As her evening guard shift at Sanford came to an end, Mei gazed at a sketch of a Harvest Ball dress Fran had designed and lamented that she’d lost the dagger that was meant to go into the sheathe on the dress’s shoulder. Maybe before Mei went to find Sioned, she could stop by the scene of the attack and look for it.
Then said dagger landed on the paper.
“You shouldn’t leave something like that lying around.” As Mei frowned at him, Huan installed himself on the other side of the doorway. “And next time, guard the front door.”
That was the first thing he’d said to her since he’d disappeared the night of the attack.
She sheathed her dagger. “I was guarding the front door.”
“You were guarding the roof across the street.”
Mei raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
“I read Dwayne’s report.”
Mei just watched Huan silently until he admitted, “Rodion made me read it when I went on duty. He said he’d dock my pay otherwise.”
Mei said nothing.
“You don’t trust me?”
That question she did not want to answer. “Where did you find the dagger?”
“I have my ways.”
“What ways?”
“Damn it, Mei, it’s like you’re not even grateful that I found it!”
“I am grateful.” But he wasn’t answering the question. “Thank you.”
“See?” Huan grinned. “That wasn’t so hard. Now, anything happened when I was gone?”
“No.” Mei could ask him about the dagger again, but he’d find a way to change the subject again. “I’m going.”
“Okay. See you at dinner.”
Once she was out in the street, Mei glanced back at Sanford. Surprisingly, Huan was still at his post, his clean uniform, erect stance, and alert gaze the very picture of the ideal house guard. It had to be a performance, but Mei couldn’t figure out who for.
She dismissed the question. It wasn’t important.
After crossing the street, Mei entered an alley, found the handholds she’d used two nights ago, and climbed up to the roof. She turned east towards the Bilges and realized that while she didn’t care why Huan was taking his guard duties seriously, she couldn’t let the question of how he’d found her dagger go. Her brother hadn’t been there, she hadn’t told Rodion or Dwayne that the dagger was missing, and the only way to find a blade that had been thrown off a rooftop at night in a large city was luck.
And yet Huan had not only noticed that her dagger was missing, he’d gone and found it. While he was very sociable, and could have fostered contacts among the local criminals and leveraged them to locate her dagger, the first time Mei had her brother since the attack was this morning when she’d taken over the midday shift from him after returning from the Chamber. Barely five hours had passed since then. That couldn’t be enough time to one tiny dagger in this huge city.
She groaned. She should go and look for Sioned, should ask the roofrunner more questions about that night, but she had to look into this or else it would bother her for the rest of the day. So instead of heading east, she went south.
It didn’t take her long to find the rooftop where she’d fought Blue Mask, Black Tiger, and the archer because the damage from that night – the smashed tiles, the arrow puncture marks – were all still there. Once there, she retraced her steps as best she could until she was standing in the spot she’d been when she’d thrown her dagger. Then she followed the dagger’s path to the rooftop’s southern edge. Assuming that she hadn’t actually hit the archer, and there was no sign that she had, then the dagger had to have gone over the edge and fallen down into the small yard attached to the side of the building, where a small flowers and bushes had been planted around a small bench. The size of the yard made it much more plausible that Huan had found the dagger. The fact that she was half a prinwir from Sanford made it much less.
Something crashed onto the roof.
Mei whirled around, dagger drawn. Then she saw who it was and frowned. “Dwayne?”
“Ow,” the fire mage got back on his feet, “that hurt.”
Mei checked. He was on the north edge of the roof, which looked out over the street. “How did you get up here? How did you find me?”
“Qesheffuf.” Dwayne rubbed his backside. “And Huan gave me directions. Eventually. After, I bribed him. Is this where you fought the thief in the blue mask?”
Mei’s brother paying attention to her was almost as implausible as him finding the dagger, but that wasn’t Dwayne concern. “Yes.”
“Find out anything new?”
“No.” That was technically true.
“Ah.” Dwayne watched her for a long moment. “Well, I, uh, wanted to thank you for finding me yesterday.” He rubbed his chest. “I’m glad I was able to catch you before you got too far away. Argh. Okay, I’m sitting.”
“You don’t need to thank me.” Mei sat next to him. “It was my job.”
“Oh?” Dwayne raised an eyebrow. “If I wasn’t paying you, you wouldn’t have bothered to?”
“Rodion would have have asked me to,” she pointed out, “and Maggie would have made me.”
“And if they weren’t involved?”
“You would have come home on your own. You almost did.”
Dwayne laughed. “I didn’t know you had so much faith in my abilities.”
“Faith.” Mei turned the word over in her mind. “Yes, I had faith.” She gave Dwayne a look. “Why are you here?”
“We need to discuss our respective investigations.”
“Because my murderers are your thieves.”
“And because they attacked us. Any ideas as to who they are?”
“ One is a mage. One is a fighter. One is a thief.”
“That’s what they are. Who are they?” Dwayne leaned back on his hands. “I mean we know that the wind mage has to be Magisterium trained, but I don’t think she’s a windsong messenger.”
