sight. Soft raindrops splashed onto the lake surface, muting sound. There wasn’t a soul around to overhear Sicarius if he chose to broach a certain subject with Sespian.
At the moment, Sespian, sitting on the bench beside Amaranthe, was busy rummaging in his pack. Sicarius observed the movement, and, a couple of times, he opened his mouth. She leaned forward, waiting for his words. Sespian spoke first.
“Here it is.” He pulled out the black dagger and extended it, hilt first, toward Sicarius.
“You did not find it useful?” Sicarius asked.
“It almost got me killed.”
Sicarius didn’t let any surprise show on his face, and continued to row without a hitch in his stroke, but he did glance toward Amaranthe, and she sensed the question there.
“Forge had a device that allowed them to track the ancient material,” she said.
“Yes,” Sespian said, his tone cold. As the rowboat continued to glide across the lake, he detailed an incident in a park where numerous men had attacked the group and tried to kill him. He gave a terse list of everything else that had happened since Amaranthe had been taken from the team. It was probably a sign of questionable sanity, but she wished she’d been with them for the adventure. Then again, maybe it was perfectly sane; if she’d been with them, she wouldn’t have been with Pike.
Sespian finished by looking Sicarius in the eye and saying, “I thought you might have set me up.”
For the first time, the oars faltered. A long moment passed-Amaranthe imagined the shock and horror that lay beneath Sicarius’s expressionless facade. How else could he feel? After all he’d done to protect Sespian, what he’d intended to be a magnanimous act had almost gotten his son killed.
“No,” Sicarius finally said. “Nobody ever tracked me through the blade.”
“Well, I’d rather not take a chance that it’ll happen again.” Sespian leaned forward and, keeping a wary eye on Sicarius, set the dagger on the bench beside him.
“I see.”
That was the last thing Sicarius said. He returned to rowing. Faster than before. A couple of times, Sespian turned toward Amaranthe, as if he meant to start a conversation with her, but each time he glanced at Sicarius and ended up not saying anything.
Amaranthe was mulling over ways to start a conversation of her own, one that might entice both men to speak, preferably to each other, when smoke on the shoreline caught her eye. Moving smoke.
“Did you notice any steam vehicles in Markworth when we ran through on our… tour?” Amaranthe asked.
“No.” Sicarius took a long look over his shoulder.
“Think the enforcers called in backup?”
Sicarius handed her his collapsible spyglass and adjusted his route, angling for a rocky beach with trees sheltering it. Too bad the rain had chased the fog away. Someone gazing out at the lake now could easily see their rowboat.
With the spyglass to her eye, Amaranthe searched for the source of the smoke. Three black vehicles rolled along the waterfront road, winding in and out of the trees. Enforcer vehicles. After spotting Sicarius, the local headquarters must have called for backup. Or maybe this had something to do with the stolen steamboat.
“This could be a problem,” Amaranthe said. “Sire, I don’t suppose you’d like to abandon your incognito ways and give a few orders to the lieutenant or captain in charge over there? Something like, ‘These aren’t the outlaws you’re looking for, so you can all go home now.’?”
“I would,” Sespian said, “but the enforcers we’ve encountered lately have been under the impression that I’m an emperor-look-a-like leading a band of riverboat pirates.”
Amaranthe lowered the spyglass. “You didn’t mention that when you were sharing the week’s events, Sire.”
“Didn’t I?”
“There are numerous people around the research warehouse.” Sicarius had his head craned over his shoulder again. His tone held a hint of reproach, as if to say he’d given Amaranthe the spyglass so she could scan the shoreline, not chat with Sespian.
Abashed, she lifted it again. “Enforcers. There’s a vehicle parked out front, and there’s our friend, Pabov, talking with them.”
“ Our friend?” Sicarius asked.
“Ah, yes, he was more attached to me than you, I think.” Amaranthe lowered the spyglass again. “Maybe we should turn around and forget the underwater vehicle. We won’t be able to get it anyway, not with all those people around the warehouse.”
“Too late.” Sespian pointed toward the research facility. The enforcers had stopped their conversation and were running out to the dock. “I think they’ve already seen us.”
• • •
Rain splattered on the brim of Maldynado’s hat with an enthusiasm that would have impressed a faucet. Or a waterfall. He and Akstyr strode down a sandy beach on the east side of the island, eyeing the hillside for cave entrances or anything that might indicate a secret passage. Maldynado had explored the beaches and forest thoroughly as a boy, so any such features would have to be new additions.
“How long do we have to search?” Akstyr shook his head like a dog, flinging water out of his hair. The boy needed a decent hat.
“Until we find something,” Maldynado said. “Or someone rings the dinner bell.” The rain had grown harder in the last few minutes, and he caught himself casting longing gazes at the log home. Yara and Basilard were already up there, searching for passages and preparing a meal. Maldynado had yet to escape the drizzle. He and Akstyr had stuffed the captured enforcers into the steamboat’s cramped brig, then headed out to circle the island. They’d left Books to guard the prisoners, though he’d shown more interest in salvaging his research materials from the soot- covered engine room.
“There’s something.” Akstyr pointed to the beach ahead.
An egret standing in the shallows flapped away at Maldynado and Akstyr’s approach. They stopped before a set of fresh tracks in the gray sand. This side of the island hadn’t seen any action during the steamboat fight-and crash-so the sand ought to have been undisturbed. Maldynado set his own foot next to one of the prints.
“That’s either a woman or a child,” he said, though he already had an idea as to whom the tracks belonged.
“Brynia?” Akstyr asked.
“That’s my guess.”
The sand made the prints easy to follow. They started at the waterline and led to a log where it looked like Brynia had sat down. Maldynado expected the tracks to head into the trees above the beach, but they veered back toward the water.
Akstyr scratched his head. “She climbed out of the water, rested, and decided to take another swim?”
“It seems that way.”
“It’s a long swim back to the mainland. I would have hidden here until I could steal a boat, but woman are funny.”
Maldynado grunted, but he was busy thinking that Brynia might not have had any intention of returning to the mainland. Maybe she was looking for something beneath Marblecrest Island, like the entrance to her colleagues’ secret underwater hideout.
“Should we keep looking?” Akstyr pointed up the beach.
“No, I don’t think we’re going to find anything on the island. We better hope that Amaranthe really does know somebody with an underwater vehicle and that she gets back soon.”
• • •
Shouts echoed through the trees and drifted across the lake. Amaranthe, Sespian, and Sicarius hunkered in a thicket, being stabbed and scraped from all sides by thorny vines, as they waited for a pair of enforcers to jog past. If the enthusiastic shouts were anything to go on, someone had found the recently abandoned rowboat.
“We’ll be shot if we try to cross back to the island in anything but an underwater vehicle,” Amaranthe whispered.
“They might not shoot us,” Sespian whispered back. “They might follow us to the island so they can shoot
