They were not needed now. No clothes lay folded on the dressing couch beside the bed, and four of the partition panels hung open, revealing a black silken quilt embroidered with the same green dragon that hung beneath the prow of Hsieh’s ship. The blanket lay neatly spread over the mattress and pillows, lacking even the slightest rumple to suggest anyone had slept beneath it the night before.
Ruha’s stomach sank. She had assumed all along that she would find Yanseldara’s staff somewhere near Lady Feng, but it had never occurred to her that Lady Feng would not be at home.
The absence certainly explained the guards’ reaction to the rattling lock, but not much else. Perhaps Lady Feng had spent the night in a lover’s chamber, or communing with the spirits in some occult place Ruha had not yet discovered. There could be any number of explanations, most of which meant the staff would not be found here. Nevertheless, the witch decided to continue her search. Even if she failed to recover Yanseldara’s staff—she could hear Vaerana maligning her already—at least there was a chance she would find something to lead her to Lady Feng.
Ruha crawled onto the mattress and ran her hands over the black quilt, then felt under the pillows. When she found nothing, she crawled off and straightened the quilt, then looked under the bed and stood on the dressing couch to peer above the canopy. She went to the corner and inspected a low writing desk. On the surface sat a bottle of ink, a small calligraphy brush, and several blank leaves of rice paper. A well-worn text in ancient Dwarven sat on one corner; the witch knew just enough of the arcane language to recognize the words “alchemy” and “first materials.”
Though she could not see how it might be connected to Yanseldara’s staff, the witch picked up the dwarven text. Aside from what she had already examined, there was little else in the room. She turned to leave, and that was when she heard the scratching.
It was as gentle as the whisper of her feet across the floor, but it was steady, and there was something more: a weak, plaintive whimpering. Ruha returned the dwarven text to its place, then kneeled in the corner of the room. The scratching and the squealing grew more discernible, and she caught a faint whiff of a gamy and slightly rank odor. An animal.
Ruha ran her fingers up the corner and felt the seam of a door. She pulled the writing desk away from the corner, and a small click sounded inside the wall. The scratching and squealing stopped, but the gamy odor grew stronger. Resisting the urge to pull her jambiya—if she attacked anything, the sun spell would fail and render her instantly visible—the witch laid her palms on a fresco of what looked like a slumbering mountain and pushed.
A hidden panel swung open, revealing the interior of a cluttered chamber. A small, white-furred face peered around the edge of the door. At first, Ruha thought the thing was a monkey, until she saw that its black-tipped muzzle was long and foxlike. Then she noted the black mask around its eyes and thought it looked like a raccoon, save that its head was as small and narrow as that of a weasel.
The creature, whatever it was, regarded the empty doorway for an instant, and then its nose twitched and its ears pricked forward. It raised its dark eyes, which remained as expressionless as they were large, toward Ruha’s face and chittered despondently. For a moment, the witch thought the little animal could not see her and was disappointed at finding no one in the door. Then it slipped forward, revealing an emaciated body and a white-ringed tail, and gently pawed at her with two tiny black hands.
Hoping the creature was not trying to defend its territory, Ruha stepped past it into the secret chamber. Beneath a brass chandelier in the center of the room stood a worktable, the surface barely visible beneath a jumble of braziers, balances, cauldrons, and other alchemical instruments. Three of the laboratory walls were completely concealed behind rows of tall wooden cabinets, some so full of books and flasks they could not close. The fourth wall had two glass windows, beneath which were a red silk cushion, a box of fetid-smelling sand, and two silver bowls licked so clean they gleamed like mirrors.
When Ruha paused at the worktable to examine Lady Feng’s apparatus, Chalk Ears, as she was beginning to think of the black-masked creature, leapt onto the only clear corner. It fixed its expressionless eyes on her face, watching her so intently she raised a hand to make certain she had not suddenly become visible. When the witch could not see her own flesh, she regarded Chalk Ears with a wary eye, then reached toward a flask of what looked like powdered blood.
A surprisingly sinister growl rolled from the creature’s small throat. The hair rose along its spine and it lifted itself on its haunches, baring a mouthful of needlelike fangs. Ruha retracted her arm, and the little beast settled back onto its corner. The witch clasped her hands behind her back, then slowly walked around the table, studying the rest of the apparatus. Other than a fine coating of dust, she saw nothing to tell her what had become of Lady Feng. Chalk Ears watched her intently, but made no further objections as long as she did not attempt to touch anything.
Ruha went to the first cabinet. Chalk Ears jumped off the table and took a post at her heels. Keeping a careful eye on her little escort, she pulled the door open. As before, the creature watched her carefully, and any doubts about its ability to see her vanished from the witch’s mind. Whatever it was, the animal clearly had some defenses against magic, and that could only mean Chalk Ears was Lady Feng’s familiar, linked to her by a special bond of magic and love.
Ruha had never had a familiar, since the spell that summoned them had more to do with the spirit than the elements. But she had heard other witches describe the strength of the union. Sometimes, the two were so closely bound that, over relatively short distances, they could see through each other’s eyes and hear through each other’s ears.
Ruha kneeled in front of the familiar. “Lady Feng?” she whispered, looking into the creature’s big eyes. “Are you there?”
Chalk Ears blinked, but the tiny beast made no move to suggest that it understood.
“Why have you left your familiar alone, Lady Feng? It is starving. Shall I feed it for you and give it water?”
Again, Chalk Ears did nothing. The witch breathed a sigh of relief, confident there would have been some response if Lady Feng were listening. Even if the starving creature’s mistress was as cruel as At’ar the Merciless, she would share its pain and be anxious to have it cared for. In fact, it seemed unthinkable that Lady Feng would allow the little beast to fall into such a wretched state unless she had been forced to depart under the direst circumstances.
A muffled crash rumbled through Lady Feng’s apartment, and guards began to call from the anteroom. Ruha stepped into the bedchamber and pulled the writing desk back into its corner, then slipped into the laboratory and closed the secret door. She pressed her ear to the panel and heard several men rush into the room, still calling out as though they expected Lady Feng to return at any moment. Wei Dao arrived and began issuing commands. The witch listened for several moments more. When she heard no one dragging the desk from its place, she decided they did not know about the secret room and quietly resumed her search.