Page 19

Chapter 19

Elliot

E lliot sank onto the cobblestones, nausea and weakness overwhelming him. His mind screamed at his body to get up and run. Avery was in trouble, and he couldn’t remain on the ground. But his body didn’t respond.

Worst of all, it was only going to get worse as the lamp moved further and further away from him. Soon he wouldn’t be able to move at all. How long before even his breath stopped? Elliot would die on the road outside Mattie’s house. What would happen to Avery then?

Cold waves washed over him at the thought. He had to find a way to get back on his feet.

Or perhaps the cold waves were from the lamp’s increasing distance. Was he feeling the first creeping fingers of death?

With a surge of determination, he rose to his feet. If death was coming for him, he would meet it upright, at least.

But the weakness didn’t increase, and gradually the pounding of his heart softened. The churning in his stomach continued, but he hadn’t actually been sick yet.

“Fool boy! Fool boy!” An already familiar voice called for him from the air as Frank swooped toward him from Mattie’s house. “What are you doing out here? Are you daft?”

The parrot flew circles around his head, cawing loudly.

“They took Avery,” Elliot ground out.

“And the gray one too,” Frank cawed. “Both gone!”

Elliot ground his teeth together. He hadn’t collapsed again yet, so perhaps if he focused all his effort, he could?—

“Come and see!” the bird called stridently. “Come and see!”

“They’ve taken Avery,” Elliot ground out through his teeth. “And you want me to go sightseeing?”

“Merchant girl said to show you. Said it was important,” the bird called, still flying in circles.

Elliot froze. Avery had left the bird a message for him? To go and see something?

It felt utterly and horribly wrong to move in the opposite direction to Avery. And he wasn’t sure he would make it far before he collapsed. But if Avery had wanted him to see something, she must have had a good reason for it. Perhaps it would provide a clue for how he could find her.

He stumbled toward Mattie’s front door. Several people passed him, but all of them eyed him warily, giving him a wide berth. He ignored them, forcing one foot in front of the other, until he arrived at the open door.

He blinked as he stepped almost easily into the house. Was his sickness and weakness lessening? How was that possible when he was moving in the wrong direction?

He gasped, leaning against the nearby wall as the truth crashed over him. He hadn’t grown weak because the cart was getting further away from him but because he was running away from the lamp. Avery—who never let it out of her presence—had left it here in the house.

“This way!” Frank croaked. “This way!”

Elliot hurried after him, his strength returning as he entered the library. He expected to see a scene of chaos, but other than a single pile of toppled books, and a chair that had been knocked onto its side, it looked just as he had left it. There was even tea still sitting in the mug he had abandoned.

But Frank was still gliding ahead of him, so he ignored the rest of the room, following where the parrot led. It took him almost to the far corner of the room, landing on the ground and pecking at a shelf. Elliot dropped to his knees beside the bird, pulling away an unevenly stacked pile of books.

Behind them, a wrapped object had been stashed by someone who must have been in too much of a hurry to properly return the books. Avery.

Elliot retrieved the lamp with trembling hands. Avery had somehow escaped her abductors, and in his hands was the proof she had spent those few precious moments thinking of him. She had known what was about to happen, and instead of looking for ways to escape, she had used that time to hide the lamp. For him.

He surged to his feet, his hands tightening around the rounded brass. She had thought of his safety, and she had trusted him. All this time she had held onto the lamp because somewhere a kernel of doubt had lingered. And he hadn’t judged her for that. It was only natural.

But now she had chosen to put her trust in him. As someone dragged her away, she had called for him to find her. She had trusted he would do so, even knowing she had given him the tool that would allow him to walk away and never look back.

But the days of his walking away being possible were long gone. Elliot still didn’t have any way to reconcile their opposing perspectives and goals, but he knew that he would do whatever it took to find and rescue Avery.

“What did she say?” he asked Frank, the words rough in his throat. “What else did she say?”

“She said to go find you. She said you’d come after her. She said to show you this. Nonsense! She should have run.”

Frank took off, flying frantically around the room, his frenetic movement indicating the level of his worry.

Emotion rose in Elliot, but he fought it back. It was time for action. Energy filled him, not only from his determination but from his closeness to the lamp. He hadn’t been so close to it since it had become more potent after its reshaping.

Rummaging through the packs they had brought inside, he found a small bag he could use to secure the lamp to his side, echoing the way Avery always wore it. He didn’t want to linger any longer, but he knew he would regret it later if he ran out of the house with nothing but the lamp.

Fishing through their packs, he tossed things to either side, choosing only the basic necessities as he put together a smaller pack he could sling onto his back. Frank was no help, flying around the library in a continued frenzy. When the bird had been back and forth between the sitting area and Elliot twice—knocking over the teapot in the process and spilling tea all over the floor, Elliot gave up further packing and stood.

He closed the front door securely behind him as he left, heading for the yard behind the house. Nutmeg neighed as he approached her shed, sensing something was wrong. Frank swooped down and landed on her back, and she turned her head to look at him, whinnying.

