Mistshore

CHAPTER 3

The shorter of the two elves took up a position by the door. The other came forward to lean an elbow against the long counter.

They all move like dancers, Icelin thought, as if the ground beneath them could be measured and controlled through their feet. Would they fight the same way?

Pinned between them, Icelin weighed her options. She could run, but they would be on her before she reached the street. If she screamed, would the butcher come to aid het?

The last thing she wanted was for harm to come to him or his shop. She couldn't use her magic for the same reason.

"Your master is persistent," she said, stalling for time. If she could just get "them to move, take the inevitable fight to the alley…

The elf at the counter regarded her coolly. He said something to his companion in Elvish. Sharp, elegant words to match theif looks. The other elf nodded.

"You know, that's terribly rude behavior," Icelin said. She crossed her arms. "Talking as if I'm not in the room. If you're going to execute a successful kidnapping, the least you could do is be straightforward with your intentions."

The pair exchanged a glance. Icelin couldn't tell if they were amused or annoyed.

The elf at the door looked her over. "You've a blunt tongue," he said in Common. "I don't suppose if we were 'sttaightforward' and asked you to come with us, you'd cooperate without resistance?"

"Ah, if only a woman's intentions bore any degree of predictability," Icelin said, smiling. "Let me think. If I kick and scream and conjure fire to boil the flesh off your lovely cheekbones, does that count as resistance?"

"I believe it does," the elf said, genuinely amused now. "But I think you're bluffing."

"You think I don't have magic? I suppose I don't give much of an appearance of sorcery." Icelin reached up to grasp the coin-purse at her neck.

"Hands at your sides!"

Her head cocked, Icelin obeyed. "But I thought I was bluffing," she said. "The pouch is too small to hold any useful weapon."

"Mefilarn stowil!" the elf at the door said sharply to his companion. "Make her hold her tongue, Melias."

"Your friend's right, Melias, I do talk too much. And that's a fault to reckon with," Icelin said. "But don't interrupt me now, I've only just got going. The pouch can't contain any weapon deadly to you. So what am I keeping in here, if not some datk magic that you both fear?"

"Empty it," Melias commanded.

"Not here," Icelin said, "in the alley. We can have a nice, quiet conversation-"

"Sorry to be so long!" Sull's booming voice cut through the tension in the air like a saw grating on wire.

"Watch your hands." The butcher tossed a pair of bundles wrapped in brown paper onto the counter next to Melias. "Seasonin's, I was talkin' of." He uncapped the jat of salt again and poured a fistful into his large hand. He gestured at Icelin and sprayed salt across the counter.

"Large crystals, that's what you want," Sull said. "Not ground as fine as fot a noble's table in North Ward-that bleeds the flavor out-but try talkin' sensible cookin' to a noble, eh? The salt's what teases the tongue. You put some pinches of this on the fire while your boar meat's simmerin' in my spices, the whole thing'U be so tender it falls juicy onto your spoon. Make a man weep unashamed pleasure, that's the truth." He looked at the elves as if he'd only just remembered they were there. "Sorry 'bout that, gentlemen, I like to blather. What can I get the pair ofyou?"

"Nothing," said the one by the door. "We didn't see anything worthy of our master's tastes. The lass and we are leaving."

"Aw, shame, that," the butcher said, looking crestfallen. "This is prime meat, you know. Here now, maybe you'd like this cut instead."

The red-haired giant turned, yanked the meat hook from the deer carcass, and swung it in a downward arc. The hook sank into the countertop, the curved metal trapping Melias's delicate wrist against the wood.

Screams of elf fury filled the shop.

"Told you to watch your hand," Sull admonished. He threw his handful of salt at the elf by the door, grabbed Melias's head in his other hand, and slammed the elf's skull against the countertop.

Blood poured down Melias's face. He fell back over the counter, his hand still pinned awkwardly under the hook.

The elf by the door took the salt in the eyes. Crying out, he drew his sword and scraped a hand across his face.

