It was also possible that the thief had nothing to do with Jausiff and had acted on his or her own and not returned here. If so, then Wynn and the rest of them had wasted time in coming here.
“Messenger first,” Osha said, pushing himself back into the discussion. “Maybe-thief we find next, unless same.”
Wynn nodded. “Yes, that still seems our only path forward.” She placed a hand gently on Shade’s head, and the dog’s ears pricked up. “And we have a few extra methods to use in searching.”
“Anything?” Chane asked. “Anything at all, even seemingly unconnected?”
“Shade said no already.” But then Wynn twitched slightly, her eyes appearing to lose focus.
“What?” Chane asked a bit too sharply.
Wynn blinked, frowned, and looked down at Shade. “Just a flash ... an image of two of those Suman guards standing in front of a door in a dim, windowless passage. Maybe ... maybe underground.”
“Whose memory?”
Shade rolled her eyes up at Wynn.
“The duke ... Karl,” Wynn whispered, still looking at Shade. “But that’s all she saw. I think everyone was so focused on the moment at hand that Shade couldn’t catch anything else.” She stroked the dog’s soft, charcoal-colored head. “It’s all right. You keep trying.”
The door suddenly swung inward without a knock.
Chane dropped his hand to his longer sword’s hilt as he turned.
In the opening stood the tall and dark-skinned female servant, who looked only at Wynn.
“Master Jausiff wishes to see the texts you brought for him,” she said, her accent smooth and rolling.
Wynn studied the woman in the doorway. She looked so out of place here, regardless of the common wool tunic and long, heavy skirt for a cold, dank climate. And she hadn’t dropped her eyes, as had the two serving girls making up the rooms.
“Now ... please,” the woman said, her full lips exposing starkly white teeth.
“Of course,” Wynn answered, and she dug in her satchel containing the books.
“I will come as well,” Chane stated.
“No,” Aupsha answered flatly, though she never looked away from Wynn.
“It’s all right,” Wynn told Chane. She needed to speak to Master Columsarn—Jausiff—as soon as possible. Perhaps she might gain some further clues by a few tricks, and she looked back to Aupsha. “May I bring my dog? She gets restless if I leave her alone too long.”
After a brief hesitation, Aupsha nodded once, making her hair shift stiffly on her shoulders. Chane was still watching Wynn with concern as she slipped out behind the tall woman. As Wynn did so, she heard another door open, and looked up the passage.
Nikolas stepped out of his room and paused at the sight of Wynn with his father’s tall, foreign servant. And, now that Wynn paid attention, she realized that Nikolas had obviously never seen Aupsha before.
“I’m going to see your father,” Wynn said, holding up the texts.
“So am I,” Nikolas responded.
“He has not sent for you,” Aupsha said coldly, taking one step up the passage and halting between Wynn and the young sage. In truth Wynn hoped Aupsha might prevail here, as she needed to speak with Jausiff alone.
Nikolas stood his ground. “He is my father, and I am going to see him.”
When he took his first step, Wynn turned her eyes on Aupsha’s back ... and dug her fingers into Shade’s scruff. She wasn’t even sure whom she should send Shade to block off, but Nikolas stepped past the tall woman unchallenged. Surprisingly, he didn’t appear frightened.
Aupsha turned slowly, keeping her eyes on Nikolas until he stood beside Wynn. Only then did Wynn see the twitch of Nikolas’s eye, like the old Nervous Nikolas. The tall woman silently stepped around all of them to lead the way to the stairs and past the keep guard waiting there.
The passage was wide enough that Wynn, Shade, and Nikolas walked side by side past the guard’s watchful eyes. At the stairwell they had to fall into single file, with Shade in the lead and Nikolas behind Wynn.
Aupsha took them one floor down, to the keep’s second floor, and stepped off down another passage almost all the way to its end. One large door there was already open.
As if he had heard them coming, Master Jausiff Columsarn stepped out as the tall servant arrived. In contrast to Aupsha, he looked perfectly at ease in his clothing—a gray sage’s robe—and he didn’t have his cane in hand. He did have a rather intense, serious expression even before he turned his eyes on Wynn. That quickly changed when he looked beyond her.
At the sight of Nikolas, Jausiff appeared slightly startled, though he recovered quickly with a warm smile.
“Settled already, my son? You weren’t always so efficient.”
“I just wanted to see how you were,” Nikolas responded.
Whatever he’d expected from his father, it wasn’t a playful jibe about his past youth in this keep.
“Of course,” Jausiff answered with a chuckle. “We’ll have a good long talk, you and I. But first I must see what the journeyor has brought me from the guild. If you wouldn’t mind, son.”
Wynn was taken aback by this, though it was the way she preferred things. As she glanced at Nikolas, he appeared a bit stunned as well.
“Um, that’s fine,” Nikolas tried to answer. “I’ll ... wait.”
Jausiff’s smile broadened, and he looked to Aupsha. “Is their dinner prepared?”
“I will check,” she said, and she turned and left.
Jausiff, still smiling, studied Wynn for a breath before waving her in. She’d barely entered with Shade when he solidly closed the door.
“My private study,” he said, stepping slowly around her.
The chamber had all the fixtures and messy qualities of a longtime office, with shelves covering every available wall. Ink bottles, quills in old cups, open ledgers, and stacks of papers were half-organized across a solid, dark wood table serving as a workspace.
However, something about it struck her as sad.
Perhaps because of an overabundance of shelves, the master sage had tried to make them look filled by placing scrolls lengthwise and spreading out various books and volumes in small sets, as if he could not stand the sight of too much empty space. There was a good bit of dust on most of the collection, as if little had been taken off the shelves in a long while. In one back corner stood a small unmade bed, suggesting that this room served as his living quarters as welclass="underline" one room for his library, office, and bedchamber.
What had kept him here all these years?
Sages by nature were curious people who loved to be either lost in their research or off on a journey of discovery. Something had anchored him here. But as Wynn’s attention turned from the chamber to its occupant, now standing behind the messy table, any personal questions vanished from her thoughts.
Master Columsarn’s warm good humor was gone as his gaze locked on Shade.
“Unusual for a sage to travel in the company of a pet, especially a wild ... animal of such size. How did you acquire her?”
Wynn tensed. She could be standing before someone in league with a minion of the Ancient Enemy. Also, he’d hesitated at mentioning an “animal” as a companion, as if he might have used another word.
As a master sage, Jausiff would be well educated and possibly even know about the majay-hì. But unless he had traveled in the lands of the Lhoin’na, it was unlikely he had ever seen one. She had no intention of offering any information about Shade unless he commented more specifically.
“She found me, after finding herself wandering Calm Seatt,” Wynn answered lightly. “She’s proven an able companion I wouldn’t be without.” This last was added with some emphasis, and Jausiff crossed his arms.
“Indeed,” he said, and then pointed at the bundle in Wynn’s arms. “I assume those are for me?”