When she turned back to Elliot, she lunged forward, her teeth snapping.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Elliot stumbled backward out of her reach. “I’m not the problem, all right? Someone has taken Avery, and I need to rescue her. But I need your help for that.”

Nutmeg turned to look at Frank again, and the bird gave a reluctant cackle.

“The fool boy is telling the truth. Surprisingly.”

Nutmeg settled, and Elliot snorted. “You believe the parrot over me? Really?”

But he was already moving, folding a blanket and putting it over Nutmeg’s back. Thankfully, Mattie had a saddle hanging in the shed, and Nutmeg allowed him to place it over her back and secure it in place. He didn’t know if she’d been trained with a saddle, but she was the smartest horse he’d ever met, and she loved Avery. Clearly she was willing to help.

“Frank,” he said, as he secured the last of the straps. “You’ll be able to move much faster than I can, especially in the city. And you’ll be able to cover greater distances, too. Check each of the city’s exits and see if you can spot the cart carrying Avery and Mattie—or a suspicious-looking boat on the river. If you spot them, come straight back and tell me which direction to take.”

He only hoped the cart had headed straight for one of the city’s gates. If they had holed up inside the city itself, it would be a lot harder to track them down.

He swung himself into the saddle, watching Frank wing away without a word. He would worry about how to search the city once he knew they weren’t on a road or boat out. If it came to that, he would rouse the city’s guards to help him. The only reason he hadn’t done it already was his suspicion that their abductors intended to leave the city immediately. The dusty cart had looked as if it had traveled a long way in the last few days.

His secondary hesitation was due to the question of why the women had been taken. If the abductors were after knowledge that Mattie possessed, the roving merchants might not want him to involve any of the kingdom’s guard forces.

He directed Nutmeg out onto the street and along the road in the direction he had chased the covered cart. He had seen it turn the first corner, taking the path leading directly to the city’s eastern gate. He trotted toward the gate himself, staring at everything around him as he passed, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary.

He had made it only halfway to the gate when a flash of color appeared in the sky. Frank swooped down toward him, landing neatly on the back of the saddle.

“East Road,” he cawed. “Out of the city and heading east already.”

A band around Elliot’s heart eased. He had a direction and something to aim for. And if they were still on the move, it was unlikely Avery or Mattie had been harmed—at least not yet.

The cart had been harnessed to two horses, and it had a head start, but Elliot and Nutmeg would be faster. There wasn’t much light left to the day, but he hoped to be able to close the gap between them before night fully fell.

Elliot urged Nutmeg through the streets as quickly as possible, weaving between the other traffic until they reached the East Gate. They passed through without pause, and Elliot was finally able to give Nutmeg her head.

But after a short period of galloping, he reluctantly drew her back to a slower pace. As much as he wanted to sprint the whole way, no horse was capable of keeping up such speed indefinitely. If he didn’t want to harm Nutmeg and leave himself stranded, he would have to alternate between faster and slower paces.

The hours wore on, and he had to ignore his increasingly painful muscles. It had been too long since he’d ridden, and he was out of practice. But to his dismay, despite moving as fast as he dared to push Nutmeg, the sun had set and night had fully fallen without any sign of the group they pursued.

He could barely see even Frank’s bright feathers as the bird glided toward him after yet another scouting trip.

“Lanterns!” he cried. “They have lanterns.”

Elliot ground his teeth together. In his hurry to leave he had tried to think of anything essential, but he had forgotten a lantern.

“They’re not stopping for the night, then?” he asked the parrot as Frank landed in his usual place on the saddle.

“Tied themselves in a line. Lots of horses,” Frank said, and Elliot expelled an angry breath.

He didn’t need more explanation from Frank to know what that meant. With lanterns to light their way, and their horses tied in a line, his quarry could continue on through the night, taking turns sleeping on horseback. And with enough mounts to swap between, they could give the horses rest breaks from carrying the weight of a rider.

They wouldn’t be able to move fast in that arrangement, but they could keep moving all night. Whereas he needed to stop—not only because of the danger of riding in the dark but because he and Nutmeg would eventually need rest. They couldn’t keep going endlessly, just the two of them.

Elliot slid down, and took Nutmeg’s halter, leading her forward. If his quarry had swapped their cart for horses, they must have abandoned their cart not too far ahead. He would at least lead Nutmeg that far in the hope they had left items of use behind.

But when they finally stumbled onto the cart, it was completely empty. It certainly didn’t hold a stray lantern as Elliot had hoped.

Admitting short-term defeat, he took off the saddle, rubbing Nutmeg down before he climbed into the cart and stretched out to sleep himself.

Frank, who had been sleeping on the saddle since his last report, stirred, and Elliot addressed him sternly.

“If I sleep past first light, wake me. No matter how little light, I want to be back on the road.”

