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"It’s been some time," Marcel said as he began to fill the plate before him with small morsels of boar, roast vegetables, and slender slices of fruit pies.

"One of the last times I spoke with her, she asked me to arrange for letters to be delivered to the two of you and a few other acquaintances in Blackwell City," he said, taking a delicate bite of the rich, slightly nutty tasting boar and chewing slowly to savor it’s slightly springy texture while his mouth filled savory juices that carried the faintest hint of fresh herbs.

"Tell me, esteemed masters," Marcel said, smiling in genuine appreciation of the cook’s work with the boar. "Did the letters I arranged arrive safely? It’s rare, but there have been occasions where my curriers fail to reach their destination."

"We received a single letter each," Isabell said carefully, finally shaking herself free of her shock enough to begin serving herself a portion of the fish, though her hands trembled with more than just the shakes of her advancing years. "Should there have been others? I’ve heard that Lady Ashlynn only receives a few visitors at the Summer Villa, so I can’t imagine she’s had much opportunity to send others, unless you visit frequently? "

"Have you made plans to visit her at the Summer Villa?

" Marcel asked without answering the engineer’s question.

"I imagine that she would make an exception to allow a visit for friends she felt were important enough to write to so soon after she arrived in Lothian March," he said as he swirled the rich red wine in his goblet.

"I’m afraid we haven’t been granted the opportunity," Isabell said, frowning at the young man who seemed to be toying with his words. "Lord Owain will be taking us to visit Baron Hanrahan in the hopes that we find the lands near Airgead Mountain to be to our taste."

"That’s a shame," Marcel said, using his goblet of wine to gesture at the tapestry of the misty forest. "You would enjoy the lands around the Dunn barony more if you want to see places like the one in that tapestry."

"That’s a real place then?" Tiernan asked, raising a thick, bushy brow at the delicate young man. "Is that the famous Vale of Mists?"

"It might be," Marcel said, taking a sip of the heady red wine.

"Or it might be somewhere nearby. The woman who wove that tapestry is an old friend and she’s exceedingly well traveled," he said with a faint smile.

"She has a better eye for detail than most, and she has a way of pulling her into a world of her own making with her work. It might be real, or it might be one of the most vivid dreams she’s ever manifested. "

"Do you have an allergy to direct answers, Mister Marcel?" Isabell asked, tapping her long nails on the table in irritation. "I don’t think I’ve heard a straight answer from you since we arrived here. Or is this more of the ’small talk’ you need to dole out while prying ears are nearby?

If this place isn’t safe enough to talk, then I’m happy to skip the meal to discuss more important things. "

"We are discussing important things," Marcel said, smiling while his dark eyes tracked Isabell’s every irritated movement and his ears listened to the subtle shifts in the pitch of her voice. "You’re worried about Lady Ashlynn, aren’t you?"

"We both are," Master Tiernan said, intercepting the question before Isabell could be drawn into a spat with the strange young man. Reaching across the table, he placed himself momentarily between the two of them to fetch a selection of small meat pies, loading up his plate before turning to regard the dark-haired youth with the same intensity he’d directed at the craftsmanship of the furnishings earlier.

"Giving Lady Ashlynn privacy to be on her rest makes sense," the burly guild master said.

"My Nisa spent most of two months in bed, barely taking more than a dozen steps to the privy or to wash before our oldest was born.

A giant of a lad who takes too much after his father," he said, gesturing at his own heavy frame.

"But when Nisa was laid up on bed rest, she wanted visitors more than anything," he added.

"She hated being cooped up at home. Her sisters came twice a week, her mother once a week, and she even asked the baker down the street from us to deliver bread at the end of the day so the two of them could gossip like she used to when she did the shopping herself. "

"So to hear that Lady Ashlynn will take no visitors because she’s with child," Tearnan said around a mouthful of meat pie. "It’s a bit strange now, isn’t it?"

"Mister Marcel," Isabel said, looking at him with tired, pleading eyes that couldn’t hide their anxiety behind her silver rimmed spectacles.

"I’ve spoken with Lord Owain, but he seems to be in no hurry to visit his wife.

Instead, he invites us to tour the countryside with him and Lady Jocelynn, who also seems to have no interest in spending time with her sister. "

"The Blackwell sisters were always close," Isabell said softly. "Lady Ashlynn even asked me to show her how she could sneak out of Blackwell Manor while my guild was rebuilding one of the wings. When I showed her a path the work crews used to haul stone from the work yard, she was as giddy as a girl half her age and she couldn’t wait to tell her sister, but now, when I ask Lady Jocelynn how her sister is fairing she tells me that she’s ’sure her sister is doing well’ and that she’s happily ’holed up in her room with her books. ’"

Perhaps if she didn’t know Ashlynn as well as she did, Isabell would have believed the polite non-answers she received from Lothian family and Ashlynn’s own sister when she asked after the young lady’s condition.

Perhaps if she hadn’t received Lady Ashlynn’s warning about Sir Kaefin dying because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, she would have trusted the safety that Lord Owain claimed he’d provided to the missing Blackwell sister.

But too many pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit together the way they were ’supposed to’ for the engineer to be satisfied with the answers she was getting. And so, since this young man seemed to have the answers she didn’t, she was determined to get the truth out of him, one way or another.