A Murder of Mages (18 page)

“As well as any of us,” Minox replied. His own body
was battered, he may have even broken a rib, and his thoughts were clouded with pain pounding against his skull. It was nearly impossible to concentrate on the idea that was trying to form through the haze.

Minox walked around the wagon, checking the door. “The attacker made a point of removing any conscious choice from Missus Tomar as soon as he possibly could. If he considered her an ally, surely he would want to keep a capable mage in play, able to assist him, wouldn’t he?”

“Unless the plan is to give her deniability,” Mirrell said.

“Impressive line of thought, Inspector Mirrell,” Minox said. “You raise a valid point. But she had been knocked across the head. Hardly something to do to an ally.”

“Except to drive home that deception,” Mirrell said. “I’ve seen people do plenty worse.”

Minox nodded. “Indeed. However, I still have the distinct impression that our assailant’s purpose was not to rescue Missus Tomar from us, but to take her away.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I’m not sure of,” Minox said. He turned to look back down Silver. His head was still pounding, but there a curious sensation drawing him in that direction. It was a singular thing, but it danced frustratingly along the outside of his senses. Almost a light mist in the corner of his eye. Almost a buzz in his ear. Almost the scent of a storm about to break. Almost a cord tied to his chest, pulling him forward. “What is that?”

“What?” Mirrell asked.

“I . . . I’m not sure.”

“Jinx, you got walloped pretty good,” Mirrell said. “We should take you over to the ward and have a splint check you out.”

“I’m fine,” Minox said. He stepped in the direction he was being drawn. “There is definitely something happening in this direction.”

“Nothing is happening there, Jinx.” Mirrell’s voice was fuzzy and distant.

“I’m certain that there is.” Minox took another step. His foot didn’t touch the road. It felt like it sank into sand. His head filled with mud. Fog and buzz and storm and cord. Mirrell’s voice shouting his full name. Darkness.

Chapter 11

S
OUND RETURNED FIRST, just murmured voices in the background. Then taste—honeyed cider being poured in his mouth. Minox found the strength to open his eyes, to see Leppin’s face hovering over him.

“There you are,” Leppin said. “Welcome back.”

Minox tried to sit up, and found it incredibly difficult.

“Give yourself a few minutes, Minox,” Leppin said.

Minox coughed and found his voice. “What happened?”

“You dropped dead away in the middle of the street,” Leppin said.

“Dead away?” Minox repeated. “Was my condition that grave that I ended up in your care?”

“Not really,” Leppin said, stepping away. “Though Mirrell and Vince nearly believed it was.”

“Vince would be?”

“The wagon driver, Minox,” Leppin said. He shook his head. “Those two needed the splint to patch them up. But they were right shaken with your state. Pale, sweaty. Shaking in fit one minute, almost no pulse the next. So, of course, they call a specialist.” He brushed off his vest, looking all too proud of himself.

Minox managed to push himself up on his elbows. “How are you a specialist?”

Leppin shrugged. “Fairly, they thought you might have been poisoned or such, which is why they called me over.”

“Over where?” Minox was on a small cot, curtains blocking any other view.

“Ironheart Ward.” Leppin sat down on the cot. “Anyhow, luckily for you, my studies were always somewhat eccentric, so I was able to recognize the symptoms of Magic Depletion Fatigue.” He lowered his voice. “Plus the splints and Yellowshields didn’t really know you were a mage, so they wouldn’t have figured it.”

“What is Magic Depletion Fatigue?” Minox tried to tune his ear for any voices past the curtain. Aunt Beliah was a nurse at Ironheart, and he didn’t need her finding him here and fussing over him.

Leppin reached under the cot and pulled out Minox’s belt. “How many bolts for your crossbow do you carry?”

“Six, typically,” Minx answered.

“Right, so what happens when you shoot all six?”

“Out of bolts,” Minox said. “Is that what I did? Used all my magic? Forever?” Was that it? He had no idea that it would just be gone like that.

“Not for life, idiot,” Leppin said. “Just for . . . I’m explaining it badly. It’s more like a water well, you see. You draw a lot out at once, it goes dry. Takes a while to replenish.”

“How long is a while?”

“Blazes if I know,” Leppin said.

Minox struggled to pull himself up to a sitting position. “That is my problem as well.”

“You shouldn’t be getting up, you know.”

“I need to know the status of the situation with Missus Tomar. Has she been located? Or her abductor?”

“I thought she had been broken out,” Leppin said. “That’s what Mirrell reported.”

“Fool,” Minox muttered. “Are my clothes under the cot, Leppin?”

“What are you planning to do?” Leppin asked.

“I have to go to the stationhouse, report what happened.”

“Oh, no,” Leppin said. “You’ve got two choices, Minox. Stay here or go home.”

Minox was not interested in staying in the ward. “Home it is. Give me my clothes.”

Leppin pulled a crate out from under the cot. “I’m serious, Minox. Go home, eat something, and get some sleep. Do not come to the stationhouse until tomorrow. Promise that.”

Minox took out his clothes and started to dress. “Fair enough. What is the time?”

“Half-past seven bells. More or less.”

Minox nodded. “As you wish, Leppin.” In just four and a half hours it would be after midnight, and then he’d return to the stationhouse.

