Flattery laughed unpleasantly. "One of me was all his ego could handle and more than the Realms would accept."
"Giogi thinks I must be from a missing line, since I got past the guardian," Cat said quietly.
The wizard snorted. "The guardian let you pass because you are Wyvernspur by marriage, not by blood. Keep Giogioni fixed on Drone and where the old man might have hidden the thing," Flattery ordered, "not some mythical family member."
"We're going to visit Drone's lab and search for his journal as soon as the servant arranges a carriage," Cat said.
"Good. Remember, Drone was no fool. Be sure you check for ordinary and magical traps before you touch anything. Have Giogioni handle everything first."
"Use him the way you use me," Cat said sarcastically.
Flattery was oblivious to Cat's bitter tone. "Precisely. You are learning something after all. Has it occurred to you that, perhaps, Giogioni is using you as well?"
"He's not that sort of person."
"No? Perhaps he already has the spur and is still trying to figure out how to use it."
"He would have told me," Cat insisted.
"Not if he doesn't trust you."
"If he didn't trust me, why would he let me stay here?" Cat snarled.
Flattery shrugged and smirked. "For a treacherous witch, you can be very easy on the eye," he said with a grin. "Surely he's made you an offer."
Cat brought her hand up to slap Flattery's face, but he grabbed her wrist effortlessly and twisted her arm behind her back. "He has, hasn't he? I suppose this means I'll have to avenge my honor on the little fop," the wizard declared, half taunting, half serious. "After he finds the spur for me," he added with a grin.
Olive heard footfalls on the stairs. She drew back from the keyhole and pressed herself flat behind a linen chest. Peeking around the furniture's corner, Olive spied Thomas at the top of the stairs, carrying a tray laden with covered dishes. He turned down the hallway in the opposite direction. His pace was brisk and nervous. He let himself into a room at the far end of the hallway and closed the door behind him. Olive could hear him climbing more stairs.
The halfling was torn between following the servant and catching the end of Cat's conversation with Flattery. She was denied the opportunity to do either, though. There were more footfalls on the lower stair, this time accompanied by whistling. Giogi's rhythmless whistling.
Olive scrunched up tighter behind the linen chest. Giogi strode down the hall toward Cat's room. He was carrying a fur-lined cape, fur-lined boots, and a fur muff. He stopped in front of Cat's door and knocked sharply.
Cat called out, "Come in."
Giogi opened the door. "It's cold in here," he noted stiffly.
"I was looking out the window. Did you find Birdie?"
"No," Giogi replied curtly.
"Perhaps she'll come home by evening. You treated her well," Cat said gently.
Giogi shrugged without comment. He laid the furs on the bed. "It's colder today than it was yesterday, so I brought these for you to wear. I'll let you get back to your studying," he said, backing out of the room and closing the door behind him. His manner was as cold as the room.
So, the kind-hearted Wyvernspur can snub people, too, when his pride is wounded, Olive thought.
Giogi went down the hall to the room beside Cat's. He entered the room, leaving the door open behind him. Olive could see him rummaging through a chest at the foot of the bed.
It would be a bad thing to be discovered up here, Olive realized. Time to return to the parlor while I have the chance.
The halfling slipped past Giogi's open door and hurried down the stairs, though not without regret. I should have taken a peek to see who or what Thomas was feeding in the attic, she thought as she let herself into the parlor and closed the door very softly behind her. My nerves aren't what they once were.
She paced about the room. In my younger days, I'd have cased every room in this house and stolen three resalable things before breakfast, she chided herself. Being prosperous takes all the fun out of life. Now all I do is eavesdrop and worry that I'm going to be discovered. That's the problem with respectability—you always worry about losing it. Paladins must be nervous wrecks, she thought with an amused snort.
A bowl of dried fruit and nuts drew her attention. Food. That will help steady me. Olive lifted the bowl from the coffee table and carried it over to the fireside with the footstool. She cracked some nuts and picked out the meats, stacking the shells and meats in piles to represent good and bad as she weighed Cat's recent actions.
She contacted Flattery again, which was bad, the halfling thought, dropping a shell to her left. Probably stupid, too, Olive added, starting a pile with dried apricots for stupid actions.
