To Whatever End (Echoes of Imara Book 1) (26 page)

The door led directly into the kitchens. It was gloomy and dark, the curtains all pulled shut; not even the faint light from the lamp outside cut through the darkness. Cecily led Callum through, avoiding the large wooden counter and a stack of flour sacks. They crept up a narrow stairway that led from the kitchens, stepping carefully on each stair to avoid making noise, and emerged on the third floor. Cecily paused and scanned with her Awareness to ensure nothing had changed. The figures still slumbered in their beds on the floor below and the two guards outside Stellan’s study were engaged in a game of cards.

Callum leaned close to her ear, his voice a whisper. “What I wouldn’t give to see what you can see.”

“Two. Both have swords close at hand. They’re playing cards.”

She felt him nod. “We take them out, then?”

Cecily stiffened. “Killing people wasn’t part of the plan.”

Callum pulled her back into the stairwell. He turned to face her, backed her into the corner, and kept his voice low. “We can’t exactly scare them away, can we? We have to get in that room.”

Cecily raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. “Has it been so long since we’ve done this? I can get in that room without leaving a trail of bodies. Besides, dead guards are going to alert Stellan that someone was here. I’ll take care of the guards. Just get them nice and relaxed. I’ll do the rest.”

They crept along the hallway until they came to a corner. Cecily could feel the guards, leaning in toward each other, as they tossed cards onto the table. She got the impression they were bored. Cecily felt the shimmer of Callum’s Projection slide past her, like a wave of tiredness at the end of a long day. He couldn’t actually put people to sleep, but he was very adept at manipulating people’s mental states. Cecily had once watched him relax someone so thoroughly, the man had fallen asleep with his face in his dinner.

One of the guards put down his cards and rubbed his eyes. The other rested his chin on his hand, his eyes heavy. Cecily Reached toward them and felt out their airways. She applied the slightest bit of Pressure and narrowed their windpipes very gradually. One man started to sway in his seat. The other blinked slowly. Callum kept them deeply relaxed so they failed to notice the shallowness of their breathing. Cecily knew she had to knock them both out at once. If one fell before the other lost consciousness, she risked one of them realizing something was wrong. She felt for the bundle of nerves on the side of their necks, just below the jaw. With a swift jolt of Pressure, she jabbed the nerve bundles and sent them both sliding to the floor. Pushing a whiff of air underneath them so they wouldn’t fall too hard, she laid them silently down in front of the door.

“I love it when you get all clever on me,” Callum whispered as they stepped over the unconscious guards.

The study door had a more complicated lock, but Cecily soon heard the click as it disengaged. They carefully opened the door and closed it shut behind them.

“You know, you need to be careful not to let too many people see what you can do. If word got out about what the Lyceum taught you, I don’t think many people would be as impressed as I am,” Callum said as he began rifling through stacks of books on Stellan’s desk. “I forgot how good you are at picking locks.”

“The Magisters emphasized the need for secrecy, yes. The list of people I trust with what I can do is very short. It doesn’t even include my own family.”

He stopped and looked up at her. “They don’t know?”

“No, although I don’t think they would believe me if I told them.”

“You are a rarity. How long do you think we have before the guards come to?”

“Five minutes or so. Not long.”

She focused her Awareness on the room itself and left Callum to sort through the desk. She drew her Awareness in, giving her a clearer picture of the room’s contents.

“Were you planning on helping me here, or is turning in slow circles in the center of the room your idea of searching?”

She closed her eyes and felt out the walls. Putting up a hand, she said, “Wait.” As she probed the wall on the right side, she felt an inconsistency. “There,” she said and pointed. There was a heavy tapestry hanging from a dowel. She moved it aside, Callum at her back, and found a small door with a tiny keyhole. She imagined Stellan sleeping below, a key fastened securely around his neck. Smiling to herself, she probed the lock and was rewarded with a click. She pulled open the door as Callum held the tapestry aside.

“Like I said, the Lyceum is lucky most people don’t know about you. I bet a lot of locksmiths would be out of a job,” Callum said.

Inside were several leather-bound books. They pulled them out and quickly scanned their contents.

“Shipping schedules,” Callum said. “They look just like the ones on his desk.”

Cecily flipped through the topmost volume. It was only a quarter of the way filled out, a thick section of blank pages at the back. She ran her fingers up and down the list and tried to make sense of the notes.

Callum looked over her shoulder. He reached around and pointed. “There. Some of these entries have notes in the margins. ‘Strike from record.’” He flipped the page. “Here it is again. You realize what he’s doing? He’s letting them in. No wonder he can afford this place.” He took the book and flipped through a few more pages. “There are dozens of them in here. I wonder how much they’re paying him.” He shook his head as he looked through the log.

The last page was only half full. “Look at this—the date on this one is next week, but it has the same note in the margin.”

A smile spread across Callum’s face. “And we have them,” he said.

Cecily thought about the guards outside the door. Her Awareness told her they were still unconscious, but they didn’t have much time. She scooped up the logbooks and placed them back in the hidden cabinet, closed the door, and Wielded the lock back into place.

Spreading her Awareness open to check the rest of the estate, she clutched Callum’s arm. “Someone’s awake.”

He whipped his head toward her. “Where?”

Cecily’s heart began to beat faster. “The main stairway. They’re coming.”

“We have to get out. Now.” He pulled her toward the door.

The figure reached the landing on the third floor. The hallway made a turn before the study, but they only had seconds before the figure would see the unconscious guards. “We can’t get out that way.”

“Damn.”

Cecily dashed to one of the windows on the far wall. She threw it open and looked down. The height was dizzying. She tossed one leg out the window and felt around for a foothold. Blessing the Shaper who had designed the rough stone facade, she inched her way out. Her toes gripped through her boots and her fingers held tight to the gaps in the stone.