Stunned by the violence, Icelin almost didn't react in time. Reaching into her neck purse, she chanted the first simple spell that came to mind. The elf at the door brought his blade up, but Icelin got to her focus first and hurled a handful of colored sand into the air.

A flare of light consumed the sand and shot at the elPs face. Luminous colors filled the small shop; Icelin covered her eyes against the brilliance.

She heard the elf fumble his sword, but he didn't drop it. Instinctively, she ducked. Wood splintered from the wall.

"Run, lass!" The butcher yelled at her.

Icelin broke for the door, stumbling over her dress. The noise betrayed her. The elf dived at her from the side and caught an arm around her waist. They went down together, arms and legs tangling.

Pain lanced along Icelin's flank. The elf's weight pinned her to the floor. She kicked out viciously, trying to find a vulnerable spot. He forced her arms against her sides and put his boot on the back of her head. When she tried to move, he pressed down, hard. Icelin thought her skull would crack from the pressure.

She heard him groping for his sword. He dragged the blade over to them and brandished the pommel. He was going to knock her out, Icelin realized. The fight had come down to kicking and scteaming after all, but she was still going to lose.

The elf s head snapped to the side. Steel clattered on wood, and he pitched forward, sprawling heavily on top of her.

Her arms free, Icelin heaved the elf off and kicked his sword across the room. She raked the hair out of her eyes and felt moisture on her back. She could smell the blood.

"It's not yours." The butcher stood over her, clutching a mallet in his hand. "For tenderizin'," he explained.

"I think you killed him," Icelin said. She rolled the elf onto his back and put her hands over his heart. "There's no beat. What about the other?"

"He's breathin,' " Sull assured her.

Icelin had to see for herself. The butcher had strewn Melias across the counter next to the dead deer. Blood and bruises darkened his temple. His chest rose and fell intermittently. He would need healing soon, or he would join his friend.

"Why did you kill him?" Icelin demanded. Fear shook her voice. How had everything gotten so out of control? This could no longer be a private matter. The Watch would have to be called, if someone hadn't already heard the commotion and summoned them. She would be questioned; Gods, she would have to go through all that again…

"Lass." The butcher was speaking to her. She'd almost forgotten he was in the room. "I had to, lass. Beggin' your pardon, but I was eavesdroppin' just now. These two, or whomever they serve, meant you harm. No man sends his own men-men he knows might be traced-after a person unless he plans for that body never to come home. After they'd trussed you up and made you gentle, they would have killed me for witnessin'. I'd be just another abandoned shop."

Icelin felt light-headed. "I have to go home," she mumbled.

"Best to wait for the Watch."

"The Watch be damned!" She lowered her voice. "Forgive me, but my great-uncle-he must know about this. I'll bring him back here-"

"Wait! What if there are more of them out thete?"

More? She couldn't comprehend it. She was one small woman squirreled away in a shop, in a city full of folk much larger and darker. Why would someone want her so badly?

Cerest's scarred face appeared in her mind-the puckered red skin, the ruined ear.

"He wants revenge," Icelin said. "There's no other explanation." She glanced at Sull. The butcher looked extremely uncomfortable. "You know who I am," she said. It wasn't a question.

Sull cleared his throat. "Aye, I know. I recognized your face when you came in the shop. Someone's after you because of that business?" He shook his head. "It was years ago."

"He has burn scars all over his face," Icelin said flatly. "He recognized me too."

Sull sighed and nodded. "Go then, to your great-uncle. I'll speak to the Watch. But you'd best be runnin'."

Full dark pressed down on the city by the time Icelin reached her great-uncle's shop. The place was closed up, and there were no lamps burning in the second-level rooms. Brant always left a lantern in her bedroom when she was gone after dark.

Icelin fumbled her key in the lock at the back door. Sometimes her gteat-uncle lingered downstairs after closing to review his accounts. Meticulous in his records and his housekeeping, Brant never let anything stray out of order. That patience and painstaking attention to everything-including his great-niece- made her love him all the more.

