He’d nodded along to my explanation, though I didn’t think he was really listening until I asked the question. His eyes searched my face before he answered, “She was missing for eight or nine days before her body suddenly just showed up in her bed.”
“Why didn’t the duke tell us she had been missing? Why wouldn’t he report it the first night she didn’t come home?”
Vannier shook his head. “I don’t know, and he made me swear up-and-down that I would not tell you about her business.”
If I hadn’t suspected the duke before, I most certainly did now. “So he knew about her business? What about the bites?”
He glanced around warily, though there was no one near us. “I cannot say for sure, but he had to know. I wasn’t the only one who noticed them. When Lady Montrant noticed, she stopped speaking with Charlotte entirely.”
So Lady Montrant knew. She had mentioned the business, and the lack of coin, so why not the bites? “What can you tell me about the Montrants?”
His eyes narrowed and went distant as he seemed to really consider his answer. “They came into a lot of coin this year, but I know little of the circumstances. They are well respected. Lady Montrant was previously one of Charlotte’s best friends.” He hung his head for a moment. “I fear that is all I can think to tell you. I hope it will be useful.”
“You gave us a place to start, at least. We will not leave this city until we figure out what’s going on.”
He nodded, but I had the feeling once again he wasn’t listening to me. If I had to guess, I would say he was genuinely distraught over Charlotte’s murder and Bastien’s disappearance. He met my gaze, giving me the full force of his gaunt face and the purple marks beneath his eyes. “I would appreciate it if I could leave first. I’d rather avoid being seen with you.”
“My, aren’t you a charmer.”
He didn’t seem to get the joke. With a final nod, he hurried past me, then down the adjoining street.
Steifan peeked around the corner. “Learn anything new?”
“A bit. How would you like to take another trip underground?”
He stepped fully around the corner and walked toward me, flapping the hem of his cloak behind him. “I wouldn’t like that at all, but I imagine I don’t have a choice.”
“Well at least you’re realistic.” I moved toward the cellar doors.
The chain and broken padlock were still on the ground, and one handle barely hung onto the door. If anyone had been here since we had ventured through, they had made no effort to re-seal the entrance.
I hoped it meant no one had been here at all, and we wouldn’t be confronted with a knife in the dark, or something far worse.
“Isn’t this it?” Steifan questioned, extending the lantern we’d left the previous night toward the ladder.
I peered down the corridor going in the other direction. We could go up to the White Quarter the same way we went before, but it would be difficult to spy from the sunny gardens. “Shine the light down this way. I’m wondering if there are other ways up.”
Steifan squeezed past me, heading slowly down the corridor. I could see why someone would need to float Charlotte’s body. It would be difficult to carry with how narrow the walkways were on either side of the water.
I considered the layout of the estates above as we walked, wishing I had spent more time in the area. I could roughly judge where we were, but I wasn’t sure where we would come up, and we would be doing it in broad daylight.
We stopped as the corridor forked off in two directions, with a metal grate leading over the water to our right.
I glanced one way, then the other. “Would you say we are somewhere near the square where I questioned the illustrious Lady Montrant?”
“I believe we are almost directly beneath it,” Steifan answered.
I turned to him, surprised at the surety in his tone.
He shrugged, bobbing the lantern in one hand. “I’m good with directions and distances.”
“All right, cartographer, which direction do we go to put us near the Montrant estate?”
He smirked. “While I do not appreciate your sarcasm, I believe we should go left. If there is an exit within the next forty paces, it should lead to the Montrant’s garden.”
“Remind me to bring you if I ever go spelunking.” I gestured for him to walk ahead with the lantern.
We got lucky, finding another ladder up not forty-five paces away.
Steifan held the lantern while I went up first, pausing with my ear near the hatch. I didn’t hear anything above, so I turned the handle and opened the hatch a crack. I had expected daylight, but I couldn’t see a thing.
“Lantern,” I whispered, extending one hand down toward Steifan.
The handle pressed into my palm, and I wrapped my fingers around it, lifting it slowly. When I had enough light to see by, I opened the hatch just a touch more and peered through the crack.
I looked down the length of a wooden floor stretching out into the darkness. The space was still and musty. I was quite sure we’d found our way into someone’s cellar. If we were lucky, it was the Montrant’s.
I listened for any footsteps or voices, but the rooms above were silent. I opened the hatch the rest of the way and climbed into the cellar, shining the lantern around the space. Along one wall were several barrels next to shelves lined with cheeses, ceramic crockeries, and baskets of goods.
I turned a slow circle as Steifan poked his head up into the room. The lantern cast odd shadows across metal grating.
My mouth went dry. “Something tells me those cages aren’t used to hold dogs.”
Steifan climbed into the room, and we both stared at
