The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (71 page)

“Ho, there, Rafferdy!” Eldyn called out. “Wait up!”

Rafferdy stopped and looked up at the sound of his name. When he saw Eldyn hurrying toward him across the circle, a grin split his face, and then he looked like the old Rafferdy indeed.

“Garritt, by God, it’s good to see you!” he exclaimed, clasping Eldyn’s hand and shaking it long and vigorously. Eldyn returned the gesture with equal energy.

“It’s been too long,” Eldyn said.

“Far too long,” Rafferdy agreed. “Yet now that I see you, I can’t imagine why that is. Surely your business can’t have been occupying you all this time. What was it you were doing? Something about the New Lands, if I recall. How did that all turn out?”

One day he would tell Rafferdy the whole story, but only when both of them were drunk enough. “It wasn’t what I thought it would be,” Eldyn said, truthfully enough.

“Nothing ever is,” Rafferdy said. “I presume you’re on to new endeavors?”

Eldyn slipped a hand into his coat pocket, touching the penny there, and could not help a smile. “I believe I am,” he said. “But what of you? You’ve been busy yourself of late. Has your work for your father still been occupying you, or are you on to other schemes?”

Rafferdy looked away, across Greenly Circle, and a shadow of that seriousness again crossed his face. In that moment he looked older than he ever had before, though Eldyn could not say he looked unwell.

“What’s the matter, Rafferdy?” he said, then he laughed. “Why, you look positively lordly. Have you decided to quit worrying about all that power and start enjoying being a magnate?”

Rafferdy turned to fix him with a sharp look. “What I would enjoy is a glass of whiskey.”

“Really? You looked like you were walking with great purpose just now. Weren’t you going somewhere?”

“It can wait,” Rafferdy said. “Besides, a drink can only help, and I see a tavern right there across the circle.”

“It’s a bit early for liquor.”

“Nonsense. The lumenal is to be short. If we do not act with haste, the day will be over. We’d best drink now while we have the chance.”

Eldyn couldn’t argue with that logic. Besides, it seemed both he and Rafferdy were on errands neither anticipated with pleasure. The lumenal was to be longer tomorrow. He could always look for work then. One more day wouldn’t make a difference.

“Well come on, then,” he said. “We’ve already lost another minute just standing here.”

They proceeded to the tavern, finding it dim, cavelike, and utterly to their liking. There they passed several pleasant hours smoking, drinking, talking, and laughing. Eldyn had forgotten how much he truly
liked
Rafferdy. He was at once reminded of fond days past and filled with hope at what the future held for both of them.

Their mood became solemn only once, when Eldyn asked if he ever saw Miss Lockwell. Eldyn often thought of her still, and he knew how much Rafferdy had cared for her.

“She is Miss Lockwell no longer,” Rafferdy said. He finished his whiskey and poured another.

“She is married?” Eldyn said, shocked by this news. “To whom?”

“To a man who, it turns out, works for my father.”

Eldyn could not disguise his horror. “You mean a servant?”

“No, you misunderstand. Mr. Quent is an agent of the king, as is my father. He assists Lord Rafferdy in his work for the Crown—whatever that is. I confess, it is still a mystery to me. I have never met this Mr. Quent, but I gather he has worked for my father for many years. What’s more, it turns out he was, in the past, a friend of Mr. Lockwell’s. So it seems Miss Lockwell and I were connected before we ever encountered each other. A curious world, isn’t it? We think we meet people by chance, when chance has nothing to do with it.” He took a long draft from his glass.

Eldyn didn’t know what to say, so he took a drink himself. He knew this could only have been hard news to his friend. First his own engagement to Miss Everaud had been broken off under a cloud of scandal, and now this. How unfortunate the subject of marriage must seem to him! All the same, Rafferdy must have known that, no matter what happened, he never would have been able to marry Miss Lockwell.

