library.
“That is true,” Maldynado said. “We weren’t sure you’d see Books if you knew.”
“Knew what?” Spearcrest asked.
“His real reason for coming,” Maldynado said.
“Which is what?” Spearcrest spoke slowly, enunciating each annoyance-laden word.
Books raised his eyebrows at Maldynado, wondering where he was taking this.
“That Books came courting,” Maldynado said. “Your daughter’s not married, right?”
Books was not sure if his jaw dropped as far as Lord Spearcrest’s or not. It felt like it.
The old man opened and closed his mouth several times before speaking. “No. She lost her husband in the Western Sea Conflict. She said… Well, it’s been so long, me and Mother just figured she wouldn’t remarry.” He turned an appraising eye on Books.
He squirmed like a sixteen-year-old boy come to ask a girl’s father for permission to take her to the stadium to watch the races.
“Some fathers are particular about who their daughters marry,” Maldynado said. “We weren’t sure, so Books figured on the story as a guise to get to know you.”
“I’d have preferred honesty,” Spearcrest said though his face softened a smidgeon.
“Yes, my lord,” Books said. “It was cowardly of me to spin a fabrication.”
“Vonsha’s old enough to make up her own mind on such matters. That’s truly your reason for being here?”
“What else would people come way up here for?” Maldynado asked.
“Nothing,” Spearcrest said. “Not a thing.”
He left abruptly.
Maldynado threw a smug smile at Books. “You’re welcome.”
“Welcome!” Books struggled to keep his voice down. “When he tells her-she’s going to think I want to marry her. That’s ludicrous. We’ve barely spent an hour together uninterrupted. I just want to…”
“Sheath your sword in her scabbard?”
“No!” Well, yes, but not just that. “I merely wish to get to her know better.”
“Without clothes on.” Maldynado winked.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Yes. But I kept Spearcrest from shooting you, so you’re indebted to me.”
“He wasn’t going to shoot me.”
“He had a hand on his pistol,” Maldynado said.
“Yes, but you were the one lounging on the rug like a spoiled hound. Not to mention how much of their food you’ve already eaten.”
Maldynado said nothing, though his mouth formed a silent, “Oh.”
Books sank back in the hard chair, wondering what he was going to tell Vonsha when her father shared the “news” with her.
• • • • •
Amaranthe and Sicarius hiked three or four miles with the trail growing narrower and rougher with each switchback up the slope. Dirty patches of snow hunkered in depressions. Trees rose anywhere there was soil-and sometimes even from rock faces and boulders. Despite the wildness of the land, someone had cut the low branches back from the path, and they even passed a rough-hewn bench in one spot.
Sicarius paused to examine something on the ground. Amaranthe readjusted her rucksack and wiped moisture from her eyes. Though all the training they did kept her breathing slow and her muscles from growing weary, the brisk pace and the steep incline had her sweating. Her shirt stuck to her back, and damp spots bunched beneath the rucksack straps. She would shoot herself with the rifle before complaining about Sicarius’s pace though.
“Anything interesting?” she asked when he stood.
“Fresh prints.”
“Lord Hagcrest, I presume.”
“Perhaps.”
He continued onward without expounding.
The trees thinned, and the trail led them into a clearing. A small, square log cabin rested on a flat stretch of moss and wildflowers. Though simple, the structure appeared in good repair, and the split-cedar shingle roof had yet to fade to gray. A smokehouse tacked with rabbit and raccoon hides shared the clearing, while an outhouse hunkered downhill.
“I guess we should be wary of that threat to shoot trespassers.” Amaranthe pointed to a stuffed bear head mounted under the eaves above the front door. “It seems our homeowner is a decent shot.”
Sicarius was already gliding about the clearing, eyeing tracks, touching trees, and sniffing the wind. Amaranthe headed for the front door. She figured the homeowner was unlikely to shoot a woman whereas a black-clad man roaming the perimeter might make a trigger finger twitchy. Besides, she earned more answers from talking to people than from poking around their properties.
She climbed three wooden steps to a limestone porch. “Hello, Lord Hagcrest? Are you home?”
Amaranthe lifted a hand to knock on the door, but stopped. It stood open a crack. Her nose caught a faint scent: blood.
Sicarius had disappeared. She chewed on her lip a moment, then set her rifle against the wall and drew the pistol. She stood to the side, closed her eyes, and listened. No sound came from the cabin. Pistol ready, she pushed the door open, then flattened herself against the outside wall, so she would not expose herself to anyone inside.
Nothing stirred within. Amaranthe stuck her head around the jamb for a quick peek. When nobody shot at her, she leaned in for a longer examination.
Shutters covered the cabin’s sole window, so the only light slashed in through the doorway, leaving the interior dark. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she eased inside.
A bearskin rug stretched before a hearth adorned by a single battered pan hanging on a hook. A lone wooden chair sat before the fireplace, a threadbare cushion its only concession to comfort. In the shadows at the back of the room, a narrow bed rested against the wall.
“Guessing this fellow doesn’t invite many house guests up,” Amaranthe muttered.
Another rug lay on the floor before the bed. No, not a rug.
A body.
The white-haired old man wore a faded nightshirt afflicted with moth holes, and he appeared grouchy and sour even in death, just the sort of fellow who would put up that trespassing warning.
“I guess you are home, Lord Hagcrest,” Amaranthe whispered.
No obvious wounds marked his body, though trails of dried blood rain from his nostrils and the corners of his eyes.
“Just like in the loading bay,” she said.
After a deep breath to brace herself, she crouched and slid her fingers along the cold skin of Hagcrest’s neck. She found what she sought near his hairline: a bump covered with scar tissue. As soon as she touched it, it slithered away without breaking the skin. She yanked her hand back and wiped her fingers on her trousers.
“All right,” she murmured, “who’s making the killer magic doodads that are smart enough to hide themselves at the promise of detection?”
A draft tickled the back of Amaranthe’s neck.
She lunged to her feet, swatting at the skin there. Nothing. She did not lower her arm until she had probed her neck thoroughly. Who knew how these devices had found their way into these men?
“Imagination,” she told herself. Probably just a bug or a breeze from the open door.
A rifle leaned against the wall an arm’s length away, and a powder horn and knife belt hung from the bed post. Hagcrest had not had time to grab either. Perhaps he had never seen his attacker. Had he somehow been implanted with the device without his knowledge, and then it killed him through a remote command? If it was possible to create something like that with the Science, she was impressed. And concerned.
Papers scattered the bed next to an open drawer in a side table. She took them to the door to read in the
