I freeze, staring. My thoughts fly to the dead horse’s head speaking from the grave. Is this the same or different? What sort of spell would do this? And what does it want with me? The thing hops once and lets out a single-toned chirp, like a bell.
“What is that?” Matsin asks, staring at the not-bird. “It’s not natural, is it?”
“No.” I flap a hand at it. If it takes off again, I can attempt to make a run for it. Instead of flying, it tilts its head and then spreads its wings, leaping from my shoulder to land on the back of my hand. “Oh!” I jerk my hand back and the bird flattens, its feathers smoothing and its limbs going stiff. It tumbles past the backs of my fingers to the ground, and there it remains, a folded bit of paper, pale against the stone pavers.
Paper.
I rub the back of my hand as if to wipe away the feel of the not-creature on my skin. Matsin reaches down and picks up the paper. It faintly resembles a bird even now, folds for beak and wings apparent. He turns it over, and there on one corner are written the words open here.
“I think,” he says, raising his eyes to mine, “you had better read this.”
It’s mage-sent, that much is clear. I take the paper, grateful that it doesn’t revert to feathers and beak and dead eyes again. I touch the unfamiliar script, and then follow its directions to unfold the paper bird into a single thin square bearing a message.
Kelari Amraeya,
I have attempted to trace your friend. I’m afraid I cannot pinpoint her precise location, even with what you provided me. I can tell you this: she is still here, in this city. If my estimates are correct, and I believe they are, she is right now near the river docks. Unfortunately, I cannot work past the wards that guard her enough to tell you where exactly she shelters, whether within a boat or a building.
I hope that this information is of some use to you.
When you have finished with this note, fold it over once and order it to “Fly away home.”
Adept Midael, the Cormorant
I stare at the words. Kirrana’s in the city. At the docks.
“Kelari?” Matsin glances from the paper to me.
I hold the letter tight in my hand, my heart stuttering with hope. “We have a lead.”
Chapter
49
The moment I walk into the attendants’ suite, Jasmine looks up and says, “The princess wants you. She said to send you in whenever you returned.”
I thank her and turn around to head straight to Alyrra’s rooms. She must have read my letter at last.
Alyrra is getting ready for lunch, but she sends a page for Kestrin at once. While a maid puts the finishing touches on Alyrra’s hair, I pour myself a cup of tea from the pot sitting on a side table and snag a pair of biscuits. I never had breakfast and I don’t know if I’ll manage lunch, so I’ll take what I can find now.
As soon as the maid departs, Alyrra turns to me. “Any news about your friend?”
I swallow the last of my biscuit. “We have a lead. I need your help, zayyida. We believe she’s being held on a boat at the docks. We need to be able to search for her.”
“I’ll see it done. Tell me everything.”
By the time Kestrin and Garrin arrive a quarter of an hour later, Alyrra has heard my story and briefed me on how to retell it once everyone has gathered. At her request, Kestrin dispatches a page for Verin Melkior, the lord high marshal of Menaiya, and sends for Captain Matsin as well, who has already requested permission to report in.
Melkior bears the power of his authority in his very person, tall and broad shouldered, his hair just starting to gray. When he enters the room, his bow to the royals seems almost a favor granted them rather than their due. Matsin enters just behind him.
I wait as everyone settles into place, trying not to fidget. I cannot push this meeting to move any faster than the royals wish. The royal guard doesn’t have the authority to stop a merchant ship—for that, we need the river guard, which falls under Melkior’s jurisdiction. Thankfully, the disappearance of a tax office employee falls under him as well, which means Matsin has already made him aware of Kirrana’s case.
Finally, Kestrin asks Matsin for his report. He provides a concise summary of Kirrana’s disappearance and what has been learned in the intervening hours.
“I fail to see why this concerns all of us,” Melkior says heavily. “It’s a worry, of course, but the girl and her father were out at night and clearly set upon by some shady characters. We will try to locate her, but I don’t see any reason to believe she was taken because of whatever special case you had her working on.”
“She was investigating the snatchers, as they are called,” Alyrra says steadily. “Slavers.”
Melkior raises his brows. “Yes, I understand that you are concerned about them, zayyida, however small their actual presence might be. But how would they have known of this girl’s involvement? There is no reason to believe they are at work here.”
However small? No reason? Does he mean to imply that her abduction was a chance coincidence? That the men who took her meant only to—to assault her? Even if that were true, how is that any less concerning?
Kestrin frowns. “The girl was warded against traces within hours of her abduction. That would imply more than a random attack. Wards that can stand against a trace are carefully controlled by the Circle, are they not?”
Melkior nods grudgingly. “Too much opportunity for misuse. The Circle rarely issues them. Very well, then, there’s a chance there’s more at play. We have no leads on where the girl might be, though, unless you, Captain, have uncovered anything
