and greeted without turning her head, “Evening, Wolf.”
“Evening.” He sank down to sit beside her, making the wood of the porch creak under his weight. “You out here thinking again?”
“Yes.” Blowing out a gusty sigh, she whined, “What do I do with Rune?”
“Ah, finally see the trouble that boy brings, eh?” Wolf responded in a distinctly unsympathetic tone.
“You never went around randomly trying to kill people,” she responded indignantly, trying to justify herself.
“I was never an assassin, I was a mercenary,” he refuted calmly. “There’s a difference.”
Yes, apparently quite a difference. She started grumbling under her breath, unable to argue the point.
“It might get worse.”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Why?”
“He’s disappearing during the day.”
“What?!”
“He did it yesterday, after he saw us back to the compound, and again this morning.” Wolf rubbed a palm against his jaw, making a rasping sound against his night stubble. “I don’t know if he’s trying to get back into his old guild or not. It might be that he’s just not comfortable here, in his old enemy’s headquarters.”
She let her head thunk against his shoulder. “Great. Wonderful. Now what do I do?”
“Nothing you can do. You can’t control a man’s heart, Siobhan.”
That was less than comforting.
“But I think you’re more worried about other things, and less about Rune.” He cocked his head as he looked down at her. “You’re wondering why Lirah’s group was attacked, aren’t you?”
She nodded in grim agreement. “There’s too many holes in her story, too many things that don’t make sense. It’s like I’m staring at a puzzle with half the pieces missing.”
“It’s not our job to solve the puzzle,” he pointed out. “Our job ended when we found Lirah. It’s just because you’re worried about them that we’re staying on and letting Conli treat everyone.”
“Well, yes, I know….”
“But?” he prompted, knowing well there was a ‘but’ coming.
“But it doesn’t sit right with me to just let the mystery hang like this. I don’t see anyone stepping forward and trying to solve it, either.”
Wolf slipped an arm around her shoulder and hugged her into him. “I know you don’t like things left loose like this, unexplained, but we’ll be walking into trouble if you try to sort this one out.”
“I think we’ll be in more trouble if we don’t figure it out. My instincts say that, anyway.” Siobhan sat there, weighing out options for a long moment, but in reality she knew what they needed to do. “Erik.”
Wolf jerked his head down to look at her, eyes wide in surprise. She’d only ever called his true name a handful of times in the past ten years.
She looked up at him with firm resolve. “We shouldn’t sit here. Lirah might not be able to move, but we can, and we should. We need to go to Coravine and investigate, find out what they’re up to. Otherwise we won’t know how to prepare for the storm that’s coming.”
He nodded solemnly. “Eh, I agree. It’s folly to sit here. But you think this small guild is strong enough to go there alone?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we’ll face trouble just by traveling there, though. We’re not directly connected to either Iron Dragain or Silver Moon. We’re small enough in number that it won’t look odd for us to travel toward Orin. And if we need a cover story,” she realized, bemused and amused, “We’ve got one on hand. Markl will be our stand-in client.”
“Ah?” His head canted as he thought about it, before he shrugged ruefully. “It’s not even a lie, quite. Heh. I like it. We can even stay for several days on the excuse that he’s studying things. Right, well. Leave in the morning?”
Siobhan wanted to, but life wasn’t quite that convenient. “We’ll need to find a boat first. And make preparations. We’ll be lucky to get out of here the day after tomorrow.”
“Well, might not take as long, if we ask Jarnsmor for a ship,” he pointed out.
True, that. Although it would still take them three or four hours by ship to cross the Dual Channel to reach Orin. Never before had Siobhan regretted the limits of Pathmaking like she did now. Why, why wouldn’t it work over water? The fact that it was restrained to land—and only fertile land, to boot—drove her mad some days. “I’ll ask him first thing in the morning.”
“Ya won’t be able ta if ya don’t sleep now,” Rune’s voice laconically pointed out from…somewhere above them.