Dropping a nut meat into a pile at her right, Olive thought, She did show more spine and grill him for more information, which was good. She gave away our day's itinerary, which was bad. She didn't say a word about Jade or me. That was good, unless she's playing both sides against the middle. Olive dropped another apricot in the stupid pile.
She could be thinking of me as our ace in the hole. Maybe she's superstitious about halfling luck. Olive started a pile for Cat's smart decisions with dried figs.
She didn't tell Flattery we were planning to come after him. Good and smart. Is she hoping we'll kill him for her? Is she planning on lending a hand when the time comes? In the short run, is she going to do as Flattery bids and use Giogi to test for traps in Drone's lab, and will she try to convince us not to visit the Temple of Selune?
Olive looked down at the piles of food. "She's one mixed-up mage," the halfling muttered. She tossed the nut shells into the fire and watched them burn while she munched on her remaining piles.
There was a knock on the door, and Thomas came in, carrying her cloak and gloves. "The carriage has arrived, ma'am," he announced.
Olive laid the fruit-and-nut bowl aside and accepted Thomas's help with her cloak, then joined Giogi and Cat in the front hall. The door stood open. Every bush and tree branch glittered in the sunlight and dropped globs of water and shards of glassy ice to the ground beneath it. A white carriage with four white horses stood waiting outside the front gate.
Giogi escorted the two women out and handed them into the carriage. As he checked the horses' tack and harnesses, Olive settled beside Cat and whispered, "Have you got it on you?"
Wordlessly Cat drew the silk-wrapped amulet halfway out of her pocket and slipped it back out of sight.
"Smart girl. Have a fig," the halfling offered.
"All set?" Giogi asked as he hopped up in the driver's seat.
We may never be that, Olive thought, but she called out that they were.
Giogi clucked at the horses, and the carriage moved forward. None of the party noticed the sleeve of a robe clear the frost from the attic window or a pair of piercing blue eyes watching them move out of the courtyard and onto the street.
15
Drone's Lab
Giogi drove the carriage through the heart of town and then south into the countryside. Since the nobleman sat outside the carriage, making normal conversation with him impossible, and Cat sat looking out the window, lost in her own thoughts, Olive napped for the length of the half-hour trip. Cat nudged her awake as thev drove through the front gate of Castle Redstone.
The Wyvernspurs' ancestral home was an imposing edifice, but Olive always thought castles ostentatious, and red sandstone buildings made her think of rust. She could see why Giogi chose to live in a townhouse in Immersea. Even Cat shuddered when she saw the castle.
A servant ushered them into the parlor, where Gaylyn lay knitting, alone on the couch. "Giogi, you've brought company. How wonderful," the young woman said, peering intently at Olive and Cat. "Don't I know you? Olive Ruskettle the bard, isn't it? What a delightful surprise. Everyone was so pleased with your performance at the wedding reception. We were disappointed that you had to leave early. Aren't you Alias?" she asked Cat.
"She's, um, a relative of Alias's," Giogi explained. "Gaylyn, allow me to present Cat of Ordulin, a mage. Mistress Cat, this is my Cousin Frefford's wife, Gaylyn."
Cat curtsied and whispered a hello.
"You'll excuse me for not rising, I hope."
"Of course," Olive replied. "We've all heard your good news. How is your little girl, Lady Gaylyn?"
"If I ever see her again, I'll let you know," Gaylyn said, laughing. "Amberlee's Great-grandauntie Dorath stole her away the moment she was born and has spent all her time since then doting on the child. Actually, you've just missed her. Aunt Dorath brought her down here for breakfast, and when Amberlee was finished, her Aunt Dorath took her away to sleep in the nursery so I could entertain without waking her," Gaylyn explained.
"Please, sit down," the new mother encouraged them. "You must be freezing from your ride. There's a pot of tea over there," Gaylyn said, pointing to a silver tea set desperately in need of polishing. "Giogi, since we ladies outnumber you, you may do the honors."
