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Without even checking that we were all right, she continued the direction she’d been running while chasing the guard.

Alric shrugged and picked up a fallen knife. “Good to know she has priorities.”

I couldn’t tell if Alric was serious or sarcastic, but knowing him, those scrolls would be far more important than mere living beings. His people had trained him well to be their spy and thief. He had his priorities as well and they didn’t always coincide with mine. And his kisses weren’t anything I trusted.

Chapter Thirty-Four

We’d managed to leave the guards tied up with a friend of Harlan’s who lived outside of the city. He didn’t really care much as to what we left in his barn, just as long as Harlan promised to come back for a nice long chat in a day or two when they were ready to be released.

The faeries were extremely proud of themselves and kept buzzing around like mad creatures. “Where are your wild friends?”

Garbage and Leaf kept flying as if they didn’t hear. Crusty slowed down and hovered in front of my face. “They no leave racing meows.” The space between her brow scrunched up and she looked worried. “Not good. High Queen Mungoosey not having happy about.”

Garbage flew down swiftly, showing she had heard everything. “Not our fault. Meows fun. Drinking fun. Not our fault.”

We had way too much going on to worry about the mysteries of faery politics, or whatever this was. But Garbage’s quick response told me this may have been an issue for a while. I’d seen fewer and fewer wild faeries in town recently. I’d just figured they’d gone further into the ruins or wherever they’d been living. But if I thought about it, I realized the population of faeries hanging around town and mooching off people had been changing too.

I filed that thought away with all the other not-for-now thoughts—such as that guard’s mentioning of the Spheres—and caught up to the others.

I still had some questions rampaging around in my head. “I am the first to agree that if Glorinal was behind any of these attacks then we need to stop him. I will hold him still myself so you can beat him. But if he was behind sending you and me to die, why did he send the others to find us?”

Alric had taken point and was leading us back through the ruins. Granted, they were less scary in the morning than they had been when people were trying to kill us, but I still wasn’t sure traveling back through them was a good idea. However, it was the fastest way to get back into Beccia.

Alric just kept walking, but Harlan turned to me. “He knew we’d go running after you. Those guards would have taken care of all of us out here where it could be days before we were found.” He scowled. “I can’t believe we let him into our confidence like that. You must be better at picking your dalliances, Taryn.”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, then decided against it. He was right, and I wasn’t going to debate it with a possible future dalliance walking within ear-shot. “But if he was trying to get all of us, why not Foxy? Amara is working for the same folks Glorinal is, or at least I think so. He should have sent him up here too.”

“Amara was why he didn’t join us.” Harlan scowled as more thoughts obviously collided. “She came back and said her master was hunting her, and Foxy stayed back to protect her.”

“We need to find them. Damn it, Harlan, did she have a chimera with her?” I doubted she would have grabbed my chimera then taken it to Foxy. Most likely she’d met up with Qianru, they’d broken into my house, stolen the chimera, and then she’d been sent to deal with Foxy.

“Why would she have a chimera?”

Alric had turned at our conversation. “You need to go to your house and see if it’s still there. We know that’s not the artifact we’re looking for, but if they think they can use it for something, we can’t let them have it.”

“I can meet—” My words were cut off by some swearing and yelling. I still hadn’t completely accepted the fact that like my taste in men, my taste in patrons needed some work. But I really hadn’t expected to hear Qianru out here in the far ruins.

“I demand someone rescue me immediately!” Yup, that was my patroness, or former patroness if she was really working to take over the world. Although that probably meant I really wasn’t getting any vacation pay.

“It’s coming from this direction.” Alric changed paths and started heading down a recently traveled one.

“Shouldn’t we be heading into town?” The captain and the rest of his actors had stayed silent on this trip once we’d dropped off the other guards. They were actors, not fighters. I had a feeling all of them were re-thinking their involvement in Harlan’s scheme.

Harlan stopped again and nodded. “Agreed. I am sorry your patroness got caught up in this, but we need to capture Glorinal and save the scrolls.”

