16
JANCO
The Black Cat Tavern was everything a tavern should be—long bar with plenty of stools and bartenders, big tables for groups of rowdy soldiers, pretty servers who knew how to handle drunken customers, and little nooks around the edges for hosting private conversations. Plus the ale was to die for! Just the right blend of hops and barley and— “Janco! Are you paying attention?” Ari asked.
“Sure, chief. Me and Little Miss Assassin are going to go undercover, and—”
“Not you—Gerik and Onora.”
Janco shook his head. “Not happening.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause we can’t trust them together. And, as much as I’ll miss you, Ari old boy, I’m gonna take one for the team.”
Ari rubbed his face. They sat in their favorite nook—the farthest from the door and the deepest in shadow. Onora refused to order a drink. She’d leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed as if they were going to jump her. As if. The grunt sipped his ale, pretending to be relaxed. Except he gripped the glass hard enough for the muscles on his forearm to pop. Impressive pop, though.
“I know better than to ask, but...take one for the team?” Ari set his mug down.
“All your plans are swell, really they are, but they’re not gonna work. The same people who recognize us are gonna spot Sergeant Grunt here right away. We need to come at this from a different direction.”
Understanding lit Ari’s eyes. “Sitia.”
“Yup. I’ll take the young pup south and you and the grunt do all the typical stuff we do to find information—interrogate the prisoners, follow the leads—so it looks like we’re investigating.”
“We have to determine a potential location of the smugglers first. The border’s over a thousand miles long with lots of small Sitian towns nearby. And you’ll need a good disguise. They know you in Sitia.”
Janco pished. “The least of my worries.”
“And what’s your biggest worry?” Onora asked, speaking for the first time.
“My mother. I’m supposed to visit her. It’s been forever and she’s not gonna be happy.”
She huffed in disbelief. “I can kill you in your sleep and you’re worried about your mother?”
“You won’t kill me.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause Valek scares you. While my mother... Nobody scares her.”
*
After their meeting, Ari and Janco returned to their office in the castle. Half the size of Valek’s, it contained two of everything—desks, chairs, filing cabinets. One set was neat and organized, and the other set was Janco’s. Valek had left a huge stack of reports from his spies in Sitia on Ari’s desk. They scanned through the latest ones. Concentrating on the information from the towns close to the Ixian border, they searched for anything out of the ordinary.
After a few hours, Janco’s head ached with all the mind-numbing details. “Listen to this... Forty-three citizens attended the town meeting along with four officials. They voted to install a statue outside the town hall. Seriously? This is what our spies think is important?” He tossed the report on the messy pile with all the other useless data.
“This one dutifully records the entire conversation between two wives of two low-level aides in the Cloud Mist Clan. They talked about a woman named Melinda, who was in labor for three days and had triplets.” Ari snapped his shut.
They worked for a while in silence. Janco’s vision blurred as he skimmed an inventory list in a factory in the Moon Clan’s lands—spare wagon wheels, hitches, nuts, bolts, drying racks, rollers, glass bottles, tubing... As he was about to close the file, an item jumped from the page. A barrel full of leaves.
Why would a factory need leaves? Maybe it was for a medical substance. Yelena’s father created all types of medicines and healing salves from the plants he’d collect in the Illiais Jungle. Janco read the rest of the report.
The spies had targeted the place because there had been plenty of activity inside, but as far as they could determine, no products had been produced. They had sneaked in and still couldn’t figure out what the factory was manufacturing.
If they’d been making medicine, then the spies would have spotted vials or pouches. What else could be made from leaves? “Cigars.”
“What about them?” Ari asked.
Janco handed him the file. “I think this place might be producing them.”
Ari flipped through the pages. “It’s possible. But there’s no way to know if they’re manufacturing the illegal Greenblade cigars or regular cigars.”
“The building is located in Lapeer near the Ixian border. It’s an isolated area of the Moon Clan’s lands and far away from the other factories down in Greenblade’s forests. It’s a place to start.”
“We should talk to Valek. He might know what this is.”
They found Valek outside his office. He unlocked his door and ushered them inside.
“Did you find something?” Valek asked.
Ari explained about the factory, handing the file to Valek.
He scanned the report, then tapped on a page. “This mentions an amber-colored liquid.”
“Could be honey-tree sap used in the cigars,” Janco suggested.
“Or real honey or resin or adhesive,” Valek said. “There could be a number of different explanations.”
“We should check it out since we’re going to Sitia anyway.”
“You are?”
“Uh...” Janco glanced at Ari for help.
Ari gave him a you-got-yourself-into-this-you-get-yourself-out-of-it smirk. Some partner. Janco told Valek about their meeting and conclusions. “It makes the most sense. We’re not going to get far on this side of the border.”
Valek studied him for a moment. “Finish reading through all the reports first.”
Janco groaned. “That’ll take days.”
“Then I’d suggest you enlist the help of the rest of your team members,” Valek said.
“But...”
“But what?” Valek used his flat warning tone.
Janco ignored it. “We don’t trust them, do we?”
“I trust you to keep an eye on them.” He accompanied them out of his office. “I’m going to be leaving in a few days, as well.”
“Where are you going?” Janco asked.
“North to MD-2.”
“Investigating our new recruits?” Ari asked.
“Yes.” Valek locked the door and headed in the opposite direction.
As they walked down the hallway, Janco scratched the scar where the lower half of his right ear used to be. “If he doesn’t trust them, then why are they working with us?”
“No idea.”
“What should we do?”
“We’ll do what Valek said—keep them close.” Ari shrugged. “Who knows, they might prove useful.”
Stranger things had happened.