Icelin stepped into the dark shop, leaving the door ajar for Selune to light the entryway. The shadow of a tall wooden plant stand caught her eye as she groped for a lamp. The piece of furniture had been moved slightly away from the wall, and the vase of lilies that had been displayed on it lay overturned on the floor. Water funneled through cracks in the floorboards.

Water, not blood. And no othet earthly thing was out of place in the room.

But Icelin screamed anyway, screamed and dropped to the floor, clutching her hair and sobbing. In the dark, she crawled across the floor of the shop, feeling her way, fighting the dread bubbling up inside her.

Someone had already been here, seeking her. But how had they known? How?

"Great-Uncle," she whispered. Her fingers found a rack of boots, then a stand of belts. Long, leathery softness caressed her fingers. She crawled on, her skirts collecting dirt and dust that her great-uncle should have swept outside at the end of the business day. She found the broom in the next corner; the worn bristles reminded her of insect legs.

She reached the front of the shop. Clear glass jars lined the counter, each filled with a different herb or spice.

"Salt, mint, comfrey, basil." She named each one out of habit, stopping before she reached the wall. Selune's glow poured in a window and over her shoulder. She put her hand tentatively into the beam of light and followed it down to the floor. At the edge of the light, her hand found her great-uncle's chest.

Brant lay on his side, tucked against the back of the counter. There was very little blood; he'd clutched most of it in and made gouge marks in the wood with his other hand where he had held on. The sword thrust had been quick and precise, slipping right between his ribs.

When she touched him, his eyes fluttered open. Icelin could see he was already going. She had no time, no breath to explain that he'd been killed because of her, no time to say anything of meaning.

"Great-Uncle," she choked.

His eyes widened when he recognized her. He let go of the wood and gtabbed for her, catching hair and dress and skin all together. He pulled her close.

"Get out of here," he said, his voice a terrible rasp.

"I'm not going anywhere," Icelin said. "I'm not leaving you."

"Get… the… box." The words came out broken by gasps and blood dribbling from his lips. "The floorboards, by the bookcase. Take it with you. Should have… been yours… before."

"You've given me everything I've ever needed," Icelin began.

"No!" He said it so viciously Icelin flinched. He held her tighter. "I lied, Icelin. I loved you, but now he's going to…" Brant started to sob. She had never seen him cry before, not even when he spoke of his dead wife, Gisetta.

"I won't let him," Icelin said. She put her forehead against his. His lips moved, but she could barely hear what he said next.

"Run. Leave the city. Make something… new… better. Don't blame yourself…"

"Shh, Great-Uncle, please." Icelin held his hands, but they'd gone boneless in her grip. He had no more strength.

"Rest now. I… I'll s-sing to you," she promised him. He could still hear her voice. Haltingly, the words came.

The lastfalling twilight shines gold on the mountain. Give me eyes for the darkness, take me home, take me home.

"Do you remember, Great-Uncle?" she asked. She cupped his wrinkled cheek in her hand. His eyes stared glassily up at her. He nodded once. She felt the moisture at the corner of his eye.

"You always remember," he said. "I'm sorry… for that too." He closed his eyes, and his head slid away from her. She lost him in that last little breath.

Icelin curled protectively around the still-warm body, cradling her great-uncle's head in her hands. She stayed there, hunched, until she couldn't feel anything except a burning ache in her legs. The pain was the only force that kept her sane. As long as it was there, she wouldn't have to feel anything else. She would never leave that floor. She. would stay there until the world withered away.

Moonlight still bathed them when Icelin heard the shop door close. She raised her head and saw the butcher's bulky shape crammed in the doorway. He seemed brought to her from another time, another century, one in which her great-uncle wasn't dead.

"Sull?" She didn't recognize her own voice.

"It's me, lass." The big man knelt beside her and lifted Brant's head from her lap. "Are you all right?"

"My throat hurts," she said.

"You were singin'."

"Was I?" She hadn't been aware, but now she thought of it, she could recall every song. Of course she could. She would remember them and the look on Brant's face when she sang. She would carry those memories with her until she died.

