Page 47 of Artemysia
Ivy props her elbows on the table, listening, but gives no input.
“Riev?” I ask. “Syf don’t seem like they’d be sophisticated enough to pick a lock—they’d just hack down a door, right?”
“Agreed. They’re mindless killers. Like a pack of roving beasts, they’re out for themselves, killing everything in sight,” he says. “No organized strategy.”
Something else bothers me. “Where did the anonymous tip come from, warning of an imminent Syf attack?”
“Sharp, Captain,” Riev says, surprising me. “Olivier, how was the message delivered?”
“A handwritten note. Let me see if we still have it.” Olivier pushes back from the table to rummage in a drawer of a desk near the fire. He shakes his head. “Everything is out of order, rifled through. The note is gone. Fancy paper, green ink.”
Fancy paper, green ink?
“A note was left in my pack back in Stargazer.Stay out of Artemysia.Expensive stationery and unusual ink.”
“You didn’t tell me.” Throg eyes me accusingly.
“It didn’t come up. I didn’t want to worry you. It still doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s not right for you to bear all the worry, Captain.”
“It’s my job. Okay, someone is intent on warning us and helped Limingfrost. Same someone who wants old books and papers, perhaps information? Likely a separate group from the marauding Syf.”
“It must be valuable information to them…” Riev begins.
My brows lift, and I finish his thought. “Information they really need or knowledge they don’t want us to have.”
Riev nods, appearing impressed, because his scowl is gone.
“If they were old books we didn’t use a lot…” I mutter.
This time, Riev completes my thoughts. “It’s likely older information. Outdated or forgotten.”
We share a moment of understanding and respect for the next few heartbeats.
He doesn’t smile, but he studies me, deep in thought, drinking in my gaze.
“Forgotten details,” I echo, “that someone doesn’t want us to remember. Such as, forgotten records they don’t want found? How South Kingdom and North Kingdom lost communication two hundred years ago…?”
Riev scratches his chin and reclines in his chair. “Or written records of Syf trade. It’s all hearsay that there was any at all.”
“What would the Syf have had that humans would trade for?” Ivy leans her head on Throg’s shoulders, yawning. It’s late.
Olivier excuses himself to use the bathroom.
I catch Throg and Ivy exchanging devious glances as they pick at the last of dinner. Throg mumbles inaudibly and Ivy laughs.
I question Throg with a raised eyebrow.
“Outpost boy.” His face twists. He’s holding in a laugh.
“What about him?”
Throg pretends to cough. “He’s hot.”
Ivy makes an obscene gesture with her fingers. “Evenyoumust have noticed.”
“He seems normal,” I say nonchalantly.
