Valek drained the tub while I attempted to do something with my ruined hair. Some sections remained long, while others had been burnt to stubble.
“Let me, love.” Valek removed the brush from my hands. He rummaged around the bath area until he found his razor. “Sorry, nothing else will work.”
“How did you get so good with hair?”
“Spent a season working undercover as Queen Jewel’s personal groomer. She had beautiful, thick hair.”
“Wait, I thought all the Queen’s servants had to be women.”
“Good thing no one thought to look up my skirt.” Valek grinned with impish delight as he cut my hair. Large chunks floated to the ground. I stared at them, trying to convince myself losing my hair didn’t matter. Especially not when I considered I wouldn’t need it in the fire world.
After he finished, Valek said, “This will help with your disguise.”
“My disguise?”
“Everyone’s looking for you. If I disguise you as a man, you’ll be much harder to find. Although…” He studied my face. “I’ll use a little makeup. Being a man won’t draw unwanted attention unless they notice you don’t have any eyebrows.”
I touched the ridge above my eyes with my fingertips, feeling smooth skin. I wondered if they would grow back. Again, I dismissed the notion. It wouldn’t matter in the end.
“What should we do first? Try to find the tunnel to the Keep, if it even exists. Or go and rescue the Councilors’ families?” I asked.
“We should—” Valek sniffed the air as if he smelled a dangerous scent. “Someone’s coming.”
28
HE SIGNALED ME TO WAIT and left without a sound. I grabbed my switchblade and crept through the living room. A murmur of voices filtered in from the kitchen. The door flew open as soon as I reached it. I brandished my knife at the hulking figure in the doorway.
“What happened to your hair?” Ari demanded. “Are you all right?”
Janco followed him in. “Look what happens when you sneak off without us!”
“I’d hardly call being captured and taken to Sitia inside a box sneaking off,” I said.
Janco cocked his head this way and that. “Aha! You look just like a prickle bush in MD-4. If we buried you up to your neck, we could—”
“Janco.” Ari growled.
“If you gentlemen are finished, I’d like to know why you disobeyed my orders,” Valek said.
Janco smiled one of his predatory grins as if he had anticipated this question and already composed an answer. “We did not disobey any of your orders. You said to keep an eye on Yelena’s brother, the scary-looking big guy and the others. So we did.”
Valek crossed his arms and waited.
“But you didn’t specify what we should do if our charges came to Sitia,” Ari said.
“How could they possibly escape the castle and get through the borders?” The expression on Valek’s face showed his extreme annoyance.
Glee lit Janco’s eyes. “That’s a very good question. Ari, please tell our industrious leader how the Sitians escaped.”
Ari shot his partner a nasty look, which didn’t affect Janco’s mood in the least. “They had some help,” Ari said.
Again, Valek said nothing.
Ari began to fidget, and I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. The big man resembled a ten-year-old boy who knew he was about to get into a lot of trouble. “We helped them.”
“We?” Janco asked.
“I did.” Ari sounded miserable. “Happy now?”
“Yes.” Janco rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be good. Go on, Ari. Tell him why—although, I think they magiked him.” He waggled his fingers.
“They didn’t use magic. They used common sense and logic.”
Valek raised an eyebrow.
“There’re strange things going on here,” Ari said. “If we don’t put it right, then it’ll spread like a disease and kill us all.”
“Who told you this?” I asked.
“Moon Man.”
“Where are they now?” Valek asked.
“Camped about a mile north of here,” Ari said.
The drumming of horses reached us before Valek could comment. Through the window, I saw Kiki followed by Topaz, Garnet and Rusalka.
“How did they find us?” Icy daggers hung from Valek’s voice.
Janco seemed surprised. “They didn’t know where we were going. I told them to wait for us.”
“Isn’t it frustrating when no one obeys your orders?” Valek asked.
We went outside. Tauno rode on Kiki and she came straight to me. She bumped my chest with her nose. I opened my mind to her.