Giogi filled and handed out teacups. Gaylyn passed a plate of cookies around. "It's lucky you're here, actually. Freffie has been so busy looking for someone who might be a lost member of the family. He spent all night questioning people at the inns- merchants, mercenaries, adventurers, farmers, fishermen, and now he has to deliver some packages for the memorial service tonight for Uncle Drone. He's up in the tower."
She fixed Giogi with the bright green eyes that had ensnared his cousin. "You wouldn't mind running the packages up to the Temple of Selune for him, would you, so I could get a little more of his attention?"
"Of course," Giogi agreed. "I was going there later, anyway. But I thought Julia was handling the arrangements for the memorial service."
"She was, but she twisted her ankle while walking in the ice last night, so she's out of commission. Aunt Dorath was beside herself, claiming how the curse had found another victim."
"That must have put her in a foul mood. Julia, I mean."
Gaylyn laughed. "Silly boy. It's been the luckiest break she's had all year. There's nothing like an ankle injury. No one can say you're malingering, because its so gruesome-looking, but you can cover it up with your petticoat and still look marvelous for all the suitors who come to wait on you hand and foot."
"Julia has suitors?" Giogi asked with mild surprise.
"Well, only one, but that's all she wants. She's in heaven right now. Sudacar couldn't have found a better excuse to fuss over her unless she'd been kidnapped by a dragon."
"Samtavan Sudacar is Julia's suitor?" Giogi asked, astonished.
"Who else? Sudacar is so commanding. Of course, Steele isn't keen on it, because Sudacar doesn't come from forty generations of nobility and isn't rich. Just between you and me—I shouldn't be saying this to outsiders," she whispered to Olive and Cat, "but Steele is acting like an old poop. He just wants to keep Julia under his thumb, because he'll never get a nice girl to do things for him if he doesn't sweeten himself up."
She has Steele's number, all right, Olive thought.
Giogi tried to imagine Sudacar fussing over Julia, and Julia being pleased about it. No one has that much imagination, he thought and shook his head. "Gaylyn, I'm afraid we've really come on business," he said.
"I know," Gaylyn said with a sigh. "I was just pretending otherwise. I know it's awful about the spur and Uncle Drone, but it's hard for me to be gloomy, what with Amberlee and all. Uncle Drone wouldn't mind. You know, right after Uncle Drone died, I dreamt of his spirit while I was sleeping with little Amberlee lying beside me. In my dream, Uncle Drone appeared by my bed and bent over the baby. He tickled her under her chin and made funny faces at her. Then he disappeared. I know it was his spirit, because he was dead by then, but not even being dead stopped him from playing with his new niece."
Olive smiled at the young woman's fanciful notion.
"That sounds like Uncle Drone's spirit," Giogi agreed. "Gaylyn, we need to look over things in Uncle Drone's lab. I was hoping he might have written something in his journal about the theft of the spur. We'll be looking through his magic, too, in case there's something there we can use."
"Oh, dear. It's a good idea, but Aunt Dorath has forbidden it. Steele wanted to do it yesterday. She told him it was too dangerous and sent him off on other duties. She's probably right, you know."
"Yes. That's why I brought Mistress Cat and Mistress Olive along as advisors."
"Well, in that case." Gaylyn stopped for a moment, tilting her head like a child considering some mischief. "You might want to sneak up the back stairs, so you don't disturb Aunt Dorath in the nursery. I kept a catalog for Drone. It's a lovely pink book with pressed flowers on the cover, and it's on his desk."
"You cataloged his magic?" Cat asked. "Have you studied magic?"
"Oh, no," Gaylyn said, laughing again. "My father was a sage, though. I used to catalog all his things for him. When I helped Uncle Drone, he was always around to keep me from anything chancv. You will be careful, won't you, Mistress Cat?"
Cat nodded.
"You know, you really are much prettier than your relative," Gaylyn complimented the mage. "I like the way you've done your hair."
Cat flushed and bowed her head.
"We should get started;" Giogi muttered, obviously annoyed with Gaylyn's admiration of the mage.
Apparently, Olive realized, it's going to be a long time before he forgives Cat for suggesting he would abandon her.
They took their leave of Gaylyn and left the parlor. Giogi led them through a maze of hallways and stairways. They headed in every conceivable direction, including up and down.
