The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,129

down an alley.

I waited long minutes, then scrambled up a crate stack and surveyed the yard. Nothing showed between the moonlit crates but fat streamers of fog. I dodged and hopped along the stacks, ignoring the spike of pain that stabbed my head with each jarring landing. Gods all damn Pello! His knowledge of Melly was bad enough, but if he’d told Simon...fuck!

I struggled for calm. Simon’s magic couldn’t harm Melly so long as he remained within Alathia’s borders. If our plan succeeded, that’s exactly where he and Pello would stay. And as for the money...I’d move it, soon as Bentgate opened for business.

But where? If Pello had found the account at Bentgate, he could find others. Keeping coin and gems outside a banking house was asking for trouble. Kost didn’t have Taint thieves, but it had the ordinary kind.

I shoved that worry aside for later. Right now I had to find Cara. Preferably before she did anything stupid, like hunt Pello in hopes of saving me.

No charm could track me while I wore Kiran’s amulet, but I didn’t doubt Pello was an expert at mundane methods. I circled, backtracked, climbed over roofs and traversed across buildings, until I was sure nobody followed me to our bolthole.

The warehouse I’d chosen was the smallest of three in the yard of an importer specializing in fabric and furs. With winter over, demand for furs had diminished, and the importer had converted the small warehouse into overstock storage. Perfect for me, since it meant visits from workers were rare, and nobody missed the goods I relocated to the attic. The yard was well warded, but as with Gerran’s, a good climber could circumvent the protections. I’d blocked off a space amidst the attic rafters and set my own wards to cover every inch of it, keyed to me and Cara. Nobody else could enter. Except a mage, like Simon, my fear insisted. If Pello had found Melly and my account, had he found my other secrets as well?

I slithered in the access vent and dropped onto rough-hewn boards, my heart thumping in time with my head. A sudden wash of lanternlight illuminated a crossbow aimed straight between my eyes.

“Dev!” Cara dropped the crossbow and swept me up in a fierce hug. “Thank Khalmet!”

I returned the hug, my throat tight. Mother of maidens, it felt good to hold her, both of us warm and safe and alive.

“Gods, I thought I’d killed you,” Cara said into my hair. “First when you fell, and then when you let that bastard drag you off...you rat, you knew I couldn’t track you!”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “No point in Pello getting both of us.”

She drew back and glared at me. “Which is why I told you to get out that window. Next time, don’t be so fucking stubborn.”

“What, or you’ll bash my head in, again?”

She winced. “Sorry. Never thought you’d be so clumsy.”

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered. I glanced around the attic. Cara had opened the warded box of my charm stash. Supplies lay scattered around her pack on the rough wood of the crate pieces I’d laid over ceiling beams to form a floor. But the bales of fabric I’d hauled up to serve as a makeshift table still stood slightly off kilter, and the furs I used for a bed remained in the exact layered mess I remembered. No guarantee that Pello hadn’t paid a visit, but it eased my nerves a touch.

Cara prodded with cautious fingers at the mess on my scalp. “Sit down and tell me what the hell happened while I fix this up.”

Obediently, I dropped to the floor beside the pile of furs. “He dragged me off to a packing yard, and—” I hissed in heartfelt relief, as the cool tingle of a pains-ease charm muted the throbbing in my head to a faint whisper. “Oh gods, Cara...he knows about Melly.”

Cara froze in the act of wiping my blood-matted hair with a cloth soaked in spirits. “What?”

I recounted the entire conversation, complete with my certainty that Pello meant Melly as the lure to draw me straight into Simon’s grasp.

“That sneaking little rat.” Cara’s hands clenched as if she wished she gripped Pello’s throat rather than the fat copper disc of a skin-seal charm. “You think he knows we’re trying to free Kiran?”

“If he knew, he wouldn’t dance around with threats. We’d be dead, either by Simon’s hand, or his.” The crawling itch of the sealing charm spread over my scalp, making me shift and