When we turned a corner, we were hit with more glorious scents wafting from the kitchen. Vagabond scents. While Aunt Dolise was an excellent cook, these smells were familiar—garlic, dill, rosemary, thyme, and, of course, sage.
“You here to see the cook?” a servant asked as she walked out the swinging door with a stack of plates. “She thought you’d come. She has treats set out for you. She and her husband are inside.”
Our casual steps vanished, and we all squeezed through the door at once, stumbling to the center of the room. The cook turned away from a steaming pot on the stove, her face stern, her hands wedged on her hips. Her partner walked out of the pantry, and she motioned to the door. He nudged it open a crack. “All clear.”
I knew she wouldn’t hug us. Neither would he. But her rigid stone face that tried to hold back emotion failed miserably, and relief shone in Natiya’s eyes. Maybe Eben’s too.
“Cooks?” I said. “You got in as cooks?”
“You doubt my skills?” Natiya wiped her hands on her apron. “Cooking is still in my blood, you know? But I think we only got in because the Patrei wanted to please you. Something about sage cakes?” She lifted a condemning brow. “Explain that.”
I gave her the short version, a brief account of our being chained to each other and the aftermath. She listened quietly, her eyes registering amusement when I told her about blackmailing the Ballengers.
“Well done,” she said. “What about our rabbit? Any signs of him yet?”
I shook my head. “I’ve searched everywhere except for the stables and a few outbuildings. Nothing.”
“We haven’t seen anything but the inside of a kitchen,” Eben muttered.
“They’re a suspicious bunch,” Natiya explained. “They watch our every move.”
“But then, we can’t disappear like the Shadowmaker,” Eben said, still keeping watch at the door.
Which had done me little good so far. The secret places of Tor’s Watch hadn’t produced anything.
“He has to be here somewhere. What about the arena?” Natiya asked. “Have you checked there?”
From what Jase had told me, the arena bustled with people. It didn’t seem a likely place for someone to hide out, but it was worth looking into. “Jase is going to the arena tomorrow. I’ll ask to go along—”
“Incoming!” Eben whispered.
Natiya pointed to the counter, and we all quickly grabbed a delicacy laid out on the plates, chattering with delight as the servant came through the door. She gathered pewter mugs from a cabinet.
“Heavenly!” Synové said. “Try this one, Kazi.”
“Exquisite!”
“Delicious!”
“May I have another?”
Natiya beamed on cue, but as soon as the servant left again, her smile vanished and we returned to less tasty questions.
“And how did all…” She waved her hand at our bloodstained clothes. “This come about? No permanent damage?” she asked, peeking under Synové’s bandage.
“We’re fine,” I answered. “There are other troubles here that have nothing to do with us. With Jase becoming the new Patrei, we’re caught in the middle of a power war.”
“So I heard. I also heard they got a letter from the queen. They really believe she’s coming?”
“They do. It was part of our agreement—in return for the settlement reparations that are already under way.”
“Good job, kadravés,” Eben said, but his eyes landed on me and he nodded. He understood the compromise, the things you finally had to let go.
“What about Dolise?” I asked. “What did you two do to her?”
Natiya wrinkled her nose. “Just a little coralweed. She’ll be sticking close to her chamber pot for a few days.”
“We had to get over to the main house kitchen to talk to you somehow,” Eben added as he slivered open the door again.
“Just a good cleansing, as Aunt Reena used to call it,” Natiya said and held out a dish of treats to us. “Now go. Clean up. Rest. We’ll see you tonight at dinner.”
“What if he’s not at the arena either?” Wren asked.
Natiya frowned, unhappy with this possibility. “If we have to, then we move on. We search elsewhere until we find him.”
Move on.
That wasn’t the queen’s directive. We were only to come here, then home. It was impossible to search an entire continent for one person without a clue. I already knew that intimately. Maybe it was more of a desperate hope Natiya held on to—that the man who helped orchestrate the deaths of so many would be found before he killed again.
I took the dish from her. “The sage cakes are perfection, by the way.”
“Even better than her aunt’s,” Eben replied.
Natiya grinned. “You better never say that in front of her.”
Eben smiled. “I’m not stupid.” His gaze lingered on Natiya as if he forgot for a moment that we were all there.
We gathered up another plate of the vagabond delicacies to take back to our rooms, and Eben and Natiya returned to their work. They still had to continue their charade as cooks and prepare the evening meal. As we walked to the door to leave, Synové turned. “Just so we know we have the story straight, you two are posing as husband and wife?”
Eben set down the pot of water he had just filled, and Natiya paused from mincing scallions, the silence long and full.
“No,” Eben answered. “We’re not posing.” And then he went back to his work.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
JASE
My father’s study was now my study. I hadn’t been in here since he died. It was a room for both contemplation and condemnation—a place of privacy. When he wanted to speak alone with one of us, this is where we were invited. Two overstuffed leather chairs faced each other in a dark corner of the room.
Jalaine sat across from me in one of them, trembling, screaming, still not understanding.
I jumped to my feet. “Look at me, Jalaine! I’m covered in blood! And I got the best of it! Samuel may never be able to use his hand again!”
“But Jase—”
“That’s it! My decision is made! I’m pulling you from the arena!”
“It was one time! One mistake—”
“But it was a huge one! They nearly killed us all!”
“Are you sure it wasn’t your mistake?” she yelled, trying to fling the blame back at me. “Did you even ask him before you killed him?”
“Let me see, when should I have done that? Right before he came at me with his sword? Or while he was choking Kazi?”
“It wasn’t just me! Gunner was telling everyone about the queen coming!”
“But Gunner didn’t tell everyone about the message he sent for me to come home, or the trail I’d be riding on! They knew exactly when we would be there!”
A new thought hit me—were they the same group that had posed as Ballengers in the attack on the Vendan settlement?
“What about the shorthorn? Did you mention to Fertig about us going out to the settlement for payment?”
Her eyes grew wide and then she sobbed, “I didn’t know, Jase. He loved me. He swore he loved me.”
I threw my hands into the air. “When did you become so stupid, Jalaine?”
She lunged at me, striking out with her fists, her nails catching my jaw. I grabbed her, pinning her arms to her sides, and held her tight against my chest. She shook with sobs.
When she finally calmed I whispered, “Did you know he was fond of dice?”
She nodded.
“You’re going to give me a list now, of everyone you ever saw him talking to. I don’t care if he was talking to his horse, I want to know.”
I stood over her, watching, as she wrote at the desk. Her tears fell on the paper. When she was finished, I looked it over, then folded it in half.
“You’ll be at dinner tonight,” I said, “and you won’t say a word. You’ll sit there and take a good long look at everyone at that table. You’ll look at every scratch, bruise, and bandage, and at the faces of those who could have been hurt next, like Nash and Lydia. You’ll reflect on all the things that might have been lost, just because you didn’t think.”
Only pieces of Before are left, scant memories that don’t add up to anything whole. Before doesn’t matter anymore but I tell the pieces to the crying children, anything to make them quiet.