"You always remember…"

"Icelin, you need to come with me," Sull said. He took her hands. She was dead weight, limp as one of his carcasses, but he pulled her to her feet easily.

"He told me to leave the city," Icelin said. She might have laughed at the jest, but she didn't want to alarm Sull.

"I think he was right," the butcher said. He took her chin in his hand, forcing her to focus on him. "I've been to the Watch, but that elf bastard got away while I was gone. Guessin' he wasn't hurt as much as we thought. Ransacked every damn tool and stick of furniture in the place before he left, as if you were a mouse he was trying to scrounge up. Maybe to him that's what you are, but the Watch thinks differently."

"They've never liked me," Icelin said, and this time she did laugh. She could feel the hysteria bubbling up inside her. "Small wonder, I suppose. I'm the she-witch of Blacklock Alley, didn't you know?"

"Lass, that's not it," Sull said. "They've instructions to bring you in."

"For what?" she asked incredulously. "I didn't kill anyone!" Not this time…

"It's not like that," Sull said. "You're wanted on suspect of jewel thievery. The one who placed the request was named Kredaron, actin' on behalf of Cerest Elenithil."

"Kredaron?" Icelin closed her eyes. "Of course. That's how Cerest found out where I lived. So it's suspicion of thievery, unless they can prove I'm a murderess as well."

"I didn't tell 'em you were comin' back here. I told 'em I left you unconscious in my shop. But they'll check this place soon," Sull said. "I can get you out before that."

"Why should you care what happens to me?" Icelin said. Het voice held a bitter edge. "How can you be sure I'm innocent?"

Sull's brows knitted in a dark red line. "You and your mouth might be famous in this ward, but now's not the time to let loose on me," he said. "If he was alive, your great-uncle would give you a smart slap for takin' that tone with your elders. Brant Team was a fine man, he raised a good girl, and that's plenty of reasons for me to bother with you."

He left her at the counter and roved about the room, lighting a small lamp and placing it on the floor away from the windows. He selected a pair of swash-topped boots from the rack and tossed them to her.

"Put those on," he said. "You'll need new boots for the road, and a pack." He pulled one down off the wall. It was a nondescript brown mass of buckles and straps. "Blankets and ration bundles. Where did your great-uncle store em?" he asked.

"On the shelf behind you," Icelin said. She watched him collect some flint and steel, a compass, a weathercloak, and one of the belts. He put them all in a pile next to her.

"Don'r wait for me; start puttin' it on," he told her. "I have a friend at the gate. He doesn't respond well to moral causes, but he can be bribed, so it suits me well enough. Stop lookin' at him, lass. We have to move!"

"Where do you think I can go, Sull?" He paused long enough to look back at her. "I have never trod on soil that wasn't Waterdeep's. My only family lies on this floor. Where would someone like me find a kind place in the world?"

Sull opened his mouth to answer, but the silence stretched.

Icelin nodded. "Exactly. I can't leave. I have to hide, at least for now."

But where to disappear to? Cerest's men had tracked her easily, and the Watch now joined them.

"You'll have to leave Blacklock, that's a certainty," Sull said. "If I knew your face, others will too, and they'll be watchin' for you."

"So, I leave the Alley," Icelin said. She picked up the pack and the belt and put them on. The rations she took as well. No telling where her next meal would be coming from.

Reaching over the counter, she took out the knife Brant had kept for emergencies. He hadn't been able to get to it when they came for him. She used it to cut a slit up het skirt. She needed to be able to run full stride if it came to that.

"There is a man I know in the Watch," she said. "Kersh. Fortunately, he does respond to moral causes. I think he'll help me, or at least be able to give me some information about Cerest."

"Help us, lass," Sull said. "I'm goin' with you."

Icelin shook her head. "You've already gotten yourself in enough trouble on my behalf. What about your store?"

"Stone and timber," Sull said, shrugging. "It'll be there after I've seen to you. This man," he said, and he knelt to touch Brant's shoulder, "he was known in South Ward. Like I said, he's a good man, and so is his kin. I'll be goin' with you lass, so it'd be best if we don't waste time arguin'."