The brief look that flashed across the captain’s face said that wasn’t the motivation behind his comment, but that he’d work with it.

“Agreed. You should go and help Covey,” Alric said as he resumed his trek down the trail.

“But where are you going?” Harlan looked back and forth between the actors continuing on the trail back into the main ruins and myself. I shrugged and followed Alric.

“Can’t explain, but there’s a chance Qianru is behind this, all of this. Either way, we need to find her.” I wondered why she would be way out here yelling if she was an evil mastermind, but far stranger things had happened as of late, so I wasn’t going to question it.

Harlan ruffled his fur in annoyance, but nodded. “You can explain all this tonight, once we’ve gotten that elf behind bars.” With a flick of his tail, he followed the captain.

“We might want to keep an eye out for a bunch of houseboys.” They hadn’t seemed like much of a threat whenever I’d seen them, but then neither had Glorinal.

Alric glanced over his shoulder, but kept going. “I think I can handle houseboys. After all, I am—” He was cut off as a pair of aforementioned livery-clad houseboys slammed into him and they all crashed to the ground. I looked up to see we were surrounded by at least ten more.

“Joie?” I couldn’t tell the others apart, and if they hadn’t still been wearing Qianru’s atrocious livery I couldn’t have said they were hers. But Joie stood forward from the others. His livery was torn a bit and he held a sharp stick.

Alric made quick work of disarming the also armed-with-sticks houseboy attackers, but I noticed he didn’t kill them.

“What have you done with her?” Joie tried to sound menacing, but his cultured voice and slight stature just didn’t make it work.

I was saved from trying to answer with a straight face, by the dulcet tones of another yell from Qianru.

“If you don’t get me out of here, Jovan, I will report you to the authority back home. Don’t think I won’t!”

Joie’s eyes went wide and he and the remaining houseboys tore off through the forest following the sound of her voice.

“They’ll be all right in a bit.” Alric hooked a thumb back at the two unconscious houseboys and started following the pack without waiting for me.

I took his word for it and followed. The fact that the houseboys were out looking for her, and Qianru was yelling about Jovan betraying her, made me rethink the whole Qianru as mastermind evil genius situation. Unless, Jovan had been a good guy and trapped her until he could take care of her.

And Amara and her cohorts had mentioned a ‘she’ as their leader. I jogged up to join Alric. The trail was wider than it should be considering how far out we were. Obviously whoever was behind this had been out here for a while.

“A glamour can change everything, right? Including gender or size?” I wasn’t sure how far glamour’s could go, someone may have been setting Qianru up.

“They could, but only a very strong mage could change size.”

“But if one of them were strong enough to take out a certain white-haired elf?” I refrained from adding more since the houseboys, and who knew who else, were out here with us. But I’d guess anyone strong enough to steal an elven lord’s magic could change shape as well.

Alric’s affirmative grunt confirmed that thought.

We stopped talking as the houseboys, Alric, and myself all ran into a clearing. The gapen tree in front of us was the size of a city block, and probably older than the elves. The branches were contorted into a massive ball. Or bower.

“Jovan? Are you even listening to me? The authorities will hear about this! You’ll be done for. They’ll chase all of you point-eared bastards out of town.”

I looked at the point-eared bastard standing next to me. “I’d say her opinion of elves has changed. By the way….” I reached up and pulled the cord out of Alric’s hair. Not that it totally mattered at this point, but the fewer people, Qianru included, who knew Alric was an elf the better. Hopefully, none of the houseboys had gotten a good look.

We needed to figure out how to handle this. That tree and bower was obviously where Alric and I had been taken and, just as obviously, not where Qianru wanted to be. Normally, I’d say that meant she was on our side. But it seemed my life had taken a detour from normal a long time ago.

But before Alric or I could talk, Joie charged forward.

