The dragonet growled again, then lay down at the edge of the bed, resting its head on its forepaws. Its tail still lashed, but it made no further move to interfere.
Kehrsyn checked the wardrobe first, her soft steps all but noiseless on the wooden floor. Using the keys she'd picked from Tiglath's pocket, she opened the wardrobe with no problem. It held only a few robes, each of identical cut, and one nightgown, which, in Kehrsyn's opinion, was mercifully modest. She sounded the wardrobe for false panels and found one in the base, though the compartment contained only a diary, which Kehrsyn declined to open. After all, she was investigating; she wasn't there to pry. If she found nothing else, she could look it over later.
She replaced everything exactly as she had found it-an old habit from her thieving days, and one that had always served her well-and turned to the bed.
Her search of the bed turned up nothing. The desk, like the wardrobe, contained a few items-a strongbox with some coins and gems, a collection of what appeared to be personal memorabilia-but nothing resembling a long wand of white bone. She skimmed the papers on top of the desk, since they were clearly new. Kehrsyn was not well lettered, and it was difficult to read the priestess's crabbed handwriting, but the bold titles were unmistakable. One, labeled 'Temple,' looked to have a roster written on it, with question marks, Ys, or Ns next to each name. Another sheet was labeled 'Furifax,' and yet others had names that Kehrsyn did not recognize. The sheet that earned the most attention was one labeled 'Kairsin.' She half-smiled at the misspelling, and she glanced over the unfamiliar writing, but her eyes kept returning to the single word circled at the bottom of the page: 'TRUTH.'
Satisfied, she then sounded the walls of the room carefully, tapping only with the pads of her fingertips to avoid attracting any outside attention. She repeated the same process across the floorboards, moving back and forth until her wrists, knees, and ankles ached. The entire time, the dragonet stared at her with its unblinking reptilian eyes, rotating its slender, sinewy neck to stare straight at its young guest wherever she searched.
With a sigh that was half exhaustion, half relief, Kehrsyn abandoned the search.
'There, you see?' she said to the dragonet. 'I'm done. And not a thing out of place.'
She dragged herself up into the chair, her joints protesting the sudden change. She stretched her arms up over her head and leaned back, popping her spine to loosen it up. Just as she folded her hands into her lap again, someone knocked at the door.
Kehrsyn froze. Her eyes darted over to the dragonet, who still stared at her, unconcerned.
'Kehrsyn?' Tiglath's unmistakable voice sounded muffled through the door. 'Open up.'
Bewildered, Kehrsyn moved to the door, and, planting one foot firmly to prevent the door from opening too far, unlocked the deadbolt and cracked it open. She peered through the gap and saw the high priestess looming in the hallway.
'Ordinarily, one does not have to request admission to one's own room,' observed Tiglath.
Kehrsyn backed away from the door, letting it swing open as she retired to a spot near the window.
'I had rather expected you'd be more, you know, surprised to see me here,' Kehrsyn said.
'I was,' said Tiglath. 'I got over it.'
'What do you mean?' asked Kehrsyn, confused.
Tiglath held out her arm, and the dragonet leaped from the bed, buzzing its wings, and alighted nimbly.
Tiglath kissed its muzzle and stroked its scaly little body, then, as an aside while she petted her creature, said, 'Tremor's eyes are my eyes. I see whatever he sees. So while I was surprised to see you enter, I got over it while watching you. Why did you feel compelled to search my room?'
'I had to make sure you weren't behind the attack and the staff and all,' said Kehrsyn.
'You don't trust me?' asked Tiglath.
'You yourself said no one is what they seem,' parried Kehrsyn. 'So because I trust you, by your words I shouldn't. So why did you let me search your room?'
'I wanted to make sure you weren't going to steal anything,' said Tiglath as she doted on her pet.
'You don't trust me?' echoed Kehrsyn with a teasing smile.
Tiglath glanced over at her, then turned her attention back to Tremor and said, 'I wanted to make sure you weren't going to steal anything.'
Kehrsyn's face paled, and her smile vanished in the space between her heartbeats.
'Uh, right,' she said as she fished through her sash. 'I–I was going to give them back…'
Kehrsyn held Tiglath's keys out to her. Tiglath nodded, seemingly to her pet.
'I know,' the priestess said.
'You do?'
'You took nothing,' replied Tiglath, crossing over to sit at her desk. 'You even left me my secrets.' She drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. 'If you'd opened that diary, however,' she added, 'things would be very different right now.'
'Right,' said Kehrsyn, who didn't know what else to say, yet felt an acknowledgment was necessary.
'So did you find out what you came to discover?' asked Tiglath.
Kehrsyn sucked in her lips and nodded.
'You don't have the staff,' she said.
'Of course not,' said the priestess. 'It's broken.'
Kehrsyn hesitated, wondering how much to divulge. She gritted her teeth, hoping she wasn't about to make a big mistake.
'No,' Kehrsyn said, 'it's not. What we saw was a decoy. The real one-'
'That was a forgery?' gasped Tiglath.
'Uh, yeah,' she said, pulling Eileph's forgery from her sash and showing it to the priestess.
'Now, that is truly remarkable,' said Tiglath in wonder, reaching for it.
Kehrsyn didn't let her touch the staff, but showed her the crack running around the center.
'See?' she said. 'I had it repaired.'
'That's a fine job,' said Tiglath, squinting at the workmanship.
'So that means that the real staff was really stolen,' said Kehrsyn. 'I had to make sure it wasn't you.'
'I already knew that,' said Tiglath, once she had recovered her aplomb. 'What convinced you?'
'I saw the way your people acted around you and the way they acted when you weren't around. And I saw the way you are, and how you reacted to the, uh, stuff at… on Wheelwright's Street. And here,' she added, gesturing vaguely around, 'there's the fact that you lock your door and keep your little dragon in your room while you're out, and everything in your room is meticulously arranged, down to the angle of the strongbox so that it lines up against the crack in the bottom of your drawer. All these things show that you don't trust anyone but yourself. And that means that if you arranged for your people to steal the staff, you'd have led them yourself, or else you'd take control of the staff as soon as they got it. And it's not in this room, and, frankly, I don't think you'd keep it anywhere else.'
Tiglath considered that and slowly nodded.
'Yes,' the priestess said, 'I think you're right.'
'Plus, you know, your reaction right now, well, that looked pretty genuine,' added Kehrsyn, by way of a joke.
Tiglath did not respond. She rose from her chair and crossed to the door, stroking Tremor's tiny serpentine head. She opened the door a crack, and Tremor leaped out, bouncing along like a ferret before launching himself into the air with a buzz. Tiglath nodded once to Kehrsyn as she crossed back over to the chair.
'Give us a moment, will you?' the priestess asked. 'I need to know if this staff is under my roof.'
She sat in her chair and stared at the desktop for many long minutes, moving nothing but her lips, which framed voiceless words that Kehrsyn did not recognize.
Kehrsyn eventually took a seat on the rug by the window and passed the time by twiddling with a lock of her damp hair.
Finally Tiglath leaned back in her chair and looked in the general direction of the ceiling.
'It is not here,' she said with finality. 'Tremor found nothing, and I trust his senses. I have him hiding in the main hall, where he will sniff at anyone who enters or leaves. He will not find anything, though. I train my people well.'
She grumbled deep within her throat and crossed her arms in frustration.
'That means that whoever here arranged the attack and took the wand has another place to keep it,' the priestess continued. 'Either they have a hideout, which I doubt, given the lack of living space these days, or else