Icelin looked at the butcher in the flickering lamplight. He still wore his bloody apron. He'd tucked the mallet and several wicked-looking cleavers into a leather harness that he draped sash-style across his broad stomach. Even had she not known what he could do with those tools, he was a fearsome sight to behold. Yet he handled her great-uncle's body with infinite gentleness. He tucked Brant's arms against his body and laid a blanket over him. Icelin swallowed the emotion rising up within her.

"All right, then, we'll go together," she said. "But you'll leave me at the first safe place I find. I'll sort the rest out on my own." She paused with the pack in het hands. "Wait. I need one more thing." She remembered her great-uncle's cryptic words. "Something he wanted me to take. He said it was near the bookcase."

"Could have been gibberish he was talkin'. A dyin' man might say things that don't make much sense," Sull said.

"No, he was very specific. He said it was in a box."

"If you say so. But we don't have time to be solvin' riddles, lass. What do you need?"

Icelin thought about it. "A sledgehammer," she decided.

Sull blinked. "Wasn't expectin' that."

"Over here." Icelin went behind the counter, where a narrow stretch of floor fronted a bookcase containing her great-uncle's favorite volumes. They were bound in leather, with red ribbons draped over the spines. He loved to read them on slow days. Tipped back on his wooden stool, he'd lay the pages open on his lap. When she was a child, Icelin had perched on the counter to listen to him read to her.

"I need to break through these boards," Icelin said. She wanted to smash them with her bare hands, to howl out the rage boiling inside her. But she would need her hands, her whole body's strength, in case she had to cast spells. "Do you think you could break them?" she asked Sull.

The butcher hiked up a leg and brought it down against the floorboards. The old wood splintered and gave way.

"There's dirt here," Sull said. "I don't feel anythin' else."

"Let me in there." He made way for her to crouch over the small hole. She felt with both hands in the. musty darkness.

"Hurry, lass," Sull urged her. "Someone will have heard that noise."

"Found it." The box was small and narrow. She could feel the ridges of some kind of scrollwork running along the outer edges. When she brought it up, Sull's gasp drowned out her own.

"Bring the light," Icelin said.

Sull held up the lantern. The box shone, eclipsing the moonlight in the glow of flame. "Is that-"

"Gold," Sull confirmed. "Or I'm no judge of beef. A small fortune's worth of it, at least. You have a dragon's hoard of mysteries about you, lass, and that's a certainty."

"Let's hope this is the last one," Icelin said. Escape was her greatest concern. She had no time to ponder what the box contained or why her great-uncle had concealed it from her. She buried it at the bottom of her pack and blew out the lamp.

Cerest didn't bother to light the lamps in front of his Sammarin Street home. He bypassed the front entrance of the blocky stone structure, with its single tower braced against the main building. He headed instead for his private garden.

He'd spent the largest share of his hoarded coin here, where he could be among the wild things and the quiet. It was his place to think, and where he often met the two women whose company he sought now.

Moonlight cast milky shadows over the cobblestone path leading to the small gladehouse. It was not as grand as those found at a high noble's mansion. The long sheets of glass that formed the circular cage were expensive and fragile, but they ornamented his most exotic blossoms: pantefiower, with its bell shape and dark red stems; yellow orchids, the most fragrant; and all the rose varieties he could afford.

He lifted the latch on the door and stepped inside. The elf women were waiting, perched on stone benches on either side of a long rectangular pond. A fine layer of green scum covered the water. He would have to tend it when he was alone. Cerest looked forward to such tasks, but the Locks would have to come fitst.

Ristlara and Shenan, the Locks of North Ward, were sisters, or so they claimed. Privately, Cerest wondered if they were lovers. Not that it mattered, as long as they came to his bed.

Both had fiery gold hair, bronze skin, and moss green eyes. They were too beautiful and knew it, but they were also the richest pair of professional thieves living openly in the City of Splendors. That position demanded respect.

