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“He hires a man to watch the road into town.” Gus waved a hand the way they’d come in the night before. “He said two people came in with very good horses.”

“You were nearby?” Melodie asked. She was impressed if Marchant had a way to contact Gus from afar.

“I always go straight to the meeting spot, just past Nena’s place, when I have a new delivery, like I did yesterday. I ring the bell he leaves there. It has to be magical because he wouldn’t be able to hear it, otherwise. If he doesn’t come after about a half hour or so, I leave whatever I have for him in a box to the side.”

“But he came last night?” Theo asked.

“He was already there. I passed the watchman on my way. Marchant told me to get Nena to help me, and to grab you both, and deliver you tonight.”

“You think it’s a half hour walk for him from his house to the clearing?” Melodie asked.

“That’s the usual time.” Gus shrugged. “Sometimes longer, but never less.”

“Well, Gus, what you’re going to do now is go back to your room and have a good rest. We’ll call you when it’s time to go ring the bell.”

“A rest?” Gus’s eyes teared up. “That would be nice.”

They walked back to the inn with Gus, let him go up the stairs before they did, and then followed him up.

He was standing looking at the door, as if trying to work out how to open it.

“Do you have the key?” Melodie asked.

He dug in his pocket and pulled it out, showed it to her.

Theo took it from him, unlocked the door, and nudged him in. “Go lie down and rest.”

Then Theo locked the door behind him and slid the key into his own pocket.

“What now?” Melodie asked.

Theo couldn’t leash his excitement. “Now we do some reconnaissance.”

CHAPTER 18

Viviane wasthe daughter of the queen of Kassia and the Commander of the Cervantes, and she knew a soldier from her parents’ army when she saw one.

And she saw four.

It made her heart skitter in her chest.

“Who are they?” Genevieve whispered. The two of them were lying, heads together, on the bench against the wall, and they had a clear view of the four soldiers chained to the wall in the antechamber outside their cell. The moonlight was just enough to illuminate them.

“I don’t know them, but they’re from Kassia and Cervantes.”

The quiet sound of a shoe on the flagstone floor had her lifting her head. Jon was crouched near them, as far as his chain would allow, his gaze focused on their would-be rescuers.

“They’re looking for us,” he breathed. “Everyone is looking for us.”

“Of course they are,” Vivi replied, but she felt the same relief she heard in his voice.

She had wondered how anyone would find them. But somehow, they were at least looking in the right direction.

“Did he enspell them, like he did with us?” Gen asked.

Vivi nodded. “How else would he take four trained soldiers from our army?” Her father made sure all his warriors were as good as they could be.

She thought their abductor had been badly injured sometime after they’d been taken, or he had a long term injury that had flared up. She hadn’t remembered him moving as if he were in pain on the night he’d taken them, but now he did—slow, tentative steps, and he had difficulty bending down.