The Wizard Hunters (49 page)

“Retired.” Reynard looked away across the street, his eyes narrowing. His expression turning serious, he said, “We’ve never met before because it was important for a number of reasons, past and present, that no one suspect I was ever associated with your father. That’s not going to matter now.”

Tremaine nodded slowly. After what Averi had told her, and what she had seen today in the city, it didn’t come as a shock. “You’re evacuating the royal family?”

“They went early this morning. The city will be under siege by tomorrow, maybe the next day if we’re lucky. In the Philosopher’s Cross the street barricades are going up.” His gaze came back to her and turned kind again. “I wanted to make sure you had a way out of Ile-Rien.”

“That’s what this was about.” She hugged the leather case to her chest. The man on the other end of the Garbardin exchange would have told him about her wanting the bookbinder’s address, but she didn’t want to go into details. Reynard would know all about the Institute’s project anyway. “We’re leaving, but we have some people we have to pick up first.”

Reynard nodded but asked sharply, “Where’s Gerard?”

“Ah . . . he’s one of the people we’re picking up.”

“Well, that’s all right then.” He stepped away from the car, tucking the cane under his arm and adjusting the fit of his gloves. “I’ve got to go.”

She had to ask. “To Parscia?” He didn’t look like someone who was about to run away. He didn’t look like someone who had ever run away from anything.

“No, I’m staying here. Your father’s organization is going to work for the government-in-exile, whether most of the members know it or not. Fortunately, going underground won’t be anything new for them.” He met her eyes. “I’ve never taken advantage of my contact with them except to fulfill my obligations to you. Using them as a resource for the Crown would have been a betrayal I was not prepared to make, even after Nicholas’s death. But I know in this situation that he would want me to use them against the Gardier in any way I could.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I was a friend of your mother’s, too.”

Tremaine didn’t want to go down that road. “Don’t tell me I look like her.”

He smiled a trifle ruefully. “No, I’m afraid there’s more resemblance to a portrait of Denzil Alsene in the palace.”

Tremaine frowned. “Who?”

He snorted, looking amused. “He’s a less than illustrious ancestor of yours. We all have them, but your father was very sensitive on the subject.” He watched her gravely for a moment, then nodded to her and to Ilias. He propped the cane on his shoulder and walked away.

F
  Chapter 19  
F

T
he routes out of the city were crowded but the Chaire road to the coast was still relatively clear. Most of the civilian populace would be going the other way, trying to seek refuge in the Low Countries or Parscia.
For now
, Tremaine thought as she drove past a line of cars waiting to turn onto the Street of Flowers. The Gardier would surely take those lands next.

Tremaine had much to occupy her thoughts but the trip back to Port Rel was fairly serene, except the one time she had to pull over to the side of the road so Ilias could be sick. It was dusk by the time they reached the town and she found a place for Gerard’s car under the trees on the street behind the hotel.

As Tremaine climbed out, she saw three men in military uniform walking briskly toward them down the cobbled path through the overgrown lawn. Her first thought was that Averi had been more optimistic than he had appeared and had sent them to wait for her arrival, so when she brought back the document they could get things under way immediately. She had discarded this theory by the time they reached the car and decided instead that they hadn’t recognized her and were coming to warn her off the hotel property. “Miss Valiarde,” the first one said, and that theory went down in flames too. “I’m afraid I have to take your friend into custody.”

She stared at him.
I will not be stopped now
. She took a step forward. “What? Are you out of your mind? Under whose orders?”

The man looked more than a little taken aback, possibly not expecting Tremaine to respond quite so forcefully. “I was told he was a security risk.”

Made uneasy by Tremaine’s anger and an agitated conversation he couldn’t understand, Ilias eyed the corporal aggressively. Tremaine put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from doing anything rash. She said, “He and his friend blew up a Gardier airship. Two, actually. That was before the Gardier burned the village near where he lives, sank the ship he was on and killed or captured most of his friends and family. That’s a little much for a secret agent, isn’t it? And he doesn’t speak Rienish, so it isn’t as if he could overhear our plans, now could he?”

