Page 92 of By the Horns
“The body?” Sparrow’s eyes grow wide.
“The one she found in the training tunnel that had been there for decades,” he clarifies.
“Oh,Gwenna.” She sounds like she’s disappointed in me.
“It’s not like I was trying to find a dead man,” I hiss. “It just sort of happened.”
She clucks her tongue. “How many is that now? Four?”
I bite back a grimace. “More if you count all the people in the crypt where we found the ring.”
“Oh dear,” Sparrow says, turning back to the chicken. “Oh dear.”
“And you knew about this the entire time?” Raptor asks her. He moves toward the table, pushing aside a cat and sitting on the edge. His hand goes toward me, palm up, and I realize he’s offering it to me. A warm rush sweeps through my belly, and I hold on to him tightly.
“Well, yes. I haven’t said anything to Hawk, though. It isn’t my secret to share.” She hacks at the chicken’s legs, and the cats meow louder, rubbing against her skirts.
“I think we should tell him. He needs to know about this latest development, because right now it looks like Gwenna is working with our thieves…unless we point out that there’s another reason why she’s been tied to all the bodies we’ve found.”
I hold back my anxiety, clinging to Raptor’s hand. “I need to know everything that’s going on. This whole deal with the thieves? Tell me all you know.”
He does, and the more I hear, the more worried and dismayed I become. Raptor’s been in on this the entire time, and I never knew. He was watching us, reporting back about us. Only his hand tightly clutching mine tells me that he feels differently about me now than he did when our Five first formed.
Raptor wraps up his story and gazes down at me. “It’s why I’m acting as a fledgling. They demoted me so I could help them hunt down the thieves from the inside. I was supposed to be watching my Five, andHawk is watching his. We knew someone was working with the fledglings and thought to get the inside information, but so far it hasn’t led anywhere.”
“You think Hemmen was one of these thieves?” Sparrow asks, delicately pulling chicken free from the bone and dicing it. Or trying to. She’s bad with a knife, and the cats are growing impatient. As quickly as she chops the chicken and dumps it into a bowl, the cats are trying to fish the tidbits out to eat. I should go help her…but I don’t let go of Raptor’s hand.
“Aye, that’s what we think. If he wasn’t the one thieving, he was working with the thieves.”
“How do we know?” I ask.
“Because he died the same way everyone else did. We have to assume that they’re working together, the thieves.”
“It’s not Gwenna. If it helps, she can’t read Old Prellian,” Sparrow offers. “She wouldn’t know what objects are valuable and which ones aren’t.”
“I can barely read Common,” I mutter. “And a thief doesn’t have to look for specific items, I imagine. They just look for shiny ones. Or ones that are easy to grab. You think whoever’s snatching things knows what they’re grabbing? They just know they’re valuable. That’s my guess.”
“But why target you?” Sparrow asks. “Why pick Gwenna to try to get kicked out?”
I shrug, glancing up at Raptor.
“I don’t know. It’s one of many questions we have that don’t have answers.” He shakes his head. “We need information that no one has.”
“Or if they had it, they’re dead now,” I point out.
Both Sparrow and Raptor turn to look at me.
Oh no. Me and my big mouth.
Forty-Two
Gwenna
Rooster is franticwhen we arrive at the main guild hall. His clothes are disheveled, there are papers all over his desk, and he tugs at his sash, clearly agitated. “Why is the guild suddenly swimming in bodies? Two in one day? One a current fledgling? Do we need to shut down all the classes for the year? For everyone’s safety?”
Raptor looks over at me and rolls his eyes.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling, because it’s not appropriate. Rooster isn’t wrong: two people are dead. The situation is indeed quite terrible. But watching him strut about, pulling on his hair and tugging on his heavy, pin-encrusted sash, is practically comical. I’m trying to picture the small, squat man hunting for artifacts in the Everbelow and I just can’t imagine it. Not when there are strong, capable, and delicious Taurians like Raptor.
