“Wish,” he said lightly. “But I imagine I should get back to my apartments in the near future, in case I’m needed.”
“I understand,” she said. “But I’ll call on you in the morning.”
That was odd. Usually the shop kept her busy in the morning. Today had been an odd exception for the event at the palace. “All right.”
“Good night, all,” she said. “Good work, see you soon.”
Dayne sat back down and got back to eating.
“So what are you going to do?” Hemmit asked.
“It’s a good question,” Dayne said. “I want to take immediate action, but I don’t know what it could be. I should just go home and sleep, and hopefully figure out what I can do in the morning.”
Minox should have just gone home. He knew he should have. The day in the archives—both at Inemar and the Dentonhill Stationhouse—had taxed him considerably. Even still, the work had proven fruitful. For one, by stringing together items in three separate reports at the two stationhouses, he had found the solution to one of his old “unresolved” cases: Endle Gibb’s missing sister had actually faked her own disappearance so she could run off and marry someone in secret, only to be murdered by her secret husband some weeks later. The husband was then arrested and sent to Quarrygate on an entirely different matter.
Not a happy solution to the unresolved case, but now he could reach out to Endle Gibb and close the matter. He had written the letter and delivered it to Gibbs’s home, placing him just by The Lower Bridge.
Despite being exhausted, there were too many other revelations in his research today to ignore, and there was only one person he wanted to talk to about it. The knowledge burned in him, and simply sharing it with Sister Alana to then share with the others would not suffice.
He had to talk to Inspector Rainey.
He made his way across the bridge, buying a pair of crispers from a cart vendor on the High River riverbank. He personally found the north side version of the hot lamb sandwich—cooked in red wine and onions—inferior to its South Maradaine equivalent, the striker. But he didn’t eat for the flavor, he ate to fill the unending ravening of his magical body. A hunger that had only grown worse since his hand had changed. He finished the first by the time he reached 14 Beltner and knocked on the door.
In a few moments, Satrine Rainey opened up, in slacks and shirtsleeves, crossbow in her hand.
“Minox,” she said, stepping out and closing the door behind her. She glanced around cautiously, but her front door was at the bottom of a stair, below street level. It was highly unlikely they would be observed. “Why are you here at this hour? We agreed—”
“Shared messages at the church is nowhere near as effective as direct conversation,” he said. “Especially ones where we can spark inspiration in each other.”
“Missed you, too,” she said. “I have to tell you, pretending to hate you at the stationhouse is exhausting.”
“Surely that endears you with our fellows there,” Minox said.
“Oddly, it’s eased their enmity of you,” she said. “They think I’m being too cruel.”
“Fascinating,” Minox said. He had had enough of pleasantries. “Children are going missing again.”
“I’ve heard,” she said. “Dayne is looking into it in Dentonhill.”
“That’s good,” Minox said. “Dentonhill is part of the problem.”
“Part of it?”
“The patterns have been clear. There are three parts of the city where there have been spikes. Dentonhill, where the house is fully corrupt and under the thumb of Willem Fenmere.”
“Right,” she said.
“North Seleth, which seems to suffer from laziness and bureaucratic oversight. And Callon Hills, where the city-dwelling nobility tend to rely on private guards over the city Constabulary.”
“All right, what’s the connection?”
“All three areas have had reports of missing children in the past few weeks. We have to presume that, due to the intrinsic flaws in reporting in those three areas, that the actual number is much higher.”
“As in, you think areas are being targeted where missing children would be the most unnoticed. Or at least, where no larger pattern would be noticed.”
Except by me, Minox thought. “I wanted to talk to you about that night.”
“I’ve told you everything about Corrie—”
“Not about Corrie,” he said sharply. Far harsher than Rainey deserved.
“Sorry,” she said.
“You heard a name, who Quoyell was delivering you and the children to. Senek, correct?”
“That’s right. Though Jerinne told me of a witness who saw the giant taking children. He said the children were for the Dragon.”
That struck an old memory. “That was the word she used? Dragon?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t familiar with the term. Is it meaningful? Like a title or something?”
“It’s . . . a creature in an old Kellirac folk tale. My mother used to tell me it as a child.” The story “Aladha va calix” always terrified him, yet as a small boy, he wanted to hear it again and again. He had always appreciated how the beast was beaten with cleverness. The trickster who managed to bind him up and drag him back to his cave.
“Does that connect to Senek?” she asked.
“I don’t know how it could. But I think I’ve determined who Senek is,” Minox told her. “In the Mage Rows in 1211, several arrests were made at the Inemar stationhouse of mages involved. Dismissed, Circle Law protecting most of them. But one had his case kicked up to the Archduchy Courts: Ithaniel Senek of the Blue Hand Circle.”
“Why does Blue Hand sound familiar?”
“The day we met, I was connecting two separate cases about dead constables in Dentonhill, two dead assassins, and three mages from the Blue Hand Circle.”
“Right,” she said. “In retrospect, that was probably all to do with the Thorn.”
“True. I’ll want a word with him about that, but there is something else. The
