False Dawn: Ageless Mysteries - Book 2

by Vanessa Nelson

  “Youth,” Dina said, shaking her head. “No, mage, grass is not all the same. Do you know that the wheat that makes bread flour is essentially just grass as well?”

  “I did not know that,” Niath said, brows lifting. “I can see the issue, then, if one plant can appear in so many forms.”

  “Indeed. And it might not even be grass. It might just look like it.” Dina glared into her teacup as if the answer would appear there.

  “Have you asked my mother?” Thea asked. “I can take a sample home with me, if that helps.” As little as she wanted her mother involved with Watch business, Thea also wanted answers. If her mother did not know what the plant was, she might have an idea of who to ask.

  “No, I haven’t made it to Caroline’s shop. I was going to go tomorrow, as it’s getting late. But, yes, take some with you.” Dina dug into one of her pockets and produced a cloth-wrapped bundle. “Here, I was going to take this with me tomorrow.”

  “I’ll ask her, and let her know you’ll be on the way tomorrow,” Thea promised. “Is it safe to handle?”

  “Tell her to be careful. It was lying out in the open. I think if it was that dangerous, even the forgers would have been more careful. But, still.” Dina set her cup down and rubbed her hands over her face. “Ageless, I’m rambling.”

  “We all need some rest,” Iason said. “Officer March, you had some news?”

  “Please, call me Thea,” she said, and set her cup aside. “Yes. I have a little more information. The group of men we came across at the markets call themselves the Hand. And the Hand of the goddess is a very old group that worshipped one of the darker goddesses in a time before the Ageless.”

  “Before the Ageless?” Niath asked, brows lifting. “That must be centuries ago.”

  “In this land, yes,” Thea agreed. The Archon had not managed to conquer every part of the world. Not yet.

  “That is interesting,” Iason said. “Have you told Ware yet?”

  “Not yet. I’ll need to see him tomorrow. I hope we’ll have something from the Citadel then, too,” Thea said.

  “The lower kitchens were in uproar when I was there. It looked like most of the contents had been put outside,” Niath said, a shadow crossing his face. Perhaps seeing the disruption that the Ageless could cause when pursuing their own wishes. “Reardon was supervising a search for something. I don’t know what.”

  “If there’s anything to be found, I’m sure he’ll find it,” Dina said, shaking her head. “He strikes me as being quite thorough.”

  The others agreed. Thea hoped that her own lack of reaction would go unnoticed.

  “There’s something else,” she said reluctantly. “Which the captain will definitely need to know. Apparently the Hand, that is the ones in the markets, are associated with some kind of dissatisfaction about the Ageless.”

  “That’s nothing new.” Dina was leaning back in her chair and made a dismissive noise. “There is always talk.”

  Thea could not help glancing at Niath, to see what his reaction was. He was listening with the same intent, interested expression as before. He did not seem to be either surprised or disturbed by the news. But then, he was very good at hiding his reactions when he wanted.

  He noticed her attention and lifted an eyebrow at her. She ducked her head away.

  “I think this might be different.” Thea stared into her teacup, which was somehow as empty as the plate next to her. She remembered the leader of the gang, the Hand, facing her in the market place and brazenly criticising the Archon. Such open dissension was unusual. And he had not seemed afraid of the consequences.

  “Well, if they are involved in any way with people making false coins then that is different,” Iason said.

  “That’s true,” Dina said. Her eyes were closing, voice drowsy. She blinked and opened her eyes. “Did you drug me, old man?” she asked, glaring at Iason.

  “No. You’re just at the end of your strength,” Iason answered. “We both are. Thea, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be happy to speak again in the morning.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry to have kept you so late,” Thea said, getting to her feet. It took more effort than normal.

  “Not at all. We’d probably still be working if you hadn’t come in,” Iason said, a rare smile showing white teeth amid his dark beard. He rose to his feet, too, and escorted Thea and Niath to the door. “Until tomorrow.”