Don’t go into fire again, she said.
I didn’t reply. Instead, I scratched behind her ears as Tauno slid off her back. He greeted me with a cold look and returned to the others. Leif, Moon Man and Marrok lingered near their horses while they talked to Ari and Janco.
From Leif’s various frowns and Tauno’s scorn, I knew they remained angry with me. I couldn’t blame them—I had acted badly. Liveliness lit Marrok’s face and I hoped Moon Man had been able to weave his mind back into a coherent whole.
Everyone went inside, but I stayed behind, taking care of the horses as best as I could with half-burnt brushes and scorched hay. Part of the pasture’s fence had caught fire and collapsed. I stared at the gap, knowing the well-bred Sandseed horses didn’t need a fence and Onyx and Topaz would stay with them. However, I attempted to fix the broken section. And kept at it while the sun set and the night air turned frosty. Kept working even when the horses decided it was too cold in the open and left the pasture to find warmth under a copse of trees nearby.
Valek arrived. I pounded on a post with a heavy rock. He halted my swing and removed the rock from my hand.
“Come inside, love. We have plans to discuss.”
Reluctance pulled at my feet as if I walked through thick, sticky mud.
The living-room conversation died the moment I entered. Moon Man looked at me with sadness in his eyes and I wondered if he knew about my deal with the Fire Warper or if he was disappointed by my actions.
A fire had been lit. I sat down next to it, warming my frozen and bleeding fingers, no longer afraid of the flames. The trapped souls within the fire twisted. Their pain and presence were clear and I wondered how I had been able to ignore them before.
I averted my gaze. Everyone stared at me. Ari and Janco had gained their feet and held their bodies as if ready to spring into action.
“Did I pass your test?” I asked. “By not diving into the flames.”
“That’s not it,” Janco said. “You have a rather ugly bat clinging to your arm.”
Sure enough, a hand-size bat peered at me from my upper left arm. His eyes glowed with intelligence; his claws dug into my slee
ve. I offered a perch and he transferred his weight to the edge of my right hand. Carrying him outside, my efforts to release him failed. He didn’t want to leave. Settling on my shoulder, he seemed content so I returned inside.
No one commented on my new friend. In fact, Leif regarded the bat with an intensely thoughtful expression.
The others waited. A moment passed until I realized they waited for me to begin. To make the decisions. To set events into motion. Even after leaving them as prisoners of the Commander, they still looked to me. And this time, instead of backing down and pushing them away, I accepted the responsibility. Accepted the fact that they might be hurt or killed, and understood my life would be given in exchange for keeping the Fire Warper from returning.
“Leif,” I said.
He jumped as if bitten.
“I want you and Moon Man to get into the Council Hall’s library and find everything you can about a tunnel into the Keep.” I explained Bain’s comments. “Moon Man can disguise himself as a Vermin and hopefully you won’t be caught. Do not use magic at all from now on. It will only draw them to you.”
Moon Man and Leif nodded.
“Marrok?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you able to fight?”
“Ready, willing and able, sir.”
I paused, swallowing a sudden knot in my throat. By their determined expressions, I knew they were all willing. At least Valek’s smug smile was better than hearing him say, I told you so.
“Good. Marrok and Tauno will accompany Valek and me. We’ll go south to rescue the hostages.”
Ari cleared his throat as if he wanted to protest.
“I haven’t forgotten about you two. I need you to go into the Citadel and help organize the resistance.”
“Resistance?” Valek asked. “I hadn’t heard.”
“I put an idea into a merchant’s head, and, I think if Ari and Janco disguised themselves as traders, they could move about the Citadel. Ari will have to dye his hair. Oh, and find a boy named Fisk. Tell him you’re my friend and he’ll help you make contacts.”
“And when and where, Oh mighty Yelena, do we resist?” Janco asked.
“At the Keep’s gates. As for when, I don’t know, but something will happen and you’ll know.”