In a rush she induced and deduced. Master Robbie knew. He’d asked to see the Replica, and the high brunka hadn’t brought it out.
Should she reveal she knew, too? Would her masteress want her to?
Probably not, but—she used her common sense—he knew everyone here, and he’d tell her more if she were honest. “Yes,” she whispered back. “The high brunka told us.”
Master Robbie looked around, probably seeking the rest of Elodie’s us.
She remembered that IT wanted her to appear slow-witted, but that wouldn’t do with someone her age.
“I’m Elodie of Dair, and I’m”—with a touch of grandeur—“delighted to make your acquaintance.” She gave him the curtsy she had once bestowed upon Greedy Grenny, King of Lahnt.
He bowed a slight bow, the bow Count Jonty Um would make to a peasant. “I’m Robbie.”
Maybe he was too sad to be polite.
“I was of Zee.” Zee was the fishing village where the cog had docked. “Now I’m of Zertrum.”
“Oh!” He’d lose his new home if the Replica wasn’t found.
He tilted his chin toward the elderly man. “With him.” He touched his mourning beads.
She said what grown-ups say: “I’m sorry for your loss.”
His voice sharpened. “Whales and porpoises! I didn’t lose anything.” He was silent a moment. “I apologize. My grandmother died. She used to say I have no manners.” Then he added what Elodie had heard people remark about orphans: “She was all I had in the world.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. No parents? He really was poor Master Robbie.
He changed the subject. “The Replica could be in a thousand places. Have you been here before?”
She shook her head.
“There are corridors of rooms full of things like this.” He gestured at the shelves in front of them.
“You think it’s inside the Oase?”
“If it’s outside, it could be anywhere. Something else is missing, too.”
“What?”
“I’ll show you.”
How could he show her something that wasn’t there?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Elodie?” An unmistakable round baritone. “Lady El?”
Her pet name, which she loved. “Albin? Albin!”
In an instant he rushed to her, lifted her by her waist, and spun her around, exactly as he used to after they’d mansioned a scene particularly well. When she sailed by Master Robbie, she saw his expression close.
She pitied him, but Albin came first.
He set her down.
Master Robbie left them, his shoulders hunched as he went to the just-so man, who had seated himself in the middle of the row of benches, two benches away from the elderly bee.
“Are Mother and Father here, too?”
“I’m alone. How did you get here?”
“It’s too much to tell.” What could she tell him? She could trust him with anything. Even IT would have to agree. She beckoned him to bend to hear a whisper. Certainly she could divulge this, which he’d find out soon anyway: “I came with a dragon.”
Albin straightened. “No!”
Theft or no theft, she smiled her widest smile. “Yes.”
He looked puzzled and pleased. “Lady El—”
There wasn’t time for his questions. “Why are you here?”
“Because”—he began to narrate and mansion, as he often did—“the farmer sent his helper”—he bowed awkwardly, portraying the lowly helper of Elodie’s father—“here to secure enough coin from the good brunkas for passage to Two Castles to bring his daughter back.”
She’d sent a note to set their minds at rest, but it might not have reached them.
“Why didn’t they ask Brunka Wilda?” She was the Dair brunka.
“Brunka Wilda said no, and so did the high brunka. They think Bettel and Han shouldn’t have sent you to Two Castles.”
If Elodie had had a tail, it would have twitched. The brunkas had judged without understanding.
“What is this, rousing people in the night?” The voice, loud and angry, issued from the doorway.
Elodie turned to look.
The speaker addressed the just-so man. “Has High Brunka Marya told you, Uwald?”
Elodie tilted her head at Albin. The just-so man was Master Uwald? Master Uwald, the richest person on Lahnt after the earl?
Albin whispered, “The very same.”
Master Uwald’s vast Nockess Farm spread across the south slope of Zertrum Mountain and into the valley. With the Replica gone, he stood to lose everything.
He’d called Master Robbie son, but Master Uwald didn’t have a son. Everyone knew that.
“Marya hasn’t told us anything yet,” the just-so man—Master Uwald—said, “but I’ll bet it has to do with our new arrival.” He gestured in Elodie’s direction.
Still in the doorway, the newcomer demanded, “Who is she?”
Albin added, still whispering, “That’s his steward, Master Tuomo.”