“We’re coming my mistress! We shall save you.” The sight of he and the other houseboys charging forward waving sticks almost made me laugh. But their earnestness was commendable. I just hoped it wasn’t misplaced.

Alric shrugged. “Might as well follow them.”

We followed the houseboys up a small spiral staircase and were soon in the middle of the massive tree. The amount of magic needed to contort a tree like this had to have been massive. The bower was far larger than the part we’d been in with doors and rooms separating it out. I wasn’t a dryad, but I didn’t think this was comfortable for the tree.

Qianru kept yelling. Which made it easy, after a few false starts, to find her. We could have overtaken Joie and the others, but Alric was keeping them in the front.

At least until Joie slammed into an invisible shield about a foot in front of a door.

I checked on him. He was stunned but able to get up on his own after a moment. Alric approached the door slowly, stopping where Joie had gone down. He held out his hands flat in front of him for a moment, then reached one hand back toward me.

“I have a theory. Take my hand.”

My usual response to a demand like that would be to argue, but something told me he was right. My blood felt tingly as I took his hand.

The tingling increased as he spoke a few words and pushed the air with his free hand.

A pressure of air, not unlike opening a sealed ruin for the first time, washed over us and the door flung open.

“What has taken you so long? You told me I would be—” Qianru stood there gaping at all of us. Her hair was wild and unkempt, her clothes torn and filthy.

“Qianru! We’ve been looking for you for days.” I forced a look of concern on my face.

She marched up to me and scowled. Too bad she’d lost her hat somewhere along the way; her expression perfectly matched the watcher birds. “I just saw you yesterday or today? What day is it?” She turned to Joie, but then shook her head and waved her hand. “Never mind. Whichever day it is, I have only been here for a short while. I was betrayed by Jovan! An elf! Can you imagine such a thing? He said we needed to find that missing little dryad, tricked me up here, then locked me up! Have you ever?” She pulled back as she noticed Alric. “Hello, and who might you be? I believe you caught me at a bad time….”

Alric bowed and I noticed he made sure his hair stayed over his ears when he rose. “I am the one who is sorry. We should have saved you before now.”

Qianru beamed. There was no way she was the one behind this. The woman was smart in some ways and daft as a post in others. My bet was on Jovan. He recruited Amara, Glorinal, and others disguised as a woman, possibly even as Qianru, then for one reason or another stashed her here.

Which probably meant we didn’t want to stay here.

“Umm, we should probably get moving.” The tree didn’t look like a trap, but why else would he leave her here? Qianru was busy staring up into Alric’s eyes, but broke free to shoot a glare at me. “We do need to get you back to town safely after all.”

She nodded and was swarmed by the posse of houseboys, including the two Alric had knocked out who finally joined us.

I wanted to ask Alric how he’d been able to augment his recovering magic by holding onto me but this wasn’t the place. Besides, he apparently agreed with my let’s-get–out-of-here plan and was bowing to Qianru again.

“This way, my lady.” He even went so far as to hold out his arm to her. I was glad in a way since that meant she didn’t see my eye rolling.

I trailed behind the two of them and all of the houseboys as we left the bower.

“One more move and the bitch gets it through the heart.” The voice stopped us all, and no one was more surprised than me to see Slim Jankins step out of a bush with a loaded crossbow aimed right at my chest.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“I mean it. I’ll shoot this one, unless you give me the old one.” Slim looked far worse than he had when Foxy had finished with him, and since I was frozen staring at him and his crossbow just two feet ahead of me, I got to see every new bruise and cut. Someone else had obviously been playing with him after his run-in with Foxy.

Qianru shook for a good ten seconds and I was afraid she was going to pass out. But we weren’t that lucky. “How dare you call me
old
?” She stalked toward him, ignoring both the crossbow and the fact it was aimed at me, but Alric caught her arm after two steps.

“You didn’t mind being called old when you were making money off my partner an’ me. You took our artifacts just fine, the ones we slaved over getting off The Hill. You know what them Hill folks did when they found out we didn’t have their artifacts no more? And that none of them had heard of you and your plan?” He waved at the bruises on his face. “This. You told us you was working for them.”

