejeweled, black-haired woman’s beauty to the man’s refined features. Of the blonde woman, there was little to share, other than hair color. Otherwise she was common enough.
The barkeep thought about it a moment before finally answering. “Haven’t seen them together,” he said. “Alone … seen the man and maybe your blonde woman.”
“When?”
The man shrugged. “But I seen them both coming from that way and leaving that way,” he said, nodding to the north.
Kinsley offered the man a flat smile; the meager morsel was the most information he’d gotten in the past few days, and it was still close to a frustrating nothing. He was about to leave when he spied the man next to him again. The blue-eyed patron’s fingers had stopped moving, a whisper still on his lips. The barkeep had missed it, his back was to the customer, but Kinsley recognized the workings of magic. Suddenly, a stack of steel coins sitting next to one of the barrels lifted into the air and shot over the bar, into the man’s hand. They barely made a sound.
The man walked away as quickly as he could, practically toppling the bar stool in the process. Kinsley smiled and followed the man for a block before finally stopping him.
“I saw what you did,” Kinsley said.
“Please, sir,” the lean, blue-eyed man said. “I didn’t mean no harm by it. Just a little steel to eat.”
“Then stop wasting it on drink,” Kinsley said. “But that spell you cast … how much more do you know?”
The man looked around nervously. “Enough to get me in trouble with the wizards,” he said, turning to walk away.
Kinsley stopped him again, more gently. “We should talk. Unless you like living like a rat?”
They met in the shadow of an alley off the main street, between two buildings and the blackened Old City Wall. Tythonnia recognized him instantly, the blond-haired hunter who had brought Virgil before the conclave. His features were gentle, but his fierce, black eyes were a startling contrast to the rest of his face. He carried a powerful and etched longbow, and they spoke in whispers, each relating their part of the story, from Solanthus, to the attack of the dolls at the ruined village, to the High Clerist’s Tower, through to that moment.
Tythonnia was relieved to hear Thoma harbored doubts about the instructions to execute them. He was struggling to believe that his companion Dumas was either lying to them or somehow enchanted. He did admit, however, she’d been acting strangely.
They both agreed Thoma needed to speak with the other two.
They’d just arrived at that consensus when Thoma’s eyes widened. Tythonnia barely had time to react before Thoma grabbed her shoulder and threw them both to the ground. The air above them crackled and sizzled