“Tomorrow morning, Mine.” Corrie came through the curtain, her face flushed. “You have to nail him down to blazing specifics, bodyman, or he’ll pull a blasted trick on you. Sinner would sneak back in at a click after midnight, I’d rutting well bet you.”

Leppin let loose a nervous cackle. “You’ve probably . . . um, you’ve surely got his number, Miss, um, Officer . . .” He trailed off, his hands fumbled on the lapels of his coat as he went through the curtain, his eyes fixed on the floor as he brushed past Corrie.

“Strange little rutter,” Corrie muttered. “Come on, Mine. I’m gonna put you on my horse and take you back home. Don’t you dare argue with me.”

“Of course not,” Minox said. “Aunt Beliah isn’t working here tonight, is she?”

“She’s off, and back at the house. Where we’ll tell everyone you got clocked in the head and knocked out. I don’t need to understand anything else the bodyman was rutting on about.”

“Fine,” Minox said. He felt no need to discuss specifics with Corrie or anyone else. “Let’s go.”

He noted, as they walked out of the ward, that Corrie did not extract any promise from him as to when he’d return. He certainly wasn’t going to remind her otherwise.

Satrine and the girls had eaten, the dishes were washed, the last of the soup left covered on the back of the stove. Caribet had taken soup in to her father, and Satrine was more than willing to leave that to her daughter. She knew it was a horrible attitude to take, but feeding her husband was a task that filled her with dread. Caribet genuinely enjoyed it, and she was welcome to it.

Rian sat in the kitchen, reading a school text. Satrine asked her about what she was reading; Rian had sullenly responded it was history, the Druth Reunification. Satrine nodded, grateful that Rian was receiving a far more traditional education than she ever had.

Satrine went up the back stairs and knocked on Missus Abernand’s door. The old woman was clearly still awake; Satrine could hear her clomping around in there. After a moment, Missus Abernand opened the door and walked back into her parlor wordlessly. Satrine took it for an invitation and joined her on the couch.

“I suppose that door will have to be open more often now?” Missus Abernand asked, pouring out a glass of apple brandy.

Satrine took the drink and sipped. “I don’t want to have to impose—”

“You don’t have people, Satrine,” Missus Abernand said. “You don’t and Loren doesn’t.”

“Loren has the Constabulary . . .”

“And where have they been, hmm?”

“Gave me a job.”

Missus Abernand scoffed. “You gave yourself that job, and don’t pretend otherwise.”

Satrine took another swig of the apple brandy. Missus Abernand had no idea how true that really was. “Even still, they have been his family.”

“Family steps up in times like this. They take you in, they do what’s right. I know you don’t get what it means.”

Satrine poured a second glass of brandy. “Commissioner Enbrain did what he could.” That wasn’t true, and Missus Abernand jumped right on it.

“You should have had your widow fund. Not giving it to you was an insult.”

“I’m not a widow.” That was the story Enbrain had given her, it was the official ruling from the brass in the head office. Loren hadn’t died in the line of duty. Even if he died now, she wouldn’t see a tick of her fund.

“It’s sewage,” Missus Abernand said. She put down her glass. “Excuse my crudity. I just can’t stand it when excuses are made not to do the decent thing.”

“That’s because you’re extraordinary,” Satrine said. “I don’t think I could do this without your help.”

“You couldn’t.” Missus Abernand finished her drink. “I’m to bed. You should do the same. When do you need to leave here?”

“Seven bells. But the girls will probably be around until eight.”

A bony finger pointed to the stairs. “Rian was giving some mouth to me, you know. Be on her.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Satrine said.

“Sleep well,” Missus Abernand said. “Get the lamps and close the door behind you.” She went into her bedroom and shut herself in.

Satrine went around the parlor and snuffed the lamps. With only one left burning, she finished her brandy. Glancing at Missus Abernand’s door, she poured a third glass and threw the contents down her throat. She poured herself one more, stoppered the bottle, and went down.

The Welling household was a three-story whitestone on the Keller Cove side of Escaraine, just half a block from Escaraine Square, where the neighborhoods of Inemar, Dentonhill, and Keller Cove met. Despite Corrie and him working in Inemar, the family had always been a Keller Cove family. Much of the family—that is, the children and grandchildren of Fenner and Jillian Welling—lived in the house. Not Fenner himself, of course. He hadn’t lived here for years.

Corrie had blathered on profanely the entire ride over. She kept coming back to the subject of Inspector Rainey’s appointment, which was a thorn she clearly couldn’t pull from her foot. “I was running streets as a
page, cadet years, footpatrol for how rutting long? And as a blazing lamplighter half that time. I had to rutting well knock some blasted teeth out of a few wastrels before they let me get a horse under me. And only in the goddamned night shift at that! But she walks in the blazing door—”

Jace and Ossen sat on the front stoop, the two youngest of the grandchildren, save for Minox’s sister Alma. Jace—Minox and Corrie’s eighteen-year-old brother—was in his cadet uniform. He had just come from his shift at the Aventil stationhouse. Ossen—their cousin, Nyla’s brother—was two years younger, only a senior page at Keller Cove. They both perked up at their approach.