One of the other men gave the corporal a rather accusing glare. Tremaine suspected that despite Averi’s caution the story of the destroyed airships had already filtered through to what was left of the military detachment. She had just confirmed it for the enlisted men and surely most of them would see Ilias as a hero.

The corporal mulishly persisted, “It’s not my decision, ma’am. I’m sorry, but—”

“Who ordered this? It wasn’t Colonel Averi.” It had better not be. He hadn’t given any indication of it earlier.

The corporal fumbled in a pocket, pulling out a folded paper. “It was his signature—”

Tremaine snatched it out of his hand. “So you didn’t talk to him?” She looked it over as best she could in the gathering dusk. It looked as real as the orders she had in the leather document case tucked under her arm. But she didn’t know Averi’s signature to judge if it was genuine or not. She swallowed a snarl and made herself say reasonably, “Look, there has to be some mistake. I spoke to Averi and Niles just before we left for town to see Minister Servaine. Why were you told to take Ilias?”

“All I know is what is on that order, ma’am—”

“Let me speak to Averi first.”

“You can do that, ma’am, but I have to take him into custody.”

Tremaine fumed,
I need to talk to Averi. This is... very wrong
. What if it wasn’t wrong? What could she do, kill Averi? Tempting thought, but it would be a needless complication. “Why don’t you just wait? Until I can talk to Averi.”

The corporal sighed. “Ma’am, it’s only house arrest. We’re holding him at the hotel, in the room he’s been assigned. Nothing is going to happen to him.”

Dammit
. Tremaine looked away. Considering Ilias might have ended up locked in a guardroom somewhere, this was lenient. But why lock him up at all?
Averi knows I went to the city with him this morning
. She had conscientiously signed them both out with the frantically busy duty officer and no one had said a word about it. Something was going on here and she had to find out what it was.

She let out her breath and pushed her hair back, trying to look distracted and upset rather than homicidal. With the air of giving in reluctantly under great duress, she said, “All right, but just let me explain it to him. He doesn’t understand two words of Rienish, he doesn’t have any idea what’s happening.”

The corporal looked relieved. “Very good, ma’am.”

Tremaine turned to an increasingly worried Ilias. She took a breath, gathering her thoughts, and said in Syrnaic, “Something’s wrong. They’re going to take you to the room in the . . .” No word for hotel. “In the big house, the one you changed clothes in. They’re going to lock you in, but wait until it’s dark and you can climb out the window and reach my room, which should be three windows to the left. Go there and wait for me. I need to check on some things and try to find out what’s going on, then I’ll meet you there.” She had seen Ilias climb through the caves like a mountain goat, she didn’t think he would have any trouble with the ornamental ledges and scrollwork on the outside of the hotel.

He eyed the two guards resentfully and nodded. “All right.”

“Good ... ah, look resigned or something.”

Ilias rolled his eyes and folded his arms.

“That’ll have to do.” She turned to the corporal, switching back to Rienish. “He’ll go with you now.”

The men took Ilias up the steps of the hotel’s back entrance, past the moldering wicker furniture in the boarded-over conservatory. Following, Tremaine veered off as they reached the main foyer and headed toward the ballroom.

The high figured ceiling and lily chandeliers made a strange contrast with the packing crates of books and astronomical equipment stacked on the parquet floor. Only a few of the Institute’s personnel were still there, engaged in sorting documents in wooden file boxes and feeding most of them into the fire in one of the large marble hearths. “I’m not sure,” a young man she vaguely recognized as one of the astronomers who had worked with Tiamarc told her when she asked about Niles. “He’s supposed to be here.” He adjusted his spectacles with a frown. “I haven’t seen him since late this afternoon.”

Feeling uneasy, she went to the infirmary next. The screens were stacked against the wall and all the beds were empty.

A clatter led her to the serving hatches. She looked inside to see the nurse in the pantry area packing up medical supplies. “Where’s Florian and Ander?” she demanded.

The woman jumped, startled. “Why, they were taken to the hospital.”

“By who?”

