She ducked under the tapestry, tossing the book in the trunk, which was unaccountably unlocked again, as she passed it to reach her door. She looked at the trunk and frowned, but the knocking resumed.
“Coming,” she called, opening the door.
Talbot ran his eye over her outlandish costume and shook his head. “And here, I’ve heard ye’ve become an old maid in your choice of clothing. First time I’ve seen an old maid wearing orange.”
Sham batted her eyelashes at him and cooed, “Oh, but sir, a woman never likes to be predictable.”
Talbot laughed, stepping in the room at her motion of invitation. “And where have ye stowed the lad, eh? Under the bed?”
“Actually we were taking advantage of the more comfortable furnishings in Kerim’s rooms.”
Talbot’s eyebrows climbed. “If a man weren’t to know better, I’d say ye were sleeping with him the way you make so free of his rooms.”
Sham flashed the Reeve’s Mistress’s most enigmatic smile at him without answering the real question in his eyes. Elsic ducked under the tapestry and negotiated the room as if he’d been in it a hundred times rather than one.
“Through with business, Master Talbot?” he asked.
“For the nonce, lad.” Talbot turned back to Shamera. “There’s enough evidence of the story the old mage told ye to warrant a closer look, though I haven’t found anything interesting yet. I have a few meetings tomorrow as well, I don’t dare leave Elsic to my lassies—they’ll eat him alive.”
“By all means bring him here. All I’m doing now is reading. Given my material, it’s good to have another person here so I don’t scare myself silly,” she invited truthfully.
Talbot laughed. “Right, Now if I don’t get us home soon, the missus will have thrown the last of supper to the neighbor’s dog. Come along, Elsic.”
Talbot tucked Elsic’s hand in the crook of his arm and took his leave. Before she shut the door Sham heard Talbot say in a fatherly voice, “Now the missus said she had a nice fat duck to roast. Ye’ll want to avoid the gravy if ye can, but ye’ll not find better stuffing in all of ...”
The outside air was crisp and fresh, so Sham pulled her hood lower over her face. The stablemen had seen her in both her guises so she hoped the hooded cloak, aided by the darkness of late evening, would allow her to look like a lady meeting her lover in secret. She’d received the Whisperer’s message on her dinner tray, but because it had taken her time to get out of the house unseen she wasn’t certain the messenger would still be waiting.
“Ah, such fair countenance should never be hidden away like lost treasure.” The Shark’s voice rumbled out of the darkness of the hay barn.
Sham dodged into the shadows where the Shark waited and watched the stableyard warily until she was sure no one was taking undue notice of her actions before snapping impatiently, “Leave off with the manure; the stable has more than enough as it is. Why didn’t you just send another letter?”
He sank into a stack of hay and pulled a strand loose to chew on. “I thought I’d better check on you and see that you don’t grow too attached to your feathers—” he nodded at her clothes, “—and forget you are not a peacock, but a fox.”
Sham folded her arms and frowned at him. “What do you have for me, Sir Fox?”
“Halvok studied magic under Cauldehel of Reth for twelve years. I don’t know why that little fact escaped all the other times I’ve asked for information on him, but I got this one from Halvok’s half-sister myself.”
Sham raised her brows. “You’ve been masquerading as nobility again? That’s a hanging offense.”
The Shark gave her one of his dangerous smiles. “Ah, but I have some influence with the Reeve. I happen to be very close friends with his mistress.”
“And who was cautioning me a moment ago to remember that the Reeve really doesn’t have a mistress?” asked Sham with a grin.
“Guilty,” he replied with a flourishing bow. “I also asked around about the story of the Castle’s demon. It seems that there is indeed such a tale, though nothing I heard connects it with the name Chen Laut. I’ve gotten two or three versions of the story, but most of the particulars fit with the wizard’s account.”
Sham nodded. “Good. Talbot’s been looking through the old records. It looks like there’s enough information to confirm the story Halvok told us.”
The Shark spat the hay strand on the ground. “The third bit of interest that I picked up might be the reason the demon attacked the Old Man. It seems Maur had a run-in with a demon before he became the King’s Sorcerer. He’d been called to help a village, where a series of odd murders took place. He discovered a demon, hiding among a group of players who had stopped to winter at the village. He was able to drive it away, but couldn’t destroy it.”
“The Chen Laut?” she asked.
“My source didn’t know. If it was, Maur might have been able to identify it.”
“The old man was blind,” Sham reminded him.
“If he knew what the demon’s human form looked like, he could have described him well enough to identify who it is. It would explain why the demon attacked him.”
“I can feel this pattern coming together,” she said ruefully, “but I feel as if I am looking at the whole picture from the wrong side.”
“I hope you find that demon before it can kill again. I have a feeling that you’re not high on its list of favorite people.”
Sham laughed, “I’ve had that thought several times lately. I’ll be careful.”
The Shark snorted, “And I’ll be a fisherman. Just be smarter than it is.”
With Elsic’s music in her ears, Sham read the spell to return the demon to its origins for the fifth time. Somewhere beneath the neatly laid out recipe was a philosophy that dictated it. There seemed to be some special significance to the death of the sacrifice beyond the power of death magic.
As she read the spell again, goosebumps crawled up her arms. She ignored it at first, as a natural reaction to the nature of the spell she was exploring. Only gradually did she realize that her nerves were tingling from very real presence of magic. She looked up from her book and noticed Elsic wasn’t in the room with her. His music was coming from her room—and it wasn’t a harp he was playing.
A chill crept up her spine as she heard the clear tones of Maur’s flute. She must have left the trunk unlocked again ... it wasn’t like her to forget to lock her trunk. Yet at least on two occasions and now apparently a third, she’d done just that. Plaguing flute ...
She tucked her book under her arm and ducked under the tapestry. In her room the magic was so thick, she felt she might choke on it. She’d known the flute had a nasty habit of calling to someone who could use it. With his magic and musical ability, Elsic would have been especially sensitive to its call.
He played the flute softly, perched on the edge of her bed with a dreamy expression on his face, so absorbed by the music, that Sham thought he probably had no idea of the mounting storm of magic. On the principle that it was dangerous to interrupt someone working magic, Sham sat on the bed next to Elsic, with the intention of breaking his focus on the music slowly.
Unfortunately, he stopped playing immediately.
“I’m sorry ...” He didn’t get the chance to finish before the gathering magic broke free of the fetters of the flute’s music and began to shape itself to fire—as all wild magic did. Smoke curled up from the bottom of the tapestry and little flames flickered here and there on the carpets, the upholstery, and anything else marginally flammable.
Instinctively Sham reached for control before her reason told her there was no chance she could work green magic. She started to pull back and look for another way to undo the damage the magic was causing before the smoke in the room became dangerous when two things occurred to her.