Page 100 of Thorn Season
I held her gaze, unmoved. “So I should let the Capewells find the compass first? Garret is finally desperate enough to tell Briar everything I’ve learned at court, and he’ll no longer be inclined to keep it from her hands—to keep her from consulting it aroundme.”
It should have devastated me to lose him like this, when I’d been so close to having him in my life again. But right now, I hated him too much to feel the loss.
Tari shook her head. “Garret wouldn’t—”
“Garret is a coward and a traitor,” I snapped, pulling away. After years of hostility between them, she chose to defend himnow—after learning he’d orchestrated my kidnapping?
Tari looked down, guilty. “I just want to make sure you’re thinking this through.”
Didn’t she understand that this was all Icouldthink about? All that roused me into waking each morning?
“Do you know what today is?” I asked. “It’s the fifth of the month. We should’ve been in Vereen this morning, playing Double Decks with Marge and Lidia, drinking hot lemonade. But Marge was killed, remember? These copycats found her and poisoned her and hit her until she bled.” I rolled up the map and turned. “I won’t let them slaughter anyone else.”
Tari’s gentle question halted me. “Is that the only reason you’re doing this? For Wielders like Marge?”
My specter swelled—an internal admission of what I wouldn’t say aloud. That although I was hunting the compass for all the Wielders of Daradon, I was hunting the keeper for myself.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Kevi Banday was murdered on Verenian soil. So, yes, this is my job.” I strode away. “You don’t have to do it with me.”
The next evening, Tari and I rode from the hidden servants’ gate, the eurium knife smacking at my belt. Inky darkness spilled all the way to the Verenian grasslands, the humid air rustling my blouse collar. We tied the horses to the trees and continued on foot, my limbs pumping with energy and purpose as we drew closer to Kevi Banday’s last location.
If the copycats had chosen this xerylite mine as a delivery point, they might be storing their weapons here. At the very least, I could relieve them of their armory.
But in an even better scenario, I would find here a piece of evidence that would lead me right to the keeper.
“Here.” I stopped at a boulder propped against a dip in the field, where the grass had been stamped out. “It’s been moved recently.”
I heaved the boulder away with my specter. Just like the tunnels where Keil’s Wielders had taken me, a mesh of foliage concealed the dark entry.
I crouched, and Tari grasped my shoulder.
“We’re only looking,” she said. “If we find anything, we’ll come back with reinforcements.”
I nodded, though I hadn’t a clue what reinforcements Tari was depending on. Vereen was hardly known for its military, and our meager forces were spent guarding the square.
Whatever we found tonight, I would deal with myself.
We descended via a string ladder and landed in a cocoon of warm, damp earth. The ground spread unevenly, soil grinding under my boots. A crackle—then Tari’s face flickered with torchlight. She tossed her match aside as I lifted the torch from its rusty holder.
This complex appeared cruder than the last, the air staler, with open entryways gutting the walls.
“It looks empty,” Tari said.
“Maybe it is.” I couldn’t hide my disappointment.
We slunk forward, our shadows wavering.
“If anyone’s here,” said Tari, “that torch will draw them like a beacon.”
“And if they don’t see us, they’ll hear us,” I retorted.
Her mouth snapped shut.
We continued for several minutes, our breaths heavy in the stillness. With each turning that produced another stretch of unlit torches, my heart sank lower into my stomach. This couldn’t be where my search ended.
Then Tari nudged me, nodding to her left.
A wooden door stood between the earth-packed walls, its hooped handle glinting under our torchlight. I inched forward and pulled the handle. The door squealed open.