The Locks had defined the market for rare antiquities in the city, and Cerest knew what pleased them best: magic, the older the better. Their private mansion resembled more of a museum, stocked with artifacts either stolen or recovered from tombs across Faerun, all of it carefully tagged and catalogued. It was a concise history of thievery that covered almost two centuries.

The sisters were mostly retired, preferring to commission their raids among the eager treasure-seekers who passed through the city. They weie still tabid collectors, and to date, Cerest was their most successful contact. But for all his dealings with the sisters-both in the bedchambet and out of it-he'd never been invited to see inside their residence.

With this venture, Cerest vowed, things would change.

"Clearly, you don't see the need to maintain your business contacts, Cerest, since we haven't heard from you this tenday, but my sister and I were hosting a dinner party when you dragged us away to your swamp." Ristlara leaned back on the bench, crossing her shapely legs and scowling at him. She looked like a bronze sculpture against the stark gray stone. Her hair was upswept and bobbed at the back of her head, giving her face and neck a long, elegant line.

"Let him speak," Shenan told her sister. The older elf wore her hair loose, almost wild, and was as sedate as her sister was furious.

"Ladies, I appreciate you coming on such short notice," Cerest began. "You know I wouldn't have contacted you after such an inexcusable absence-rousted you from tea with boorish human muck-rakers-if it wasn't important."

"How did you know who we were meeting?" Ristlata demanded.

Her sister smothered a chuckle with the back of her hand. "Those are foul words to use, Cerest," Shenan chided him. "The humans led a legitimate expedition-a feat you have not achieved in some yeais."

"Digging in farm fields and wastelands where no real magic has dwelled for a century, you mean." With a melodramatic flourish, Cerest slid onto the bench next to Ristlara. He pulled the bronze she-cat onto his lap. "No thank you. I don't take up after the spellplague's leavings. Your lovely human pets are wasting your coin, sucking you dry like parasites. I have something better for you," he said against the squirming female's ear.

He felt her face grow warm against his cheek. Cetest nuzzled her neck until she stopped thrashing. "Are you interested, Ristlara? Or should I be coddling your sister?"

"Will it make us a lot of coin?" Shenan asked.

"Darlings, you won't believe me when I tell you," Cetest said. "I've found Elgreth's granddaughter."

Ristlara turned in his arms. Their faces were inches apart, but she'd stopped flinching at his scars a long time ago. "Are you jesting?"

"Not a bit."

"Have you spoken to her?" Shenan asked. She eyed Cerest shrewdly. "Will she work with us?"

"Not yet," Cerest said. "She needs time. I made a terrible first impression, I'm afraid."

"Poor Cerest," Ristlara cooed. She tipped her head back against his shoulder, so he could not help but catch the scented oil in het hair, or notice the full effect of her cleavage in her green lace gown. "Did you frighten her away? Did she think she was seeing a mask and not a face at all?" She teached up to touch his melted skin.

Cerest caught her wrist before she could touch him. He laid his other hand casually around her throat. For a moment, the elf's eyes widened fearfully. The irony of where she sat only then dawned on her.

The Locks were well aware of the change in Cerest's demeanor since his disfigurement. One of his former servants, a retired fence named Tolomon Shinz, had been unable to keep from staring at Cerest's scars. Cerest had been too ill at first to respond with any censure, but later, when the immediate pain and horror had abated, a general wildness of temper took its place.

He was known to react with violent outbursts to any insult, real or perceived, and so when Tolomon Shinz had looked too long at his crooked ear one Ky thorn morning, Cerest had reacted decisively… most would say harshly.

Cerest had since mastered his emotions to such an extent that he could ignore most people, no matter their reaction to his deformity. But that didn't change the fact that Tolomon Shinz was entombed beneath Cerest's fish pond, and Ristlara's shapely toes dangled above the water scant inches from where his skull was decomposing.

The pretty elf, staring up at him while his hand noosed her neck, was most likely wondering, if only for a breath, if a similar fate awaited her. Ristlara's uncertainty was Cerest's power, and the elf reveled in it.

Shenan cleared her throat, and the tense breath passed.

