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.“I’ve thought about it.He hates the royal family.He discredits them this way.But there has to be more to it.The papers are calling her an unregistered majicar and accusing her of starting the fire in Salford Terrace.They say she killed a bunch of Crown Shields and that she hoarded illegal ciphers.It doesn’t make any sense.What could he possibly gain by all that? Who’d believe it?”“Everybody who doesn’t know her,” Jordan said shortly.“They’ve pulled in her family and a number of her friends.Could one of them be the target?”“Or the king.”“What do you want me to do?”“Your family has hands in almost as many pots as Edgar.Find out what he’s up to.If I can get around in front of him, maybe I can force him to back down on Lucy.”Jordan nodded.“It’ll take a day or so.”“Do you…do you know anywhere she might have gone? I don’t know her haunts.”“No.I’ve looked a few places, but nothing.She won’t be sitting idle.She’ll be going after the truth herself.She’s tenacious.She’ll find it.”“We have to get there first.Edgar is too dangerous.”Jordan smiled thinly.“You saw her, that night of the retrieval.She held sylveth spawn in her hands and didn’t flinch.She helped cut off a man’s arm and then went back out to fight off the spawn.If there’s one thing that’s true about Lucy, she doesn’t back down and she doesn’t give up.She’s going to find out who did this to her, and she’s going to go after him.”Marten swallowed.If she was reading the papers, she must already have worked out that he was part of it.An odd pain began in his chest that had nothing to do with the blows Jordan had dealt him.“Then we have to hurry.Edgar will kill her if she interferes with him.With all those stories in the paper, no one would blame him.He’d be a hero.”“There’s only one place people go to hide in Sylmont.The Riddles.Start there.”“The Riddles?” Would she go to Keros? Marten dismissed the idea.Even if she wanted to find him, she couldn’t.And why would she trust the majicar? Especially if she’d figured out Marten had stolen her seals.“There’s something else you ought to know,” he told Jordan.“I went to visit her on Embernight.We were to have dinner.But when I got there, she’d been attacked.Her hands were shredded to the bone, tendons sliced through—someone had been at her with a knife.”“What?”“She said she cut herself on some glass.She wouldn’t tell me what really happened and she wouldn’t go to a healer.I ended up taking her to a friend of mine for a healing.An unregistered majicar.”He lifted his brow at Jordan, waiting for accusations or recriminations for yet another illegal transgression.But Jordan only scowled broodingly, rubbing a hand over his cheek and jaw.“He healed her?”“Aye.It was a close thing, though.I don’t think it was Edgar—it wouldn’t make sense if he was planning this other.I think she has another enemy out there.”“Then you’d better hurry and find her.I’ll send word when I’ve learned anything.”He spoke with a finality that Marten recognized as dismissal.He straightened, stepping away from the wall.Jordan followed him to the top of the stairs, watching impassively as Marten lurched down to the door.“Marten.Just so you know.You and I are done.When this is over, if you’re still alive and she’s not, I’ll plant you in the ground.” He turned and disappeared without waiting for an answer.Marten put his hand on the door, wiping the blood from his cheek with his sleeve.“If I’m still alive and she’s not, I’ll dig the hole myself,” he murmured.Chapter 18It was Emberday again.Lucy had slept most of the past two days, waking only to bolt food like a starving dog and scour the papers.It astonished her that she was being talked about more than the Jutras were.The news about them was oddly muted and without any of the sensationalism that colored the revelations about her.According to the Sentinel, the Jutras ship was no threat to Crosspointe—at least not now.It had been attempting to cross the Inland Sea when it was caught in a storm.Only incredible luck brought it safely into Blackwater Bay.The sea-battered Jutras had been easily captured and now were being held in Blackstone.Their makeshift prison was a manor with bars on the windows surrounded by a high wall and guarded by Crown Shields and majicars.The question now was what to do with them.Numerous letters and editorials argued the point, from sending them to the Bramble to torturing them for information about invasion plans for Crosspointe.The explanation was all quite rational and comforting, making the arrival of the Jutras seem anomalous and insignificant.And maybe it was.Maybe it was a coincidence that they had arrived on the same day she’d discovered the treasonous contracts.But everything inside Lucy screamed Danger! There was terrible trouble brewing, and she could do little to stop it, not with the papers calling her a renegade majicar and a traitor.Not with a fire she’d started obliterating Salford Terrace.Not after she’d supposedly stolen the greatest blood oak find in centuries.The public had already convicted her.No one would trust anything she had to say—she wasn’t even sure Cousin William would.Not that she thought she’d be allowed to see him, even with the royal necklace.She was too dangerous.She read the gleefully condemning stories in bleak silence.Everything inside her ached to answer, to revolt, to somehow turn everything around.But she was paralyzed.The words surrounded her, washing over her like an inexorable tide, heavy and deadly.How could any one woman push back such a sea?She did not speak to Keros.He cooked for her, heated her bathwater, and poured her tea and brandy.So far he’d been as good as his word and had not betrayed her to anyone.But she dared not trust him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]