Mei nodded. “She moves wrong.”
Dwayne blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Every windsong I’ve seen fly like leafhoppers.” One big jump, fly for a bit, land. Jump, fly, land.” Mei mimed this with her right hand. “The murderer flies like an eagle. Lots of swooping.”
“What about the fighter? He has to have been trained by Sen Jerome.”
It took Mei a moment to remember the name. “Isn’t he dead?”
Dwayne smiled. “He is, but his order isn’t. Rodion said its a religious order that trains mage-fighters, and considering that the brute definitely knew how to deal with my Qe spells, he had to have trained with them.”
Mei shook her head. “A stiletto is a bad soldier’s weapon. Too small. Too thin. No blade.”
“But terrific at killing mages. Most of us don’t wear armor.”
“But,” Mei waved her hand, “We haven’t seen Sen Jerome fighters fight.”
“You’re right.” Dwayne sighed. “I’m extrapolating from an sample size of one. Maybe we can observe them training?”
“I can do that. Mage-fighters probably don’t like mages.”
“Hah, and that goes double for a mage like me who isn’t even Souran.” All humor drained from his face. “That leaves the thief.”
Mei went very still.
“You said his knives were magic,” said Dwayne. “Did you get a good look at them?”
“They are good throwing knives,” said Mei in a monotone. “Dark steel, colored wraps on the handles, maybe seven in all.”
“You were trying to capture him, weren’t you?”
Mei stared at the mage. That hadn’t been in her report to Rodion.
He shrugged. “I have faith in your abilities too. If you wanted to kill, you would, and you wouldn’t hesitate. Since this Black Tiger and her partner had time to show up, you had to have been trying to catch the thief, not kill him. Am I wrong?”
Turns out surviving multiple lethal encounters gave even bookish mages insights into how Mei thought. “I couldn’t catch him, and he wouldn’t let me come back and help.”
“He wasn’t trying to kill you?”
“No. He…” Mei’s eyes slid down to the street. “He didn’t want me dead. He sounded like he knew me, like he knew I wouldn’t kill.”
“Did he call you Axesnapper?”
Mei’s head snapped up. “No, why?”
“Because if he had, then we’d know that he had some connection to the army.”
That made sense, but, “He didn’t call me anything. He just said, ‘He was so sure you wouldn’t.’”
“‘He’?” Dwayne’s eyebrows furrowed. “That’s… concerning. There are only three ‘He’’s in this entire city who can claim to know you: myself, Rodion, and Huan.”
“It was Huan.” He was the only one of those who’d talk to a professional thief.
Dwayne looked uneasy. “It could have been me or Rodion. Either of us could have-”
“No,” Mei put her hand on Dwayne’s arm, “you couldn’t. You are too busy.”
Dwayne didn’t look happy, but admitted, “and criminals don’t bother Wesens about anything.” He groaned. “It probably was him.”
Silence settled between them, an uncomfortable one filled with the sounds of the street vendors and horses down on the street. The only reason why Mei didn’t just leave was because she knew Dwayne wasn’t done.
“I heard you went to the Chamber this morning,” asked Dwayne finally. “How’s the investigation going?”
“Charlie and I talked to one of the suspects.” Mei filled in him in on the interrogation. “Charlie was not happy when he found out what the sponsors do.”
“I’m not either.” Dwayne shook his head. “Because it’s our fault. If Lord Kalan and I had come back sooner, then we could have sorted out this whole provisional license mess. People should be able to send messages without getting spied on.”
“Have you contacted Lord Kalan?
“Yes and he hasn’t replied. I don’t know if that’s because he’s distracted or if the messages are getting stolen or if… if…”
He wasn’t there. “Maybe Fran can help. She delivered that note for you.”
“Oh, uh… That’s good.” Dwayne cleared his throat. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything. She just gave your note to Maggie.”
“I mean…” Dwayne looked away. “Never mind. When you get the chance, could you please ask Miss Lucchesi if she could get a message to Lord Kalan? I don’t care how long it takes, just so long as it gets there.”
“I will.” Mei got to her feet. “Anything else?”
“One last thing. Other than Scrytive Vogt, whom have you told that the dead windsong’s name is Juanelo Rincón Ybarra?”
Mei rubbed her forehead. “Maggie. Fran.”
“Hmm… I don’t think Magdala has anyone to tell outside her family. Would Miss Lucchesi share that information with anyone?”
“Fran likes women with muscles, pretty girls, and math. She doesn’t like to talk about death.”
“And Scrytive Vogt?”
Mei thought about it. “He makes reports. Someone has to read them.”
“Like a clerk?”
Mei shrugged. “Why are you asking?”
“Baron Thadden knew Mr. Ybarra’s name.”
Mei frowned. “How?”
“He says he heard gossip.”
“Right.” Mei filed that away. It was possible that Thadden was the mysterious sponsor. She’d have to check on that. “Was there anything else?”
“No, I think that’s all. Wait.” Dwayne glanced at the roof. “Help me down?”
Admaeus Speaks 