Through Stone and Sea - By Barb Hendee & J. C. Hendee Page 0,103

lips parted, but Wynn kept at him.

“You may be more aware than they are, but that doesn’t mean you understand as much as I do—and I don’t take orders from you, either!”

“Fine. Then you decide,” he returned. “But one of us needs to stay—and watch the duchess.”

Wynn turned away, still angry, but only because he was right. “People died in Calm Seatt,” she said, “because I was . . . obedient . . . and didn’t resist until too late.”

She heard him step closer, and his voiceless whisper softened.

“You know this part of the world. I do not. For what little success we have had, your instincts have often been better.”

Wynn glanced at him, already hearing a “but” coming, though she knew the right decision.

“I have the better senses,” he added, “sight and scent . . . and hearing. But I would have the harder time following the duchess, considering I tower over everyone here.”

“All right,” Wynn relented, “but take Shade. She has the more acute sense of smell where older scents are concerned. Two can search more quickly than one.”

For an instant she thought he would argue, likely thinking she would be left unprotected. Perhaps her fixed stare made him think better of saying so.

“Can you make Shade understand?” he asked. “Make her leave you and go with me?”

“I’ll try.”

Chane left to gather his things, and Wynn dropped before Shade, touching the dog’s face.

She began with memories of Leesil and Chap traveling together. She then turned to their own trials in Calm Seatt, before battling the wraith, when she had left Shade in Chane’s company.

Shade snarled and pulled away, and Wynn had to grab her neck.

Wynn raised the image of the chamber and its pool. Working with a memory that had come to her thirdhand was difficult. She tried to focus upon the water-filled tunnel beyond the grate.

The door opened, and Chane stood in the hallway fully dressed and armed. Reaching around the door, he set the old tin scroll case on the side table, leaving it in Wynn’s care.

Wynn lifted Shade’s muzzle and pointed at Chane.

Shade snarled again. Instead of pulling away, this time she dropped to her haunches, grinding her foreclaws on stone.

Wynn held Shade’s face and tried again.

“Please understand,” she said.

Shade growled, but it quickly turned to a soft whine. She peered at Chane, swung her nose back to Wynn, and then pulled away. Shade trotted toward the door, and Chane outside. Wynn sighed in relief.

Shade swerved suddenly and headed straight for the sun- crystal staff leaning against the wall.

Before Wynn could get up, the dog rose on hind legs, forelegs braced on the wall. She clamped her jaws on the staff as high as she could reach.

“Shade?” Wynn called. “Shade . . . stop that!”

Shade twisted off the wall. The instant her paws landed, she trotted off, dragging the staff behind the bed’s far side.

Wynn clambered across the bed, reaching for the staff. Shade dropped it, planting both huge forepaws atop its haft.

“What is wrong with you?” Wynn demanded, grabbing for the staff.

She jerked it from under Shade’s paws and backed across the bed. Before she got halfway, Shade clamped its haft with her teeth and heaved.

Wynn flopped facedown on the bed. “Let go!”

Shade growled and heaved again.

Wynn shot headfirst over the bed’s side, hanging upside down below a stubborn Shade.

“I should go alone,” Chane said. “She does not want to leave you.”

No, that wasn’t it. Shade was trying to tell her something else, but at the moment, Wynn didn’t care.

“Give it to me!” she growled through clenched teeth.

Wynn twisted over, slapping at Shade’s legs while her own were still hooked over the bed’s edge. In that upside-down tug-of-war, she finally twisted the staff out of Shade’s mouth. When the dog tried to grab it again, she scrambled away across the bed.

Shade hopped up and began barking, and Wynn finally realized what this was all about.

She rarely went anywhere without the staff. Shade had pinned it down, trying to insist that Wynn “stay put” in this room.

“I’m following the duchess!” Wynn growled back. “You are going with Chane. Now get!”

With a sharp huff through wrinkled jowls, Shade bounded off and out past Chane, rumbling all the way. Wynn exhaled in frustration, though Chane just shook his head and closed the door. She got up, brushing herself off, and went to return the staff to its place.

She was sick and tired of everyone telling her what to do or not do, even a dog now. She