Chap limped down the street’s far side to peer into a cutway. There was no sign or sight of any anmaglâhk ... or of Wayfarer.
Brot’ân’duivé dropped to the ground and looked all ways as he ran to Chap.
“Where is Wayfarer?” he demanded, growing angrier than he should have allowed himself.
Had the loyalists from his caste taken her?
Exposing teeth and fangs, Chap whirled and snarled at him. Then the dog turned away and loped—struggling—down the street.
Brot’ân’duivé tried to quell his anger as he followed.
Wayfarer ran to the door of their room at the inn and pounded on it.
“It is me!” she called wildly. “Let me in!”
The door instantly opened, and as she rushed in, she nearly collided with Magiere.
Magiere grabbed her by the arms. “What’s happened?”
“Chap!” Wayfarer cried amid panting. “He is in trouble! Anmaglâhk!”
“Where?” Léshil demanded.
Wayfarer tried to catch her breath. “They came for me ... and the greimasg’äh could not have been far behind. Chap sent me to warn you that we have been seen. They may even know of the ship we will sail on.”
“What?” Magiere demanded, her mouth dropping open, and she looked to Léshil.
“Where did you leave Chap?” Léshil asked.
“Two streets north,” she managed to get out.
Before anyone could say more, Léshil pushed past for the door with a few last words to Magiere. “Stay with her. I’ll handle this.”
Wayfarer wrenched out of Magiere’s grip and shoved the door closed, jerking it out of Léshil’s hand.
“No!” she said, flattening herself against the door. “Chap would not want this. The anmaglâhk are after you two most of all.”
“Get out of the way,” Léshil ordered as he grabbed her wrist.
“No!” Wayfarer shot back. “This was a trick to get to one or both of you. Chap and Brot’ân’duivé can protect themselves, and I will not let either of you leave.”
Both Magiere and Léshil appeared beyond surprised at her manner, but then Magiere reached for her this time.
Wayfarer felt and heard something scratching at the outside of the room’s door.
Without even asking, she spun and pulled it open.
Chap limped inside. An instant later, the greimasg’äh entered as well and shut the door himself. Wayfarer was taken a bit off guard as Brot’ân’duivé glared at her ... but a sudden relief flashed across his face, and a sigh escaped him.
“Where were you?” Magiere snarled, pulling Wayfarer aside and taking a threatening step at the greimasg’äh. “You were supposed to watch them!”
“Only if I could keep them in sight,” Brot’ân’duivé replied and then looked to the majay-hì. “Only if they stayed on the agreed route.”
Wayfarer glanced at Chap and did not follow the rest of the angry conversation, especially whenever Léshil echoed something from Chap, or not, and everyone else was momentarily confused as to who was truly speaking. Though she trusted that the majay-hì had sensed something to make him change their path, she also remembered that one fleeting moment amid her fright.
She had seen something in her thoughts.
Magiere and Léshil had stood in this very room ... in her mind. Now that she thought about it, she had been looking at them as if she sat low on the floor. It was the same perspective, the same angle of sight, as when she had lurched away from Chap on the waterfront.
Something the greimasg’äh said pulled Wayfarer back to awareness.
“... They are too few to try a frontal attack on this inn, if they even know of it,” he was saying. “We will be safe here.”
“Really?” Léshil retorted. “What if they just set the place on fire?”
“They will not. The risk of killing anyone inside is too great, and they want you and Magiere alive.”
After that Wayfarer stopped listening at all and sank onto the bed’s edge. She remembered how easily that one anmaglâhk had lifted her off the ground. She had been unable to do anything about it. And after Chap had pulled her captor down ...
Her mind slipped back a few years to when she lived on a different continent with her people. She would find herself alone in the forest—and yet not alone. Sometimes she hadfelt eyes upon her and she had turned.
One of the majay-hì would be watching her from the brush.
At the time she had believed that this meant they were judging her ... that she did not belong among the people. She was mixed blood; she was not welcome in the lands of the an’Cróan. Then there had been the white female who had come to lead her away. The one whom she later learned was Chap’s mate ... and the mother of their child, Shade, who had crossed the world to be with Wynn. In Wayfarer’s darkest moment, alone and orphaned, and when she had most needed a guide, Lily had come to her ... as if somehow knowing of her fear and sorrow.
What did any of it mean? What had happened that morning on the waterfront with Chap?
What had just happened out in the street when in panic she had grabbed his tail?
“Wayfarer, answer me! Are you all right?”
Wayfarer blinked in a shudder and looked up to find Magiere standing over her in worry. She did not know how to answer and only glanced at Chap.
After leaving Rhysís, Dänvârfij went straight to the Suman ship. She knew the traitor would be distracted for a short while by his charges. She had one last preparation to complete before her quarry made its next move.
Most Aged Father had provided the only sound way to fulfill her purpose concerning the monster and her mate, as well as the traitorous greimasg’äh. But Dänvârfij had devised something more of her own.
Striding up the vessel’s ramp, she watched as human men loaded cargo into the hold. A filthy one with a round belly shouted orders at the others, and she went straight to him.
When he saw her coming, his expression was one of arrogant authority.
“What do you want?” he asked in Numanese, though his accent was thick.
She needed to exude authority as well for this to work, and she stared him straight in the eyes without blinking and with no emotion on her face.
“To speak ... you ... alone,” she replied flatly, and then she fell silent, as if expecting compliance.
He appeared taken aback by this. With a tilt of his head and narrowing eyes, he shrugged slightly and gestured to a door in the aftcastle’s front wall. She waited until he stepped off before she followed. His stench was enough that she had to stop herself from covering her nose as she headed down the stairs and below deck.
He glanced back once, perhaps suspicious, and then led the way to the last door on the right. She followed and found herself in a small, cluttered cabin that—if possible—smelled worse than he did. He did not shut the door.
“What?” he asked.
She kept her eyes on his and tried not to look at his unkempt, unwashed attire.
“I hunt group ... of thieves ... murderers. I think they ... arranged passage on ... this ship.”
That one sharpened word—hunt—would be enough to give the impression that she was a bounty hunter, so called among many human cultures. That alone might sharpen his interest if there was money involved.
She was not wrong.
The captain’s beady, dark eyes widened slightly.
“You already see girl ... and black dog,” she said, and then she gave the best description of Magiere, Léshil, and Brot’ân’duivé that she could in her limited Numanese. “In Numan water—in port of Drist—they attack Suman vessel Bashair. They murder all crew.” She paused, granting this slovenly captain a moment to estimate how much profit might be involved. “My words easy prove. Ship found in dock. Bodies of crew ... in bay, on shore, under dock ... found dead. You want, check story. All five stayed at place named Delilah’s.”