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t here. Captain Dommen told me they were sent away by ambulance this afternoon.” She looked puzzled. “I don’t know why. Florian was fine. I thought the doctor would discharge her after lunch and Captain Destan had woken several times and seemed much better.”

“Thank you.” Tremaine went back out into the corridor. She stood and stared at the faded floral wallpaper for a long moment, tapping her chin.
Oh yes, something’s wrong
.

A
n hour later, feeling as if she had a target painted on her back, Tremaine went back upstairs to her room.

The lock stuck as usual, forcing her to wrestle with it. She had thought she was fairly calm, but had to restrain herself from screaming, kicking the door and going for the fire ax.
Note to self: I am not calm
. Finally she managed to turn the key and slip inside.

Shutting the door behind her, she put her hand on the wall switch in the foyer, whispering, “Ilias, it’s me.”

As the overhead light flickered to life, he stepped out from around the corner. Tremaine, though she was expecting him, almost jumped out of her skin.

“What did you find out?” he demanded as she stepped past him. He had closed the window again but a few dead leaves had blown in, caught in the cushions of the window seat amid the shattered glass from the pane he had broken to open it.

“I can’t find Florian, Ander or Niles.” She plopped down on the little settee and he sat on his heels in front of her. “I haven’t seen Averi, either. Everyone seems to think Captain Dommen is in charge. I’ve been watching Averi’s office, and I just saw Captain Dommen come out and go into this little pavilion in the hotel’s garden. I don’t have anything to go on, but he shouldn’t be there, he should be down at the docks supervising the evacuation preparations.” She scratched her head absently, still trying to put all the pieces together.

Ilias shook his head, not understanding. “So why would he go there?”

“To meet with Averi and the other spies. The Gardier agent that killed Tiamarc can’t have been the only one here.” Tremaine was convinced now that Averi was involved in the plot. The colonel hadn’t objected to her trip to Vienne because he wanted them out of the way.
Bastard
.

Ilias watched her, troubled. “If the Gardier are there and they have Florian and Ander, they could kill them,” he said urgently.

“I know.” Tremaine nodded, distractedly chewing on a fingernail. “I think we’re just going to have to get in there and get them out.” She dug in a pocket, pulling out the bundle of keys. “This locking people in rooms thing worried me, so I took these out of Niles’s desk in his room. If the one to the pavilion isn’t here, I can probably pick it. They put warded doors with secure locks on the boathouse and the main part of the hotel, but they didn’t bother with any of the outbuildings.” She flipped through the keys, frowning thoughtfully. “So what do you think—” She glanced up to see Ilias sitting back on his heels, smiling faintly. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Did I have you worried? I worry myself a lot,” Tremaine admitted.

“No, you didn’t have me worried.” He got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

T
he night air was dank and cold, a good complement to the garden’s overgrown shrubbery and weedy flower beds. Over the hedges Tremaine could see the pavilion’s conical red-shingled roof, black against the charcoal color of the evening sky. It was a little round building, two stories, probably used for the elaborate garden parties that had been held here before the war. The path turned and Tremaine could see there were slivers of light leaking past the shades in the pavilion’s windows, reflecting off the ornamental pond that curved around the right side. Ilias stopped her, saying softly, “Someone’s there.”

She peered hard at the shadows near the doorway and saw one particularly lumpy blotch of darkness move. There was a guard at the door now. There hadn’t been one when she had watched Dommen enter earlier. But it had still been light then and someone might have seen and wondered why the disused pavilion merited guarding. She touched Ilias’s arm. “We need to get rid of him.”

“Distract him,” he whispered back, stepping into the bushes with barely a rustle.

Right
, Tremaine thought. She dropped the coil of rope and the torch she had stolen from the hotel’s garage into a weedy flower bed. Sauntering forward, hands in her pockets, she tried to look as if she was just out for a walk on the grounds of the moldering old hotel.

She turned up the path toward the pavilion, her shoes scraping on the wood planks that bridged the little stream. She could make out the man’s shape against the white wall now. He hadn’t moved and probably didn’t realize she could see him. “Nice night for it,” she remarked.

Obviously expecting to startle her and finding himself startled instead, the man twitched uncertainly. “Ma’am?”