Qianru went from pissed to confused in a second. “I assure you,
thing
, I have never seen you before in my life. Nor do I know anything about your artifacts.”

This was pointing more and more to someone pretending to be Qianru. But that crossbow was still aimed at my heart.

“Right, so it weren’t your idea to be helping The Hill folks avoid the Antiquities tariffs by smuggling out artifacts in their trash?” His hand waved a bit but just looked more ready to pull the trigger. “You came to me and Glariste from the Antiquities Museum and set this up. She an’ I had our own smuggling going on, but you said you could increase it.” Spittle foamed on his lips. “Instead, you destroyed it. Then your pet necromancer killed Glariste. I found what was left. Now your digger will die, then the rest of you.”

A slow burning feeling started at the base of my spine as I saw the muscles in his arm tense and his back hoof shifted to stabilize him. Then everything switched to slow motion. Alric looked like he was trying to speed past me, but he barely moved. The bolt from the bow crawled out of the bow and hovered in mid-air. Fire and anger surged through me and I instinctively held both hands out in front of me with the palms facing Slim. I didn’t say anything, but the words Alric had spoken in the bower to open the door flooded my mind. In a flash, the bolt, the crossbow, and Slim were all sent sailing over the giant gapen tree and the world snapped back into normal speed.

Then, a feeling of bone cracking coldness slammed into me and I fell.

“What just…oh my….” Qianru’s eyes went huge, then her lashes fluttered and she gracefully folded to the ground. Joie rushed forward and pulled out smelling salts.

Alric ran to me. I didn’t need smelling salts but the rush I’d felt as the magic had flowed through me was terrifying. The chill vanished as quickly as it came. I knew I should get up, but it felt safer down on the ground. Things moved less down here.

“What just happened?” He searched my face, then felt my arms as if checking for damage. “Are you all right? Did he hit you?”

It took me a minute to realize that what had happened with Slim had been too fast for even Alric to see.

“No.” I didn’t feel like discussing my newest foray into the world of the weird with a dozen houseboys nearby.

Alric frowned, then glanced around at our audience and nodded. “How do you feel?” There was a new weight to that question and I knew even if he hadn’t seen it, he knew something major had just happened.

“Tingly.” I hoped he remembered that was how I described the last time he’d done magic through me. But I had a bad feeling he hadn’t done anything this time.

His frown deepened and I knew he got my meaning. “Not now. My magic is feeling stronger too. And I don’t think your patroness was the person Slim was looking for. Although he thought she was. We need to get back to town.”

I nodded slowly and let him help me up. “How is she, Joie?” She hadn’t woken yet.

“She will be fine.” He patted her hand and I noticed the salts weren’t very close to her face. “I think it might be better if we rested out here for a bit. Some of the boys went a different direction looking for her; they should be back this way soon.” He didn’t even try to wipe the tears that streamed down his face, but his smile told me they would all be fine.

Alric nodded and took my arm. We were back on the path before I even finished saying good-bye.

“We have to find Jovan and Glorinal, and make sure neither has gone to your home.”

He was practically running and since he had much longer legs than I did I was scurrying to keep up. “Why? Are you worried they took our captive chimera? You said it yourself, it’s not the artifact.”

He shook his head and picked up speed. “No, but I have a bad feeling those shards in your room are.” I had moved the jar of shards back into my room when I thought Alric wasn’t looking.

His words almost slammed me to a halt. Or would have if he wasn’t forcibly dragging me along. I still felt tingly and felt an energy coming from him as well. The further we ran the stronger he felt. Like someone had loosened a dam, but only a small part of it.

“What do you mean those shards are? You said they were poisonous.”

He ducked and pulled me along under a low hanging branch. We were back in the main part of the ruins now, but oddly there were no diggers around.

“I said some were. I think there were two types of shards, ones from the sceanra anam, and ones from the chimeras.”