Callum followed her out and found purchase on the other side of the window. He closed the window and she Reached in to click the latch closed.

The rain picked up and pelted her back with drops, making the wall slick. Her fingers already ached from holding on. “Try to go down,” she said and kept her head resting tight against the wall. She restrained herself from looking down.

“Oh, you think?” Callum said, his voice strained.

The window lit up behind the curtains. Cecily pressed herself against the wall, hoping no one noticed that someone had been in the study. Had Callum rifled through the desk? Was the tapestry askew? She inched her foot down, feeling for another foothold, her chest knotted with fear.

Gripping the rough stone with her hands, she lowered herself down. It wasn’t the first time she’d scaled a wall, and the memory made her stomach turn. Magister Brunell had first taught her how, when she’d studied at the Lyceum of Power. He’d shared her Awareness ability and had trained her to expand and contract the image, allowing her to spread it wide, or focus on a smaller area to sharpen the image. Using her Awareness, she easily found the handholds and gaps in the wall and she used them to quickly make it to the ground.

Callum wasn’t far behind. He shook out his hands, wincing. “That could have been worse, I suppose.”

A noise from above made them both look up. Someone opened the window. With a quick glance at each other, they dashed off in different directions. Cecily heard a yell from the window as she bolted toward the fence and threw open her Awareness. The interior of the estate was a bustle of activity, but the guards outside were slow to respond. One was heading her direction, but she scrambled into one of the trees lining the fence. A branch scratched her cheek and another snagged her shirt. She clung to the branch as the guard came near, desperately hoping the foliage would hide her.

The guard walked with his spear held out, as if expecting someone to jump out of the shadows. Cecily held her breath and willed him to keep his gaze on the ground. He crept under the tree as his head swiveled from side to side. In her Awareness, she could sense the second guard scope the perimeter on the other side of the estate. Callum had already cleared the fence and was circling around toward her. She felt the distinct feeling of Callum’s fear Projection and the guard spun, his spear whipping around in a wide arc. He took a few backward steps, then turned again and sprinted off around the corner.

Cecily waited until he was out of earshot, making sure the other guard wasn’t too close. She scrambled down out of the tree, and Callum reached up to help her from the other side of the fence. They stole down the street to where they had stashed their cloaks, then hurried for the Ale Stone, where they could gain access to the Quarry.

***

Callum lifted Cecily’s chin and dabbed a wet cloth on the scratch on her cheek. He tossed his head and blew the hair out of his eyes. “It isn’t bad,” he said.

She sat cross-legged on a small table in Callum’s underground quarters. They had made it back without incident, the dimly lit streets empty this late at night. “So they know someone broke in. Do you think they’ll know why?”

Callum pursed his lips. “Hard to say. A man like Stellan is going to be a target for any number of reasons. He won’t know who we were.” He paused and gave her a small smile. “Besides, I may have left him a little present that should help throw him off our trail.”

Cecily smiled. “I should have thought of that myself.”

He stepped back to regard her. “Maybe so. But that was a nice trick with those guards. I forgot you could do that.”

She shrugged. “My specialty was getting in and out without killing anyone. Hadran had no problems with killing people, but even he had to admit, it was easier to cover our tracks without dead bodies left behind.”

“That’s why you left the Lyceum, isn’t it? Hadran wasn’t satisfied with you just finding evidence of treason, or even planting it. He wanted you to kill for him.”

Cecily nodded. “You can be alarmingly perceptive. I was young and naive. For a while, I believed what they told me, Hadran and even the Magisters. I thought Hadran was trying to protect his people. Of course the truth was, he was paranoid and thought everyone was out to usurp his power.”

“I remember,” Callum said. “I hate the fact that I ever worked for Hadran. I didn’t always know it was him I was working for, mind you. He was as good as the Count at hiding who the orders were coming from.”

“At least you didn’t know. I knew exactly what I was doing. It never sat well with me, but I let it go for too long,” she said.

“I never believed the story that you left to run off with Daro. Or at least I knew it wasn’t the full story. You weren’t some silly, lovesick girl.”

“They didn’t give me the chance to be a silly girl,” she said. “I was good at playing one in front of people, but it wasn’t who I was.”

“Well, at least we got what we went in for. We know when their next shipment is coming, and the name of the ship. Whatever is on that ship, they want to keep clear of the inspectors. Now we just have to watch, and follow. Maybe we’ll finally get somewhere.”

Cecily nodded as a blossom of hope opened inside. Her dreams were getting worse and the stress of being without her husband mounted. But now they had something. After months of floundering, she finally had hope that they would track down Daro. She willed him to stay alive long enough for them to find him.

26. INTO MIST

Cecily squatted near the edge of the roof, her head tilted to one side. “Which one is it?”

Mira crouched down next to her and handed her the spyglass. “There,” she said, pointing to the outer slip on one of the central docks. “The one out on the end, with the deep hull and single mast.”

Positioned atop a warehouse roof, Cecily and Mira overlooked the docks on the south side of the river. The section of riverbank was wide and low, a bar of sand and well-worn river rock with a mass of docks jutting out into the water. The docks sprawled up and down the river, a tangle of ships pulling into the slips or launching out to set sail again. The vast majority of trade in and out of Halthas came through the south docks. Ships of every size, from huge seagoing vessels to smaller riverboats, tied up to unload their cargo and pay their taxes.

Cecily peered through the spyglass. The movements on the dock looked jerky and exaggerated through the lens. Sailors and workmen unloaded goods and hauled crates toward waiting carts on the shore. She focused on the ship noted in Stellan’s logbook. A few sailors walked around the deck, appearing to work, but nothing was being loaded on or off.