The High Druid's Blade (The Defenders of Shannara, #1)(68)

“Well, we don’t have another day now, do we?” He only barely managed to conceal his disdain for her incompetence. “So what is your best guess?”

The witch was silent for several long moments. “A better chance that she will than she won’t, I suppose. But if I could get her back—”

“Yes, you would be happier,” he interrupted. “And we would both like to get our hands on this boy. Did you recognize him?”

She shook her head. “I may have seen him somewhere. I can’t be sure. But I’ll remember his face. Sooner or later, I’ll find him.”

Very helpful, I’m sure, Arcannen thought. “He must have had some connection to her,” he mused aloud. “Otherwise, why would he bother to help her? For that matter, how did he even know where to find her, whatever the connection? It wasn’t like her stay with you was public knowledge. You must have done something to give it away.”

“I did nothing to give anything away!” she spat at him. “Everything was done as we agreed. No one was allowed to see anything. She was not allowed to know anything. For her, it was all a dream. Nothing was real, but it all felt real. For anyone watching, there was no way to know who she was or why she was there.” She sat back. “Are you going to do anything about this?”

He shrugged. “She will either go to ground or try to get out of the city. I will send men to watch the airfield. I will send others to search the streets. But I have to assume we won’t catch her again. If whoever helped her takes her to her brother, things might still turn out the way we want them to.”

He paused, remembering suddenly. “Did she take the knife with her when she left?”

The witch reached into her robes and pulled out the Stiehl. “I doubt she even thought of taking it, as deeply under the magic’s spell as she must have been.” She placed it on the table between them. “The boy probably knew nothing of it. It was still sitting on the nightstand where I left it.”

He was furious now. Use of the knife was essential to his plan. A weapon against which there was no defense, it would have assured that matters were concluded as he had intended from day one. Now he would have to rely on opportunity and luck.

“That’s too bad,” he said through gritted teeth. He got to his feet then, irritated beyond measure. “I have work to do. Maybe we can find her after all. You never know.”

She staggered up with him, still clearly not recovered from being struck. Well, she was old, after all, witch or no. “I’ll not leave this to chance or luck, Arcannen. You have your men watch for her, and if they find her let me know. In the meantime, I intend to track her down myself. That boy thinks himself so clever, but he doesn’t know he’s already marked himself just by breaking into my rooms. I can track him using magic, and I will. It might take a day or so, but I will find him.”

She straightened. “When I do, you can have the girl back again after another day of treatment, but the boy is mine. I will use him a bit, experiment on him, and then make him disappear for good.”

She turned and shuffled out of the room, bent and shapeless and somehow more loathsome for seeming so pathetic. But she was immensely dangerous, and he never forgot it when he was in her presence. The evil she exuded was palpable, and he would not have liked to be that boy once she went hunting.

The Stiehl lay on the table in front of him where Mischa had placed it. He looked down at it thoughtfully, then reached out and picked it up. There was still a chance it might find a use in his plans. If not in one way, then perhaps in another.

He slipped it into his black robes and went out to summon his men.


Mischa left Dark House and went out into the surrounding streets, seething. She hated having to go to Arcannen like that, hat in hand, admitting her failure to hold the girl prisoner as she had been charged to do. She loathed having to confess like a penitent schoolgirl. But mostly she burned with rage at having had this brought about by a mere boy. As she said to the sorcerer, there was definitely something familiar about him. She had seen him somewhere, although she could not remember where just at the moment.

But she would, she promised herself. At some point, she would.

She shuffled her way back to her rooms, passing through the darkness like one of night’s shadows, ignoring the few other denizens of the time and place who passed her by. Most knew her on sight, even faceless and obscured. All avoided her. Arcannen was right: She had the look of a harmless old lady, but she was anything but. Mischa was a creature capable of great evil.

She was thinking even now how she would dissect the boy while he was still alive, listening to him plead, smiling at his misery. Oh, he would be made to regret what he had done to her, of that there could be no doubt.

But finding him came first.

How best to do that?

When she reached her building, she paused at the entry and examined the lock. Picked by someone who knew what he was doing. So the boy was a little thief with talent. She touched the lock and the door frame. His essence was all around her, caught on the materials he had touched. She smelled the air. It was there, too.

She went inside, aware of the pounding in her head, but unwilling to let it subside while it fed her hunger for vengeance. The walk upstairs was slow and painful, her head throbbing, regret and impatience eating at her. If she had only come back from her errand a little sooner. Just a little. But she knew to put that aside. In the end, she would have what she wanted.