I slowed us down to a jog. “Let me guess, the poisonous ones are from the sceanra anam?” We were getting close to the watcher gate and I’d rather not draw unwanted attention by running out.

“Yes.” He slowed down and came to a walk. We were at the gate, but there was no guard and no watcher. Rather no live watcher. A pile of black feathers and blood told me what happened to the ugly bird. But there was no similar body of the guard.

Alric finally let go of my arm and went to the pile of feathers. He pulled back quickly with an ill look. “I wouldn’t get closer. A sceanra anam poisoned and ate this one. We need to get to your home.”

I wanted to ask about the guard, but wasn’t really sure I wanted to know the answer. I still hadn’t seen any other diggers and wondered what in the hell had happened while Alric and I had been locked up.

The sounds of concerned voices raised in discussion made me feel better. Maybe the ruins were closed because of whatever had happened to the watcher. I’d bet last week’s pay all of the diggers were down in the small park just around the corner rallying about something.

I would have lost my money.

There were some diggers in the crowd before us, but there were also bakers, thieves, card sharks, bankers, Hill folk, and academics. All had the panicked voices and stances of people on the edge. They all looked terrified.

That was until Alric and I came into view.

I was the first one they latched onto. People were yelling my name, holding up family drawings or recent sketches. Most were crying, or yelling and none of them made sense. They surrounded me begging for help finding the people in their drawings.

Alric tried to pull me free, but then those closest to us recognized him.

“He’s back! He can save our families! Save us!” The yells were frantic now and I started looking for a way out.

Alric looked wild eyed for a moment. I honestly think he forgot he wasn’t in his cloak and rags, then pulled back his shoulders and raised his voice. “I need one of you to speak. One.” His voice was strong, authoritative, and in command. I didn’t know if he was playing another role or this was what he sounded like in his homeland.

Finally, a burly minotaur who I recognized as working at the local barbershop, stepped forward. He was clutching a hastily drawn picture of a female minotaur and young bull. “They took our people, our families. In the dead of night. They took them.”

Alric looked over the crowd. Judging from the people here a good portion of the town of Beccia was missing. As one the crowd nodded. “Did anyone see anything? Do you know who?”

I was sure he was thinking the same thing I was: there was a rampaging necromancer out and about and what better way to build your powers than a mass murder or two?

“Nothing. They were just gone.” The barber shook as he looked at his drawing.

“We will find them, but you must all go back to your homes.” When the crowd started muttering, Alric deepened his voice and took a sterner stance. “The heroes of Beccia cannot save your loved ones if you are out here wailing and crying. Go home and prepare for war. We will call you when it is time.”

It was a bit over the top for me, but the crowd nodded in agreement. I just folded my arms and tried to look stern and impressive as we continued down the path to my home. Behind us I heard the crowd breaking up.

“Do you really think this is a war?”

He waited until we were out of earshot to answer. “No. But they need something to focus on. I think our
friend
wanted some snacks to take with him.”

I shivered at the thought of someone with enough power to kidnap hundreds of people without their loved ones even noticing.

Those thoughts were pushed out when I saw my house.

The door was shattered. Bits and pieces were strewn across the yard, in a tree, on my roof. I did find one of Harlan’s locks. Thing was still intact.

I ran forward. Alric had been worried about the chimera artifact, but what if Harlan, Covey, or the girls had been there when that door had been shattered? The inside looked as bad as the outside. Everything, even the girls’ castle, was destroyed, broken, or cut open. I didn’t see any blood or bodies, but that didn’t mean no one had been here.

“They aren’t here. Either they are safe, or he has them. Right now we need to find the shards.”

I wanted to turn on Alric and beat that calm, logical voice out of him. People were missing, possibly people I cared about. But turning around showed me he was concerned too. He just knew what needed to be done.

I spun back around and ran toward my room. Only to scream and run back as a horrifically misshaped being lurched out of my room toward me.