Cerest relaxed and pushed the golden bitch off his lap.

"I was insensitive to Icelin,"-Cerest admitted, continuing their conversation as if nothing had happened. "Too greedy for my own good."

"You made the same mistake with Elgreth," Shenan reminded him.

"That was different. We had history between us. I expected more from Elgreth. But Icelin-"

"How lovely. It has a name," Ristlara purred.

"I think he's smitten, Sister," Shenan said. "I wonder if the lady will feel the same."

"She will," Cerest assured them. "I'm eliminating all her safe places. The life she knows is ending. When she has nothing left, she'll come to me gladly. I will be the only one who can protect her."

"And we will turn a tidy profit besides," Shenan said before he could. "It is a tempting offer." She swept a hand down beside the bench to caress one of the rose blossoms. She took hold of a thorny stem and severed it from the bush with her nail.

"Shall we agree to be partners again?" She offered the rose to Cerest.

Cerest took the flower and clenched it in a fist. Blood welled where its thorns pierced his flesh. Shenan watched in fascination as the droplets ran down his golden skin.

It was just the sort of poetic, gruesome gestute she preferred. In bed, she was no different, her nails digging blood trails into his skin until he cried out.

Dangerous, sadistic cats, these two. Cetest couldn't help adoring them both.

"We are in agreement," he said. He held out the bloody rose and watched Shenan kiss the stem.

Glass shattered behind them. Cerest turned, his hand on his sword hilt.

Melias lay sprawled in the doorway of the gladehouse. He'd collapsed against the structure and shattered the fragile door panel with his weight. Blood trailed from a blunt strike to the elf s head.

Cerest crouched next to the dazed elf. Melias's pupils were huge. His mouth moved, but the words that came out made no sense. He'd suffered too much damage to his head to live.

"Melias." Cerest shook the elf, trying to get him to focus. Melias whimpered, and his head lolled to one side.

"I think you might be in for more of a game than you thought, Cerest," Shenan commented.

The small elf crouched next to Melias and cradled his head in her lap. "Dearest," she cooed in his ear. "Who did this to you?

"She… ran," the elf murmured. He was looking past Shenan, up at the gladehouse ceiling and through it to the stars. "We're dead… butchered… us." A slack, vacant smile passed over the elf's face.

"Yes, my sweet. Unfortunately, she did." Shenan took the elf s chin and forehead in her hands and jerked his head to the side. The sharp crack echoed off the gladehouse walls.

"You take too many liberties, Shenan," Cerest told her. "He was my man. I wanted him questioned."

"It was a kindness to end it," Shenan said, rising to her feet. "Pain is only alluring when there is the possibility of surviving it."

"I have to leave," Cerest said. He headed for the main building, leaving Melias's body concealed in the gladehouse.

The death of his men complicated matters with the Watch. They would not easily believe a waif of a girl could overpower two armed elves. How in the names of the gods had she done it?

She must be more powerful than I imagined, Cerest thought. The idea gave him a thrill of excitement and trepidation all in the same moment.

So much the better he declaim her a murderess, Cerest thought. He would tell the Watch that his men had been killed trying to retrieve his stolen property. They would have no proof to the contrary, as long as Icelin kept running.

The she-elves trailed behind him. "Do you intend to track her down by yourself?" Ristlara said.

Cerest stopped at the door to his house. Another idea occurred to him. On the surface it seemed perfect: efficient, clean, and with no way it could be traced back to him. But could he trust the Locks?

When he turned, he addressed Shenan. "Those human muck-rakers you're employing-how many are there?"

"Seven," Shenan said. "But they can muster the strength of twelve or more for longer expeditions. Why?"

"What say you put them to a different use, something that might actually end in profit?"

He could sense Ristlara gearing up for a fight, but Shenan's look was speculative. "How much of the profit would be for us?" she asked.

"If I get Icelin-unharmed-the percentage will twice exceed what you take now, " Cerest promised.

Shenan smiled. "You truly are smitten," she said. "We'll bring the men. I want to watch this spectacle."