But he didn’t end up needing the parrot’s services to wake. After a few hours’ sleep, he bolted awake and sat alone in the darkness as the minutes ticked by toward dawn.

When he woke Nutmeg and the parrot, he expected Frank to protest. But the bird and horse had formed an alliance in Avery’s absence and even extended their temporary truce to Elliot. He could only assume it indicated the extent of their worry about Avery.

He did catch Frank muttering, “Useless landlubber,” in his direction at one point, which was a senseless insult he found strangely reassuring. Frank was the only one of them to have actually seen Avery since her abduction, and if he was muttering insults at the man trying to rescue her, he must not have been as worried as Elliot was.

Unfortunately, with his quarry now on horseback, and with their head start lengthened by their night travel, catching them was no longer a foregone conclusion.

He once again pushed Nutmeg as hard as he dared, but another day passed without sign of Avery, Mattie, or their pursuers, beyond the occasional piece of dropped detritus.

Frank still flew scouting trips, but his journey to Avery and back was taking significantly longer now than when they had first left the city. At least he continued to report that Avery appeared unharmed, and that the abductors were only three in number.

He had been half expecting two such redoubtable women to escape without his aid, but according to Frank they had been given sleeping potion. From his description, it sounded as if they had been secured to special saddles that allowed them to remain in place despite riding unconscious.

At least it meant they weren’t enduring constant fear and torment. But it also left them without any possibility of escape. Elliot was their only chance, and he spent the hours devising countless possible methods—each more ridiculous than the last. In truth, he couldn’t come up with a serious plan until he finally caught up to them and saw where they were and the state they were in. As much as he was ready to charge in when that moment came, shouting and waving a weapon, he would need to scout the situation carefully. He was only one man against three, and there was no backup coming.

But before he could strategize a rescue, he needed to continue on, enduring his one man-one horse marathon across the width of Glandore.

But eventually the day came when Frank left on a scouting mission only to return substantially quicker than usual.

“Did something go wrong?” Elliot asked. “Couldn't you find them?”

“They’ve stopped!” Frank called with a noticeable lessening of his usual irritation. “They’ve reached the sea and stopped.”

Elliot urged Nutmeg faster on instinct, his breath quickening. He finally had a hope of catching them!

“Was the sea their goal, then?” he mused aloud.

“No.” Frank swooped in to land on Nutmeg’s saddle. “They’ve only continued east all this time because they know someone’s pursuing them.”

“What?” Elliot reined Nutmeg to a stop, twisting to stare at the bird. “Have you known that this whole time? Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”

Frank took off, putting some distance between them before he muttered, “Why mention it? Pointless! They were going east. That’s what you always asked.”

“Why, you useless—” Elliot broke off, pulling at his hair. That was what came of having a bird as an ally. He shouldn’t have been raging at Frank, who clearly knew no better.

“I’m outnumbered,” he said tightly, “so I was relying on the element of surprise. And now you’re saying I don’t have it? That is absolutely relevant information!”

“Nonsense,” Frank cawed, but it didn’t have his usual heart behind it.

He flew in close, moving cautiously, and hovered beside the saddlebags. He pecked at one several times before flying away again.

“Just use that,” he said. “I’ll take it to them. Avery will rescue herself.”

“What?” Elliot stared at the pack. “What are you talking about? There aren’t any weapons in there. And you said she was unconscious. Are they waking her up?” He wasn’t sure whether to be excited or nervous about that prospect.

“They said to let it wear off,” Frank cawed. “They’re sick of running and want to ask questions. But it will take hours. They won’t be expecting that .” He dipped toward the pack again, bobbing his head in its direction.

Elliot slid off Nutmeg’s back to pull open the pack in question, digging through it. They had kept their stops as short as possible, only stopping for significant lengths of time when it was dark, so he still hadn’t sorted through the haphazard items he had packed on the day of the abduction. He was sure he would have remembered packing a useful weapon, though.

Rummaging through, his hand made it all the way to the bottom of the pack, where his fingers brushed against something unfamiliar. He grasped it, pulling out a small, silk pouch. One he had no memory of packing.

As he opened it, a scent wafted out, hitting him in the face and making him cough. He quickly closed it again, but a burst of energy filled him in response to the aroma, sending his mind racing even faster than it had before.

“The tea to wake you up?” he asked, staring at the pouch. “From Mattie’s house. But how did it end up in here?”

“Thought it might be useful,” Frank said impatiently. “I was right.” An unspoken as always lingered at the end of his words.

“You put this in here!” Elliot stared at him. “You didn’t say anything about that either.”

“It wasn’t relevant,” Frank said. “But now it is. I’ll take that to Avery. She’ll rescue herself.”

A grin stole over Elliot’s face as he held up the pouch so Frank could swoop down and grasp it in his claws. He wasn’t leaving Avery to rescue herself alone, but if the two women were awake and able to take their captors by surprise, that would give them even numbers.

He swung back into the saddle. The time had at last come to let Nutmeg gallop freely. They needed to arrive in time to help Avery.