Page 28 of The Study of Fire
He growled. “Watch out I bite.”
“I see Yelena hasn’t finished housebreaking you yet.”
“Cute. Are you done?”
“Never, but I’ll let you know about Star.”
“Thanks.”
Valek exited the castle complex from the south gate and looped west to Castletown. The brisk air was refreshing. He’d been sweating inside with the wool layer underneath his patroller uniform.
He headed straight to the Garden District. Once there, he stopped at the first well and filled a bottle with water. Marking the cork with the location of the well, he examined the water in the fading sunlight. Nothing floated in the clear liquid. Valek moved to the next. There were five wells in the district. The water appeared clean. When he finished, Valek carried them to the safe house and gave them to Hildred.
“Please deliver these to Kenda,” he said.
“Now?” she asked.
“You can wait until you’ve done your rounds. I’m going to be in the Garden District for the next couple nights and I’ll sleep here on the couch during the day.”
“All right. I’ll let Inrick know your plans.”
Valek stopped by the watch station to compare the Commander’s groundwater map to the one he’d created the previous night. Getting inside was alarmingly easy, Valek walked to the back entrance the patrollers used and sauntered in with a couple officers. He’d have a conversation about that with Captain Ryda after they solved this puzzle.
She wasn’t in her office, and he guessed she was gone for the day. So, he climbed the steps to the second level. When he entered the FIIK room, Ryda was sitting at the table, studying the map. He scuffed his boot on the floor, and she glanced up. It didn’t take her long to recognize him.
“It’s amazing how clear the pattern appears once you mapped it out,” she said. “You must have been here for hours.”
“Worth it.” He joined her. “What do you see?”
“Whatever is causing the incidents is obviously moving to the southwest.” She tapped the parchment. “It’s not a drug, as that tends to spread out in roughly concentric circles around the people selling it. Perhaps it’s from an animal’s bite. Maybe the creature is sick and has been moving through the districts. No.” She shook her head. “We didn’t find any bite marks.”
Valek considered. “How thoroughly did you examine the victims?”
“In those cases, we look for needle marks, discolored tongues, and smell their breath. Not a fun job especially when the person is still being affected. We found none of the signs, which is why I came to you.”
Remembering Brede’s comment about Saril’s pink teacup spider bite, Valek wondered if the patrollers missed noticing a small welt. He made a mental note to ask Brede if there was a critter that could cause those symptoms.
Ryda glanced down. “I can assign extra patrollers in the Garden District.”
“No need. I’m going to be covering the area for the next few nights.”
Valek moved the stacks of files from the table then pulled out the groundwater map. Spreading it next to the incident map, he compared the markings to the flow of the water.
The captain moved closer. “Is that…a well?” She pointed to one of the circles.
“Yes.” The pattern wasn’t an exact match, but it was close enough that he couldn’t discard the theory.
“Do you think someone dumped a drug in the well and it’s spreading?”
“I can’t rule it out.” He told her about the water samples.
She laughed. “Serves Star right. That woman has been nothing but trouble since I was a patroller.” Then she sobered. “She’s dangerous and smart. Every time we figured out which patrollers she’d bribed for information, they ended up dead of suspicious circumstances.”
“My people are keeping a close eye on her,” he said.
“I thought so, too.”
He met her serious gaze. “Consider me warned.”
