bag. The bag bore a craftsman’s seal and boldly proclaimed, “Beginner’s Set.” Below that, in block letters, “Opens any lock.”
“Any lock at all,” Parkyr said.
Corin sighed. He peeked inside the bag, hoping for some work of elven genius, but the contents were precisely the sort of crude, stylized toys so often peddled to the bored sons of noblemen.
Corin closed the bag again, bouncing it in his hands. “Have you tried them against manacle locks, by any chance?”
Parkyr shook his head. “So far…it is mostly conversation.”
Conversation. This was not the Nimble Fingers Corin had hoped for. “I understand. Can you fight at all?”
“Not well.”
“No. No, why would you?”
Before Parkyr could try to answer, Corin shook his head. “It barely matters. I will find a way.” He reached once more toward his cup, but just then the carriage slammed to a hard stop, spilling what was left of the tea across the floor.
“Oh, dear!” Parkyr cried. “Driver! What’s happening?”
Corin didn’t wait for an answer. He spun to the nearest window, twitched aside the curtain, and recognized an angry mob as soon as he saw it. Parkyr’s coach had traveled perhaps a couple of miles from the Nimble Fingers hall. The palace shone like silver moonlight, nearer now than Corin had seen it yet.
But the streets and plazas between here and there were packed with angry men and women. Torches raised in anger lit the night, and the shouts and jeers of the crowd made a hornets’-nest buzz.
Parkyr’s coach could not have gained another pace, so densely was the plaza packed. To Corin’s delight, theirs was not the only carriage trapped by the press of angry men and women.
“We may be in luck,” Corin said over his shoulder. “Is that the jailer’s coach?”
Maurelle pressed in close beside him. She smelled of nervous sweat, but her voice thrilled with excitement. “That’s him! See, at the window? That’s Avery!”
“Fortune has delivered us an opportunity,” Corin said. His gaze touched on Parkyr. “And one we dearly needed, I should say. Parkyr, speak with the driver. Find some place clear of the crowd to wait for me, that we may leave quickly when I return.”
“When we return,” Maurelle corrected.
Corin shook his head. “No. Stay with Parkyr. It’s far safer—”
“And this is my brother,” Maurelle said. “In the hands of my family’s enemy. I want to help.”
Corin could find no easy answer to that, and time was short. Resigned, he turned to Parkyr. “And you as well?”
The young lord paled. “Me? I…uh…I’d planned to help from in the carriage.”
“Good,” Corin said. “A noble sacrifice. We will make you proud. Maurelle, are you ready?”
“Not in the least! What is our plan?”
The buzz outside the carriage was rising toward a roar now, and the jostle of the crowd set the light cab rocking like a boat upon the swell. Corin shrugged and answered the lady’s question: “We get Avery and we get out of here.” A rock smashed against the outer wall with a bang that made Maurelle and Parkyr both jump.
Corin grimaced. “And we do it fast.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Corin raised his cloak before him almost like a shield as he cracked the coach’s door, but no more stones seemed to be aimed in their direction. He gripped Maurelle’s trembling hand and led her swiftly down from the carriage and into the press of the angry crowd. She’d scarcely left the coach’s step when the driver cracked his whip and bulled a way out of the mob.
In a strange way, moving through an angry riot proved easier than navigating the normal throng that packed this city’s streets. The crowd’s attention was all focused in the same direction Corin wished to travel, but no one in the crowd seemed particularly anxious to rush to the front. Agitated as they were, they all seemed perfectly content to let someone else run on ahead.
As he went, Corin tried to gauge the source of the crowd’s ire. The shouts and jeers were more noise than rhetoric, but Corin felt a flash of hope when he heard more than one angry objection aimed at Ephitel’s name. The prince’s fierce investigators usually kept close enough watch to prevent the organization of a mob like this. How had this one come to pass?
As quickly as he thought the question, Corin found an answer. A flash of gray hair within the youthful crowd caught his attention. The woman quickly turned away, but Corin recognized Jeff’s form two paces away from her, conspicuously silent and sharp eyes watching. They stood