him because he’s going after more than just one man? But how much help can he be, even with the aid of the wishsong’s magic?”
“I don’t know. I just have a feeling about this. He has to need Reyn or he wouldn’t bother keeping him close. He found him and took him along and trained him. He’s used Lariana to help him with all this. I think whatever he’s got planned involves destroying the Red Slash entirely.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Sounds to me like you’re whistling in the dark. But on the off chance you might be right, we’ll need to act quickly. He knows we’ll find a way out of here soon enough, and he won’t want us interfering with his plans.”
“Will we? Find a way out of here?”
“Come with me. I have a thought or two myself. We’re going back inside that room.”
They retraced their steps through the complex to the chamber where Lariana had disappeared—Avelene in the lead, guiding them with use of her werelight—making their way back to the place they had last seen the girl. The werelight glimmered brightly against the shadows as the Druid held it up and peered around the room.
“We were looking at this wrong, too,” she said suddenly. “Over here.”
She led Paxon to a corner of the chamber where a section of wall had cracked open just enough to reveal it was a hidden door. “Ah,” he said.
“We were fixated on what we thought we saw, which was Lariana dropping through a floor. But that was an illusion created out of magic. Arcannen left it in place here, and Lariana triggered it and then slipped out this door while we were distracted.”
“So she knew it was there. She had to.”
Avelene nodded. “She knew.”
They eased through the doorway into a narrow tunnel that wound through several twists and turns before ending at a section of wall that Avelene quickly determined was there to provide concealment for a hidden door. She tested the portal for traps using Druid magic, found none, and, bracing herself, pushed on it until it opened outward into the night.
Paxon breathed in the fresh air, looking up at a clouded sky. “Very smart of you.”
She pulled a face. “It took me entirely too long to see the obvious. You’re the one who’s sharp. I think you’re right about what Arcannen intends. But I also think you’re wrong about Lariana.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Call it instinct. There’s something more complex at work in that girl than what we’re seeing.”
He shook his head. “What do we do now?”
She gave him a shove away from the building. “Haven’t you learned anything, Paxon? Wherever we find the Red Slash, that’s where we find the sorcerer. Let’s hurry.”
When the door to their quarters opened again, Reyn was expecting Arcannen’s return. But it was Lariana who entered, and instantly Arcannen’s final words came back to him with razor-edged clarity.
I will gut Lariana from neck to navel right in front of you.
But was that threat real or another ploy to gain his compliance? He stiffened as she turned to him, still suspicious in spite of his fears for her, still wary of the truth behind her role in what was happening to him. She saw the expression on his face and glanced around.
“Where is he?”
“He went out. He didn’t tell me where he was going.”
She gave him a hard look. “What’s wrong? And don’t try to tell me it’s nothing. I know you well enough by now.”
“Maybe I don’t know you quite as well.”
She folded her arms. “Maybe you should tell me what you mean by that.”
When he looked at her, even now when he knew what she might be, he was so unnerved that he had to look away again quickly. “I’m finding out some things I didn’t know about you. Arcannen told me on the trip back. He said you and he …”
He stopped, unable to finish, not even really sure where he was going. What he wanted to say and what he was afraid might be true were getting all mixed up, and everything was coming out wrong.
She pursed her lips. “He and I what? Better finish that sentence, Reyn. Let’s hear all of it.”
With an effort, the boy pulled himself and his thoughts together. “It wasn’t so much what he said as what he hinted at. That you and he … might be more than teacher and student. That your relationship might be something else. But it’s not