She took another step and suddenly dozens of dark shapes flew out of the blackness, wings beating madly all around her, swerving and diving, cries wild and shrill, before flying out the door and into the night. Phryne gathered up the shattered remnants of her resolve, so badly startled she had almost turned and fled. Birds. Just birds, roosting in the abandoned house, seeking food and shelter.
She had just managed to take a fresh step forward when a disembodied voice from almost right behind her said, “Phryne? What was that? Are you all right?”
She was startled all over again, instantly riddled with fear, but she held herself together when she realized it was Xac Wen speaking to her. Somehow he had managed to come up on her without her hearing. She wheeled on him angrily.
“I thought I told you to wait for me!” she hissed.
“You did, but I thought …”
“You thought you would creep up on me and give me the fright of my life, that’s what you thought!”
She glared at him in the dark, realizing that he probably couldn’t see the look on her face, but certainly couldn’t mistake the tone of her voice. He took a step back and made a warding gesture.
“Just trying to help!” he snapped. “I thought you were in trouble or something! I didn’t realize you were just fooling around with birds!”
She almost laughed, it sounded so ridiculous, but managed to keep a straight face.
“Oh, never mind. Thanks for worrying about me. You just scared me, that’s all.”
“I know. But I didn’t mean to.” He looked past her into the darkened interior. “Find anything yet?”
“No. But I haven’t started looking. I was making sure no one else was here but me.”
She brushed back a few strands of auburn hair from her eyes and instantly regretted it.
Her battered face was not yet ready to be touched, and she winced in response to the gesture.
“Doesn’t look to me like anyone’s here,” he said.
She appraised him critically. “I suppose now that you’re here you want to help me look?”
The boy shrugged. “Depends. What am I looking for?”
“Anything that looks interesting. Any sort of clue that my grandmother might have left that would tell me what happened to her.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t know.
Just look.”
They prowled through the empty cottage, moving from room to room, searching the darkness, afraid to light a lamp or even a candle because anyone watching or passing by would know there was someone inside in an instant. Phryne moved cautiously but confidently, familiar with the layout of the cottage, pretty much knowing where things were. Xac Wen didn’t seem bothered by unfamiliarity or darkness, slipping sure-footedly through the shadows, and Phryne found herself wondering if he had been here more often than he let on.
Their search was thorough, but there was nothing much to be found. Furniture was overturned, vases smashed, cabinets kicked in, and bedding thrown everywhere. Not only had Mistral been attacked, her cottage had been searched—which would suggest Isoeld was indeed looking for the blue Elfstones. Phryne knew Mistral had retained possession of them after their last meeting and apparently had hidden them again.
Perhaps she had done so only as a precaution before the King’s murder, but afterward she would have understood that she might be in danger, too. Mistral was no fool. If she had hidden the Elfstones, it was unlikely that Isoeld would find them here.
Or that Phryne would, for that matter.
Still, she kept looking, taking time to study everything. Xac Wen trailed after her, searching the same places, examining the same things. But neither of them saw anything helpful.
“This is a waste of time,” the boy said finally. They had reached the back porch and were staring out the window into the old woman’s gardens. “We could search this cottage from now until doomsday and never find anything. Whatever it is you think you’re looking for, I don’t think you’ll find it. Let’s go. It will be light soon.”
She knew he was right, but she was feeling stubborn about this. If her grandmother had felt threatened, she would have made preparations. She would have done something either to get word to Phryne or to leave her a clue as to where she had gone. She would have been prepared when Isoeld and her minions came calling. She wouldn’t have been caught off guard.
“We’ll look a little longer,” she replied.
She had just decided to go back to Mistral’s bedroom and start over when she spied the flowers. They were sitting in a vase by the open window, their petals caught in the faint starlight, radiating a soft crimson. Beautiful, she thought suddenly. But then she realized that flowers in a vase in an abandoned house should be wilted and dying, not fresh and new. She walked over to them, reached down and touched them experimentally.
To her surprise, they began to glow with a soft, steady light that suggested somehow they were lit from within.
“Um, Phryne,” she heard Xac whisper.