The Traitor Queen (The Traitor Spy Trilogy #3)(72)

Regin frowned. “Well … we can’t be sure of that. They may have just put the stone here to keep the water clean.”

She looked up at him. “I reckon I could find more stones, if any are about.”

His gaze sharpened. “Give it a try.”

Handing him the stone, which he took gingerly, she walked a few steps away and looked at the ground sloping downward toward the dunes. She closed her eyes and expanded the natural barrier around her skin until it was a globe. Where it overlapped with the rock beneath her feet, she weakened it so that magic began to seep out. Then she began to walk forward slowly.

She had only taken fifty or so paces when she felt the faintest pull. It was an illusion – the sense of no resistance where everywhere else there was one. Stopping, she turned and, after losing the sense a few times, managed to narrow down the area the pull was coming from to a few paces in diameter: a stone-filled crack between two sheets of stone.

Regin joined her as she poked around inside the crack. She began sweeping her barrier down the length of the gap, but before she had gone far Regin gave a little crow of triumph and held something up.

Another dark, glossy crystal. Taking it from him she tested it. The magic she sent toward it was drawn into the stone.

“Twice is coincidence,” Regin said. “Thrice is …”

Nodding, she set off in another direction. This time she found a stone easily, buried in a sand-filled depression. All in sheltered positions where water might collect or flow through. Nooks and cracks where life might take root. They returned to the meeting place. She had undone her diversion of the spring, and the pool was full again. Dipping her hand in the water, she confirmed that it was now full of tiny specks of energy.

She looked up at Regin.

“Osen needs to know about this.”

He smiled crookedly. “Oh, he most certainly does.”

And Lorkin, she thought. Though he may know already. Ah. If he’s not supposed to know, I may endanger his life by telling him. It may not be wise to let the Traitors know we’ve discovered their dirty little secret, either.

Still, once the Guild knew, the Traitors would gain nothing from killing her and Regin. Taking Osen’s ring from her pocket, she sat down, leaned against a boulder and slipped it on her finger.

—Osen.

—Sonea!

—Do you have a moment? You won’t want to believe what I’ve just discovered.





PART TWO





CHAPTER 16


PLANS AND NEGOTIATIONS


Cery sighed. “Let’s run through this again.” “We arrange for Skellin to learn we’re living under the Guild,” Gol said. “Not being protected by magicians.”

“Even if he knows the Guild isn’t aware that we’re down here, he’ll suspect Lilia does,” Anyi continued. “We have to make Skellin think Lilia isn’t always with us, and let him find out her routine so he’ll know when she’s not protecting us.”

“He’ll send others first, to check whether it’s true, or to capture me,” Cery repeated. “So we’ve got to set things up so that only a magician can get through to us. Like a magical barrier created by Lilia.”

“But won’t that make him suspect Lilia is down here?” Anyi asked.

“He’s a magician,” Cery answered. “He knows a magician can set up a barrier, then go somewhere else.”

“Still, it might put him off going any further,” Anyi pointed out.

“We put the barrier close enough to us so he can hear us, or see light ahead, making him think he only has to go a little further to find us.”

“Him or Lorandra,” Gol said. “If he sends Lorandra we spring the trap anyway. At least the Guild will catch one of them, and they could use her as bait in another trap.”

“Yes, if they don’t let her escape again.” Cery smiled wryly.

“Once he breaks through the barrier he’ll want to act fast,” Anyi continued, “because Lilia will know her barrier has been broken. If he’s close enough to see or hear us, we won’t have much warning.”

“We could put a lamp around the next corner, so it looks like we’re close, but we’re actually further away,” Gol suggested. “And a few more lamps, so it looks like we put them there for our own use.”

“Which means getting more lamps and more oil. More stuff for Lilia to bring.” Anyi sighed.

“What if Skellin brings others with him?” Gol asked.

Cery considered. “So long as they stick together, they don’t matter.”

Gol frowned. “But will they? If I were Skellin, I’d send them ahead to look for traps once I got past the barrier.”

“Let them find us.” Cery shrugged. “They’ll either go back to tell Skellin, or wait for him to catch up and give them orders.”

“Then, when he does, we spring our trap,” Gol said.

Cery nodded. He and Gol hadn’t told Anyi their plans to reveal Skellin to the Guild using non-magical means. Cery wasn’t entirely sure he understood what the bodyguard had described. It was a method used in mines, that could cause a collapse big enough to open up a hole in the Guild gardens. Gol was confident it would work. Skellin and his men would be either buried or exposed to any magicians who happened to be about.