“I’m glad for her,” Rafferdy said, his voice gone smoky from the whiskey. “I am given to understand he is somewhat old for her but that he has a large estate and is a respectable gentleman. So she is pretty, and he is rich. No doubt society will judge it an excellent match. I know my father does; thus a woman he found intolerable for his son is in turn found ideal for his associate. Strange, isn’t it, how it’s the direction we are viewed from that makes us attractive or abhorrent? But it is well. Yes, I am glad for her.”

Despite Rafferdy’s grave look, Eldyn believed him.

“To Miss Lockwell,” he said, raising his glass.

“To Mrs. Quent,” Rafferdy replied.

After that, they drank for a little while in silence.

Gradually their spirits rose again, and their talk resumed. Soon they were laughing again like old times as Rafferdy imitated some lord or lady he had overheard at Lady Marsdel’s. At last the whiskey was gone, and with a sigh Rafferdy said that his errand could not wait.

“What is it you must do that you find so disagreeable?” Eldyn asked.

Rafferdy twisted the ring on his right hand. “I am, if you can believe it, on my way to a lesson in magick with Mr. Bennick.”

At first he thought Rafferdy was making another jest. But no—he was serious! Eldyn expressed his extreme astonishment and pressed Rafferdy for his motivations. Last Eldyn knew, Rafferdy had mocked those young men at university who studied the arcane arts.

“My reasons will have to wait for when we meet next,” Rafferdy said. “I am now very late.”

Indeed, it was later than Eldyn thought as they stepped out the tavern door. The sun was already nearly to the Citadel, and boys walked about Greenly Circle, hawking the evening broadsheets.

Eldyn shook Rafferdy’s hand and began to ask when they should plan to meet again. However, as he spoke, one of the boys passed by, holding up a copy of
The Messenger
.

Rafferdy frowned. “What is it, Garritt? Did you have too much to drink? You look unwell of a sudden.”

Eldyn reached into his pocket, fumbled, and pulled out the penny. It was dull copper again. “Here!” he said, throwing the penny to the boy. “Give me one of those.”

He snatched the broadsheet from the boy, then turned it over, reading the headline that had caught his eye: N
OTORIOUS
H
IGHWAYMAN
E
SCAPES
.

“What is it, Garritt? You’re pale as if you saw a ghost.”

Yes, it was like being haunted by the ghost of one thought dead. Eldyn read the first lines of the article. It had happened that morning, in the gray hour just before dawn. Howls were heard coming from the jail beneath Barrowgate. A guard was found dead, his flesh torn as if by some animal, his mouth stuffed full of Murghese gold. The prisoner was nowhere to be seen….

A hand fell on his arm. Eldyn flinched away, but it was only Rafferdy. He looked at Eldyn, concern on his face.

“What’s wrong, Garritt?”

Eldyn shook his head. “It is…forgive me. I must go.”

Before Rafferdy could say anything more, Eldyn turned and ran across Greenly Circle, clutching the broadsheet in his hands.

H
IS BLOOD DRUMMED in his ears by the time he reached the inn in Lowpark. Despite his dread, he had been forced to walk the last part of the way, for his lungs felt as if he had breathed fire.

The inn was quiet as he entered. Hope rose within him. Perhaps he had not come yet; perhaps he was waiting for dark to fall. Eldyn hurried up the stairs to the chambers he shared with Sashie.

The door opened as he touched the handle. He stepped into the room, and a low sound escaped him. The bedclothes lay in a tattered heap, and the pillows were gutted, their contents strewn about. The curtains had been ripped down, the table overturned. There were lines on one wall—four gouges made close together. Eldyn reached out a shaking hand, tracing the gouges with his fingers. A sickness welled up inside him.

Footsteps sounded behind him. He lurched around, and so strong was his relief, his joy, that it overwhelmed him as much as fear had a moment ago.

“Hello, sweet brother,” Sashie said, smiling in the doorway, a basket in her hands. Then she stepped inside, and her smile vanished. The basket slipped from her grasp. Oranges rolled across the floor.

He went to her and took her hand. “Are you all right? Did you see anyone following you?”

