“Would she?” Faventia asked, lazily shifting her scabbard. “Where’ve you put her?”
“Why? Do you want to keep her company?”
Faventia smiled around her fearsome fangs. “Try it.”
“Go sort out those godsbedamned cultists,” Lorcan snarled. “Earn your bloody keep.”
All three erinyes collapsed into laughter.
“Lorcan,” Faventia drawled, “telling us to earn our keep?” Wordlessly, he slipped a ring over one finger, and flames swallowed his arm. The erinyes shifted-more aware, more prepared. Not willing to back down though.
“Aw, little brother,” Noreia crooned. “We were just starting to have fun.” Lorcan scowled. “ ‘We’ have nothing. .” His retort trailed away as pieces he didn’t even know were missing locked into place.
I was trying-Farideh had said, and in his memories Havilar’s voice finished the phrase she’d left hanging-to protect us.
Lorcan froze. Oh, Lords of the Nine.
“Maybe you don’t,” Noreia said. “But the three of us-”
“Shut up, Noreia,” Lorcan spat. He’d put everything together wrong.
He yanked the ring off as he turned on his heel. There was one way to be sure.
“What’s wrong, little brother?” Noreia called, while the others hooted and cackled. “Did you just remember who you’re talking to?” He made no response, but forced the portal open once more, slipping the ruby ring on his off-hand and concentrating on the necklace it was linked to.
He stepped out into the dim of twilight. Havilar was sitting as if at watch, her back against a huge oak. But her eyes were on the ground in front of her, lost in unhappy thoughts. Brin was nowhere to be seen.
Havilar startled when Lorcan called her name, a dagger in her hand as if it had leaped there. She glowered at him.
“Four breaths,” she said. “And you’re gone, or I kill you.”
“Don’t be silly,” Lorcan admonished. “If you could do that, I wouldn’t have come.” He looked around at the forest. “You’re a lot farther on than I expected. Brin didn’t make you turn back?”
“Two breaths,” she warned.
“Oh, calm down,” he said. “I want to ask you something.” Havilar narrowed her eyes and didn’t lower the weapon. But two breaths passed and she didn’t lunge. “Ask,” she said. “And go.”
Lorcan wet his mouth, half-hoping he was wrong. “You said Farideh was trying to protect us-”
“She was.”
Lorcan took a step back, just to calm her down. “I believe you. But who,”
he asked, “is ‘us’?”
Havilar lowered her dagger, staring at him as if he’d gone more than a little mad in the last two days. “What?”
“Is ‘us’ you and her?” he said. “Or is ‘us’. . you and me?”
“Are you joking?” Havilar demanded. “You stormed off and left Farideh to die because you thought she’d suddenly turned into a sensible person and let your sister have you? Of course I meant me and you!”
That Farideh would throw herself into a deal with Sairché to protect Havilar, he had never doubted. But to protect him. . “You didn’t hear her talk that night,” he said. “She was ready to dissolve the pact.” Havilar shook her head as if she couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. “She was angry at you-you don’t kill people just because you’re angry, you henish.” Her gaze flicked over him. “Maybe you do.”
“But it’s fine and good to give them up to their enemies? You can’t wish away that part of-”
“Why did you think your sister just laid there and let you pummel her?”
Havilar cried. “She’s not allowed to hurt us-that’s the whole karshoji reason Farideh even said yes. Gods, you don’t listen to anything. It’s like double-Farideh.” Lorcan fell quiet, weighing his words, remembering Sairché’s capture.
She’d fought back a little, hadn’t she? He’d been clever-caught her unawares, gotten her where she couldn’t do anything to him.
“If I recall correctly,” he said, “I was already protecting you just fine back in Proskur.”
“And if I ‘recall correctly,’ you were frozen like a statue when I came in, and your godsbedamned sister was stalking around with a wand. Really, astounding job of protecting us.” She glanced off to her right. “Brin, don’t!” Flames poured into his hands as Lorcan turned to where the Cormyrean stood, not three feet from him with his sword out. Behind, near the edge of the brush, was a brace of rabbits. He hadn’t heard a thing.
“Back away,” Brin said to Lorcan, and the cambion wondered if there were a godsbedamned thing that had gotten simpler in the intervening years. “Put your sword down,” Havilar said irritably. “I don’t need to be saved from Lorcan.”
Lorcan narrowed his eyes. “Oh really?” he said. “I’m fairly sure I could burn you before your dear darling’s sword hit me. Send you off to the cavern, plenty quick.”
“You could,” Havilar said. “But you won’t. If you hurt me and then go save Farideh, she’s not going to be happy with you.” She folded her arms. “Besides, we’re. . What’s less than friends? But not enemies, either?”
“Associates?” Brin said. “Collaborators?”
Lorcan shook the flames out. “Allies,” he said.
“Good enough,” Havilar said. Brin lowered his sword.
“She’s near here,” Lorcan said. “Maybe two days walking. Up on the mountain’s peak. There’s a fortress, a camp around it. She’s in there.”
“With the Netherese?” Brin asked.
“A wizard called Adolican Rhand.”
Neither of them spoke to him for a long moment. “That’s not funny,”
Brin finally said.
“It’s not meant to be,” Lorcan replied.
“You left her there?” Havilar cried. “With him? I told you he was-”
“You told me he wasn’t your type,” Lorcan snapped. He nodded at Brin.
“And I can see that-they’re not exactly a matched set, are they?” Havilar’s cheeks turned bright red.
“Adolican Rhand,” Brin said calmly, “is wanted for several murders in Waterdeep-grotesque murders. The watch would be after him for the rapes as well, only the victims are all dead and in pieces.”
Lorcan shut his eyes, the fine edge of guilt threatening his certainty. Not one of Rhand’s dark jests had bothered him in the slightest, aside from being not, in fact, amusing. Mortals said they’d do a lot of things, after all. They seldom followed through.
And if this one did. . He wondered if what Asmodeus would do to him would be the worst of it, after all.
“Farideh can handle herself,” he said, not sure of who he was trying to convince. “Besides, she has to stay. If she reneges on her deal with Sairché, she loses her soul.” If she hasn’t already, Lorcan thought. You still don’t know what’s happening.
“What are his forces like?” Brin asked.
“Well, it’s overrun with guards. And he is a wizard.”
Brin shook his head. “He’s not that powerful. He makes as if he is, but we’re pretty sure he’s been trading on scrolls he recovered from the library’s destruction.”
“You don’t have to be too powerful to hit a small force from a high point.” Brin shook his head. “The distance-”
“Stop talking!” Havilar shouted. “Lorcan, you go back and you save her.
Brin, we have to-”
“Eat,” Brin interrupted. “And rest. We can’t walk for two days on fear and anger.”
Havilar drew back as if he’d called her a filthy name. “How am I supposed to sleep knowing how much trouble my sister’s in?”
“It’s no more trouble than she’s been in since we left,” Brin reminded her.
“And we’re not going to get to her any faster if we collapse a hundred feet from the fortress. We’re still doing what we can.” Havilar turned from him, and Brin pursed his mouth.
“Also, I have some of Tam’s sleeping tea,” Brin added. “So, we’ll try that.” Havilar glared at Lorcan. “What are you going to do?”