might have been able to do it. Alinath loved Tier, too. Seraph hesitated outside the door.
"She won't believe you, Mother," offered Lehr.
"Yes," said Seraph, "she will - because she needs to believe it as much as I did." She gave Lehr a tired smile. "She'll still think it is my fault - but at least she won't think he's dead. She has the right to know."
Seraph knocked briskly at the door. "Alinath, it's Seraph, open up." She waited, and then knocked again. "Alinath? Bandor?"
Lehr tested the air, "I smell blood. Is the door locked?"
Seraph tried the latch and the door swung open easily. There was no light in the front room, nor the bakery, but Lehr didn't need light and she followed him to Alinath's room. The door was ajar and Lehr opened it cautiously.
"Aunt Alinath?" he said, and the concern in his voice sent Seraph ducking under the arm he held the door open with.
Alinath was gagged and bound hand and foot on her bed. Her face was bruised; someone had hit her cheek and split the skin, which had bled copiously all over the bedding. When she saw them she began struggling furiously.
"Shh," said Seraph, sitting beside Alinath. She took out her knife and carefully slid it around swollen flesh to cut the ropes. "I'll have you free in a moment."
"Rinnie," said Alinath as soon as the gag dropped from her mouth.
"What?" asked Seraph.
But Alinath had begun to shake and Seraph couldn't understand what she was saying.
"Slow down," she said, keeping her voice calm so she didn't upset Alinath further. "What about Bandor and Rinnie? Did Bandor do this to you?"
Alinath tried to sit up, but it was obviously painful and Seraph hurried to help support her.
"It was Bandor," Alinath said, breathing shallowly around sore ribs. "He's gotten so strange lately - I don't know what's wrong with him. This afternoon, after the priest came, he started muttering about Rinnie and you."
She stopped and swallowed. "You and I have never seen eye to eye, Seraph - but you'd die to protect your children. I know that. So when he started saying dangerous things... things that would get the whole village riled up if they heard... Well, I told him he was a fool. That there was nothing evil about you, and he had no call to accuse you of being shadowed."
Seraph's stomach clenched.
Alinath turned her head away. "He hit me. He's done that a couple of times in the past month. I'm not saying I'm the easiest person to live with, but... you know Bandor; he was never like that."
"Go on," said Seraph.
"This time, it was more than a casual slap. I didn't know if he was going to stop. Ellevanal help me, I don't think he did either. Then he muttered a bit more and said something about not needing my interference. He tied me up and left. Seraph, I don't know what he's gone to do."
"He started after the priest left? Volis, not Karadoc?" asked Seraph.
Alinath nodded. "I don't like that man. Did Bandor go out to the farm?"
"Did he say that was what he was going to do?" asked Seraph.
"He said that he was going to save Rinnie."
"We haven't been there since early this afternoon," said Seraph. "I left her with Gura, but Gura knows Bandor. I have to go find her. Will you be all right here?"
Alinath nodded. "Find him before he hurts her," she said.
"Where would he take Rinnie," said Lehr, "if he didn't come back here?"
"The priest," said Seraph. "If he thought she was shadowed he'd take her to the priest. We'll find them," she told Alinath.
"Be careful," said Tier's sister. "Be careful, Seraph. Bandor's not the man you know."
Outside the bakery, Seraph frowned in indecision; go to the temple or all the way out to the farm?
"Can you tell if Bandor and Rinnie came by here?" she asked Lehr.
He shook his head. "Not even if it were full noon - there's too much..." He stiffened and looked around.
Seraph felt it, too, a cold chill fluttering down her spine and a lump in her throat that made it hard to swallow.
"Jes," she called. "Are you here?"
"Listen," said Lehr. "Someone's riding a horse up the road."
She saw Skew first, his white spots clearly visible in the starlight as he leapfrogged up the steep corner, hooves slipping and sliding. As soon as he was on the more level part of the road he broke into a smooth trot and stopped in front of her.