“Following me? I don’t understand.” She gazed around, her eyes large. “What’s happened, brother? Who did this?”

“We have to go. Now.”

“But my things, my dresses—”

“There’s no time for that.” Tightening his grip on her hand, he pulled her after him, into the hall and down the stairs.

He halted at the bottom. She began to question him again, but he pressed a finger to her lips. He gathered the dim air around both of them like a cloak, then listened. Usually there was a low murmur of conversation in the public room or clatters from the kitchen. However, the inn was silent. The lamps had not been lit against the coming night.

Eldyn waited. He could not believe Westen was far. He had come looking for Sashie but had not found her. Yet surely he was close and had seen them both enter the inn. In which case, why did he not attack?

Because he did not want to kill them—he wanted something far more than that. He wanted Sashie.

Eldyn tightened his grip on his sister’s hand. She let out a gasp of pain, but he ignored it. Their only hope was to make a dash for the door and run down the lane. There would be people on the main thoroughfare below. He could not believe Westen would show himself in front of a crowd—not when he was a wanted man, not when a drawing of his face had appeared in every broadsheet in the city.

“Move quickly,” he whispered. “And do as I say.”

Keeping the gloom close around them, he started for the door, pulling Sashie after him.

Ahead, something stirred in the dimness of the public room. He glimpsed the silhouette of a tall, upright figure as it passed before the silver square of a window. The figure was lost to sight, but a moment later another shadow appeared, this one nearer to the floor. A low sound, a kind of growling, rose on the air. Sashie screamed.

There was no point in concealment now. He flung the shadows off.

“To the door!”

He pulled Sashie after him but hardly needed to, for she was fast on his heels. When they reached the door he dreaded it had been locked, but after fumbling with the latch he was able to thrust it open. They pushed out into the twilight and ran down the deserted lane.

Like a coil of night, a dark shape burst out of the door of the inn behind them. Again Sashie screamed, and fear renewed Eldyn’s strength. He careened down the lane, pulling his sister after him. The sound of sharp things against stone followed behind, drawing closer with each step they took. They were a quarter of the way down the lane, now half. He could see light and people ahead.

Something nipped at Eldyn’s heels, and he nearly went tumbling to the cobbles. He caught himself and ran on, but it was no use. Their pursuer would have them before they reached the end of the lane. His only hope was to give Sashie time to escape.

It was, like all the bravest things, an act born out of fear and foolishness. He pulled hard on Sashie’s arm—so hard she cried out—and flung her ahead of him. She went staggering down the lane. At the same time he turned around and thrust his arms before him, as if his bare hands held any sort of power.

“Back, devil!” he shouted, as the priest had once shouted at him. “Back to the Abyss from which you came!”

He caught a glimpse of a crouching shadow—sinuous, humpbacked. Two amber sparks winked to life, and the last faint glow of daylight caught on a jagged curve of teeth.

The shadow leaped.

“Get back!” cried a voice that was not Eldyn’s.

At the same moment a flash of silver light and a clap of thunder shattered the gloom. Eldyn was blinded, stunned. Something gripped his arm, pulling him down the lane. Unable to see, he stumbled after.

Noise surrounded him—the comforting sounds of people and horses and carriages. He blinked, and his vision cleared. Sashie stood beside him, a dazed look on her face. They had reached the avenue, still thronging with people after the brief day. Lamplighters went about their work. He glanced back at the mouth of the lane that led up to the inn. It was dark and empty.

“Are you all right, Eldyn?”

He blinked again and saw Dercy standing before him. As always the young man was dressed in black. His face was pale.

“Dercy, how did you…What are you doing here?”

“Getting you out of trouble again, it seems. I came to see if you were going to join me at the theater tonight. I almost didn’t. I was thinking you’d just show up on your own, but I’m glad I did. Is this your sister?”

Eldyn nodded. It was hard to speak. “This is Sashie.”

Dercy touched her chin. “Are you all right? Are you hurt in any way?”

She stared up at him for a moment, then shook her head, her lips pressed tight together.