Through Stone and Sea - By Barb Hendee & J. C. Hendee Page 0,85

rushing about.”

“Pardon us,” Chane said. “Our dog got away.”

“Then get a leash.” With a final frown, the constable turned off through the crowd.

“A leash,” Wynn muttered, but right then it was an appealing notion. “Shade, where are you . . . Shade!”

One bark carried over the market’s ruckus.

Wynn couldn’t see Shade, but at the dog’s noise, a few people turned to look.

“There . . . go,” Chane urged.

They wove through shoppers, vendors, and stalls, until Wynn spotted the top of a large tunnel. One brief break in the crowd exposed Shade hunkering in that opening.

Wynn pushed on. “Shade . . . come here!”

The dog backed another step into the tunnel, glowering at the crowd. She openly snarled at anyone who got too close, gaining far too much attention. Wynn rushed into the tunnel opening and clamped her hand over Shade’s muzzle.

“She must learn not to growl at these people,” Chane admonished, jogging up behind. “Can you not get that much through to her?”

Wynn only heard Shade’s answering snarl and felt the vibration beneath her small hand.

“It’s not her fault.”

Apparently, whatever Shade had learned from Sliver’s memories had immediately become an excuse to bolt out of the market.

“If she is as intelligent as her father,” Chane returned, “then she should understand simple commands.”

“Not now, Chane.”

Shade seemed uninterested in communicating in any way other than memory-speak, which was understandable. But Wynn wished Shade might’ve picked up a few spoken words by now.

Shade shook her nose free and snapped her jaws closed on Wynn’s sleeve. She jerked on it as she backed down the tunnel. Her intent here was clear enough.

Wynn pulled her sleeve free and stood, but as she turned to Chane, a passing white figure appeared briefly amid the crowd. Wynn froze, peering around Chane’s side, and there it was again.

A stark-white-robed and cowled figure towered above the dwarves in the market.

“Oh, no . . . no . . . no!” she breathed, and grabbed Chane, wrenching him in against the tunnel wall.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Shush. Don’t move!”

She reached back, urging Shade in behind herself, and then peeked around Chane. There in the crowd was the white-clad elf she’d seen at Hammer-Stag’s funeral. Beyond him, she quickly spotted the Weardas. And last . . .

Duchess Reine stood a little ways beyond the tunnel mouth, bartering with a clothier. She inspected a pair of folded pants and a heavy wool shirt. Both were simple—quite plain, in fact—and certainly not what a royal of Malourné would wear. And they were obviously too large for her.

Wynn frowned at this. The duchess was out shopping? That hardly seemed likely, since she would have anything she needed.

“It’s the duchess,” Wynn whispered.

She grabbed Chane’s belt, pulling him as she backed down the tunnel. Shade kept huffing impatiently behind her. Once they were far enough along a curve and lost sight of the market, Wynn let go of Chane—only to find him scowling at her.

“She would not be coming our way,” he said, and spun her around to push her onward.

Shade wheeled and took off, and they followed the trail she held in her mind.

Along twists and turns, they passed people in the crystal-lit tunnels, most heading back toward the market. But at each divergence, they encountered fewer passersby, until Shade made two turns in which they saw no one for a long while. Orange crystals mounted in the iron fixtures upon the walls grew scarce, until Wynn had to pull out her cold lamp crystal.

Then Shade halted.

By the crystal’s light, they saw that the narrowing passage ahead split in two directions. Both branches sloped downward, arcing away from each other into the dark distance, for neither had any crystals mounted upon the walls.

Shade stood at the split, looking down one branch and then the other.

“What is wrong?” Chane asked.

Wynn crouched, touching Shade’s back, and the dog looked at her with a whine. Wynn tried remembering the cloaked figure Shade had shown her from Sliver’s memory. It was difficult, since it wasn’t truly her memory. But in turn, Shade just whined.

“She doesn’t know which way,” Wynn said. “Maybe Sliver lost Ore-Locks here, or Shade didn’t catch the whole memory of the way Sliver went. We’ve already come quite a ways and—”

“Then we must guess,” Chane said, “and continue with . . .”

He never finished. Chane lowered his head, turning it to one side as his eyes half closed.

“What is it?” she asked.

He hesitated and then answered, “Just footsteps, some group headed off to the . .