Through Stone and Sea - By Barb Hendee & J. C. Hendee Page 0,86

.” He trailed off again.

Chane spun around, staring back the way they had come. Shade paced past Wynn, following his gaze as she sniffed the air. Even stranger, Wynn saw Chane’s nostrils flare.

“They are coming!” he whispered.

“Who?”

Then she heard the footsteps—more than one pair—and Shade’s jaws snagged in her robe and jerked.

“Douse the crystal!” Chane whispered.

Wynn shoved the crystal in her pocket as they fled down the right-side passage. Chane got ahead and veered in against the wall. He pulled her in beside himself, and they flattened there.

“Be ready to hurry on if they come our way,” he whispered.

Wynn peered up, still wondering why they hid. She just made out the branch head around the wall’s gradual curve—and light was growing there. Chane pulled his cloak’s hood forward, and Wynn did the same with her robe’s cowl.

Over the rise at the passage’s head, a sharp point of light appeared. It glowed from the hand of a tall and slender figure in a white robe.

“The elf,” Chane whispered.

Wynn glanced up. Was that what he’d smelled? She tensed as the tall elf paused and looked back. Behind him came a much shorter figure in a deep sea green cloak, followed by three Weardas.

Duchess Reine was carrying a folded stack of clothing.

Chane gripped Wynn’s hand, flattening his other against the wall. She knew he was preparing to bolt, and his hand in hers felt as cold as the stone. Shade stood poised at her hip, unblinking eyes watching up the passage.

The duchess approached the elf holding up a bright cold lamp crystal.

Yes, that was what it was, and Wynn’s eyes widened. There were no orders of the guild that wore white, so where had the elf acquired a guild crystal?

The duchess passed the elf and disappeared down the other passage branch, the left one. The tall white-clad elf followed her, as did her bodyguards, and they all vanished from sight.

Chane’s grip slackened on Wynn’s hand. “Let us continue down this direction for now.”

“No, wait,” she whispered.

Wynn wondered why the duchess was wandering these lonely backways under Sea-Side, the same in which Sliver had followed her brother. Wynn took a step upslope.

“What are you doing?” Chane hissed.

“You saw her,” she whispered. “At the funeral, she and the others were the only ones allowed to leave the same way as the Stonewalkers.”

It was too dark to clearly see Chane’s face, but she heard the incensed tone of his breathy voice.

“You told me at the amphitheater’s iron door that you did not know if she went with them.”

“Just the same,” Wynn countered, “she’s the best lead we have.”

She strode up the passage in soft steps, ignoring Shade’s sudden huffing and growling. When she reached the top and peered around the sharp corner into the left branch, light receded below, beyond the passage’s gradual curve.

Wynn stepped out to follow, until Chane grabbed the back of her robe. She glared up at him, but he held fast, and Shade quickly slunk by down the passage branch. Only then did Chane let go, and he slipped in ahead. Wynn followed them both in silence.

It wasn’t long before Shade slowed her creeping advance, and Wynn saw that the surface of the walls had changed.

She hadn’t even noticed until she spotted thin seams next to her shoulder. Finely masoned mortarless blocks fit tightly together in place of smoothly chiseled mountain stone. Why were masoned walls needed in place of native rock?

Shade stopped, and Chane swept back a hand in warning.

Wynn slipped up behind him, peering around his side.

The passage had straightened, but she could see a spot of light spreading on the walls ahead. There stood the elf with his stolen crystal, its light revealing the duchess and her guards.

Duchess Reine looked worn. Strands of chestnut hair had loosened from her sea-wave combs. She merely stared at the passage’s stone-block wall as her companions waited in silence. Then she took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.

She handed her burdens to a Weardas and flattened her hands upon the wall’s stone—but not together. Separated beyond shoulder width, her left landed distinctly higher than her right. She held them there, and none of the others made a sound, as if this act was familiar.

Wynn couldn’t tell if the duchess applied any pressure, but it didn’t seem so. Then she heard the sound of stone grating.

The block beneath the duchess’s left hand shifted slowly inward. She lifted her hand, but the stone continued to sink. In another moment the grating grew louder as the