“She probably just went down to get something to eat. She didn’t have anything with her so probably didn’t think it was important to lock her room.” He couldn’t explain away the bed not being slept in. He knew Ariana wouldn’t have made it up herself. She didn’t do that at home, why would she at an inn? “Let’s go check.”
With another shrug, Maria followed him down to the common area, through the dining room, finally going into the kitchen and getting tossed back out into the main hall. He approached the man who stood behind a long desk, swiping papers around and generally looking like he worked there. He pulled Maria close to him.
“Make him answer me,” he whispered to her. “Excuse me, sir?” he asked louder.
The man looked up from his busywork and raised an eyebrow. “How may I help you?”
Thankfully, Maria must have been maintaining her shield to keep people from noticing what ragamuffins they were and he stood a little straighter. “The woman we checked in with last night. Where has she gone?”
The man blinked slowly, then narrowed his eyes as if he might not answer or pretend he didn’t know. Owen reached around and tugged on Maria’s sleeve. She sighed and repeated the question to the man.
This time his eyes went wide and he stared blankly. “The young woman left last night with a man.”
“A man? Who?” Owen demanded. Maria repeated him and the man continued to stare.
“He was bald. Had a slight limp, but nothing bad. The girl looked ill. He was helping her walk. Holding her quite firmly so she wouldn’t fall. I thought she was drunk.”
“And you just let him take her out of here?” Owen reached to grab the man by the collar but Maria stopped him with a sharp sound.
The man blinked rapidly a few times and went back to his work as if they were no longer there. They probably weren’t as far as he was concerned.
Maria led him back to the room and he followed, fuming and terrified at the same time. “You don’t suppose that’s that soulmate of hers, do you? A bald man who limps? She always did have a soft spot for the downtrodden but—”
“It wasn’t her soulmate,” Maria said.
He stopped, but she kept going. “Wait, Maria. You said before the man Ariana thought she was in love with wasn’t her soulmate. Is that what you mean or do you mean it wasn’t him who took her?” He was confusing himself.
“Both,” she answered. She opened a door once they were on the proper floor again. It wasn’t their room, but the one where Ariana should have been.
“Oh, good idea. Let’s look for clues.” Owen walked the perimeter, looking under the chair, under the bed, under the damn basin. Not a hint she’d ever been there. Not a hairpin. Not a hair. He slumped on the edge of the bed. “Who took her, then?”
Maria was as maddening as ever. “A bald man?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Madame I-know-things. Why don’t you know anything about this? It would be quite helpful for once.”
She gave him a sour look. “Perhaps she went of her own accord.”
“Not a chance. She’d never leave us like that without a single word.”
“She’d never leave you. And all her talk of cousins being so important. She wouldn’t know what it was like to have a real cousin. Not that it’s her fault, I suppose.”
Was she jealous of Ariana? To what purpose? Was that the real Maria finally breaking free of whatever held her captive in her own body? In any other instance that would have given him the greatest joy. But he needed that entity now. Needed the power and knowledge to find Ariana. Knowledge. Perhaps the real Maria could be helpful after all.
“Can you rummage around in Maria’s memories and find out if she ever spoke of that lout and where they went together? Maybe he sent someone to nab her?”
Maria looked past him and the glow in her eyes dimmed somewhat. A moment later she shook her head. “Ariana wanted her to ride out somewhere on the outskirts of London to look at a house. But it was too far.”
“Do you think that’s where they’ve gone? But damn it, they’ve probably also gone to another time. What year did she say she went to? I’m sure she bragged about it.” He wracked his mind but nothing surfaced.
“I don’t know the answer to either of those questions,” Maria said.
“How is it that when we were in my cousin’s village you knew what I was going to say before I said it. You knew when to reach into the river and grab a fish without looking. You seemed to know everything. Why are you so…” He stopped himself from saying something unkind.
“In the village, there was great power surrounding me. The presences I needed were everywhere. Even using up most of my energy to keep myself hidden from the people there, I was able to get all the help I needed.”
“And there’s no power here,” he said bitterly. He was useless. Utterly useless.
“It’s always everywhere,” Maria answered.
He wanted to throttle her. “Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s not close here.”
Frustrated tears stung his eyes and he took a deep breath. “How do we get to it then? Please, Maria, this is important. Ariana didn’t go with that man willingly, I know it.”
“I can ask the others but I’d have to leave her for a bit. Shouldn’t be long, but it’s dangerous for her. She’s not ready.”
He shivered, as cold as if a window had been thrown open and an icy breeze blasted through the room.
The others.
That faint presence he felt when he did a spell out of nowhere. Those whispery, faraway voices he sometimes heard. Was that who was in Maria? One of them? He started to
