“She doesn’t seem to mind,” she said, giving my arm a squeeze before she dashed up the stairs.
“Hello again!” Ken called, bustling up to us before we could follow Gilly. “Hail the conquering heroes. I would ask you how the challenge went, but the very fact that you are here tells me what I want to know.”
“It was pretty frightening,” I told them, a little irritated at having to stay and make small talk when I wanted to think over the afternoon’s events.
“I imagine so, oh, I can imagine it was very frightening. And your employer there, she looked so very happy to see you unharmed.”
“If you’ll excuse us,” Rowan said before I could straighten out Ken’s misimpression, “we are a bit tired, and I know Sophea would like to get cleaned up and changed into something a little less revealing.”
“Of course you would. Oh, you poor thing, having to traipse around in your… er… shirt.”
“Lucky you weren’t fried to a crisp,” Barbie said with her usual gruff manner.
I forced a smile to my lips, then allowed Rowan to pull me up the stairs to our cabin.
“Not that I don’t like them, but thank you. Standing there dissecting the challenge is the last thing I want to do right now.”
“Good,” he said with a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows. “I have other plans for you, anyway.”
We entered the cabin, but all the ladies were in Mrs. P’s room, evidently toasting our success (or the return of Ipy in ghost form) if the cries of happiness audible through the closed door were accurate.
Oddly, melancholy gripped me as we entered my room. “The cruise is due to end tomorrow.”
Rowan unloaded his pockets, dumping his small notebook, a couple of pens, the three bits of broken pinkish glass, and his cell phone onto the nightstand. The face he turned to me was as grim as my heart. “That’s right.”
I swallowed back a lump in my throat. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any insight as to what we can do to stop the ring’s doohickey from falling into demon hands?”
He shook his head. “There’s one last person I can contact in the morning. He’s an archimage, and has more than a little passing interest in alchemy. He’s also in charge of the group that polices the Otherworld, so he’s difficult to get hold of. I’ve been told he might answer a call from me in the morning.”
I sighed and plopped down on the bed. “That seems very last chance, but I don’t suppose we have an alternative.”
“None,” he said, sitting next to me. His shoulders slumped just a little, making me scoot over until I was pressed against him. He put his arm around me, and we sat like that for a long time, looking out of the porthole as the ship got underway again.
There just didn’t seem to be much more to say.
Seventeen
“Goddess above, below, and behind!”
Rowan looked up from his notebook when Sophea stormed into their cabin, slamming the door behind her. In her hand she held two bags. “Problems, my sweet?”
“Great galloping… gah!” Sophea struck a dramatic pose and waved a hand around. “Now Gilly’s disappeared.”
A little chill caressed Rowan’s spine. “Are you sure? No, that’s a stupid question. Of course you’re sure. Has the captain been notified?”
“Ha. Big fat lot of good that would do.” Sophea set down one of the bags, using the other to gesture. “I told one of the officers that Gilly never came back after we had seen her, and he just said that if passengers wished some privacy, then it was nothing to do with them.”
Rowan raised his eyebrows and pondered whether it was worthwhile to demand the captain search the ship. “We were the last ones to see her?”
“Yes. She ran upstairs right after the captain passed us.”
“Hmm.” His mind turned over memory of their return to the ship. “Tell me again how you found out that the first priestess was missing.”
Sophea gave him a long look. “Why? Do you see a connection other than they’re both underwear priestesses, and no one is overly alarmed if they disappear or have their respective heads lopped off? It was a head that was under that blanket, wasn’t it?”
“It was. But I’d like you to tell me about the situation with Ipy.”
“All right, but I demand you tell me what you are thinking, because I’m totally clueless.” Sophea spent the next ten minutes telling and retelling the conversation with Bunefer and Gilly.
“Hmm,” he said again, thinking about it.
“Okay, your turn to dish. Hmm what?”
“Hmm, does it strike you that each time a woman has disappeared, the captain has been present or just left the scene?”
Sophea opened her eyes wide, goggling at him in a manner he found especially adorable. “You can’t… the captain? I mean, I don’t like the man, but… really? You think he’s the madman?”
“He’s certainly got a temper on him and a bit of a dictator attitude.”