  ~

  Thea was not sure how much sleep they would all get, but it was sensible to try. Niath accompanied her home, unasked, but declined an offer of tea, taking the horses and Sam with him away on his own business. It was late already, and Thea could only imagine how late it would be when they reached the Citadel’s stables.

  Her mother was still awake, doing some record keeping in the shop, when Thea went into the house. She was more than willing to look at the grass samples that Thea had brought, taking Thea’s warning seriously, finding a long, flat ceramic dish to hold the cloth bundle, and a pair of heavy-duty gloves that she normally used for gardening.

  Knowing from experience that her mother hated anyone hovering over her shoulder while she was thinking, Thea went back into the kitchen and found some parchment. She settled at the table with a mug of tea and began to write a report of the last few days, trying to get the events into some kind of order, even in her own mind, and set out the things she knew and the things she wanted to know.

  After a moment, Gilbert came to join her, settling on the chair next to her, and putting one paw on her knee, demanding attention. She scratched him behind his ear absently, careful not to touch him for too long. He purred his contentment, and curled up on the chair, great, green eyes keeping a watch on her and the movement of her pencil across the parchment as she worked on her report.

  There were so many loose ends. Genric Smith had lied about something, even if she didn’t believe he was involved in Edmund Anderson’s death. There was a mystery as to why anyone would have wanted to deliberately poison Edmund Anderson, assuming it had been deliberate. And Delilah Soames had somehow added the same element to her soap that had been used to poison not only Edmund Anderson, but also Margo Corris. The merchant had been lucky that he had not accidentally swallowed any of the soap. Then there was Piet Riga, who had handed a fake coin to Laurelle, knowing it was a forgery. He had also kept a bag of fake coins in his room. And thought he had no choice in the matter, and that the goddess would protect him.

  And then there were the men in the markets. Extracting money from stall holders. And somehow terrifying the stall holders, who were generally tough-minded, sharp business people. Calling themselves the Hand.

  The Hand of the goddess.

  A goddess had been mentioned more than once.

  By humans.

  As Matthew had reminded her, humans had worshipped more than one deity before the Ageless had come to these shores, centuries before. The Ageless had strongly discouraged the worship of gods and goddesses. Whilst the Ageless didn’t demand worship from their human populace, only obedience, Thea strongly suspected that they did not like the competition for humans’ attention from the gods and goddesses of old.

  Thea had always assumed that the so-called goddesses and gods that humans had worshipped had been little more than fables. She had never seen any evidence of their existence. Not like the Ageless, who made their presence known every day in so many ways, from the wings stamped on the Archon’s coins, to the presence of the Citadel over the city, to the magic boundary between the city and Citadel grounds, to the Ageless themselves, flying high overhead. No one ever forgot who ruled this land. Not for one moment.

  And apparently there were humans who did not like that.

  In the quiet of her own mind, Thea could hardly blame those humans. The Ageless were careless of what they considered to be lesser beings. Selfish and thinking only of themselves. And with their lives spanning centuries, they had no grasp of the more urgent needs and requirements of their human subjects, whose lives were barely
a moment set against that of the Ageless. A year of poor harvest was merely a blink in time to the Ageless. It was life or death to many humans.

  And then there were the Ageless who found humans fascinating. Who disguised themselves in their human aspect, hiding their other nature so well that ordinary folk could not tell them apart. Who indulged their whims among the human population, leaving unsuspecting women with Ageless-born children. Children who might outwardly appear human, but who could be taken away at any time until their twenty-fifth birthday.

  Thea stared down at the pages of notes she had made. She had managed to keep the report factual, including the information about the Hand of the goddess. She was wary about committing too much to paper. She wondered briefly about summoning a Watch messenger and having the papers delivered to the captain’s station. A moment of thought and she decided against it. The captain would want to hear it from her directly.

  She rolled the parchment into a tight bundle and added it to one of her pockets, getting up from the table to find that her vision was fading at the edges. It was past midnight. She needed some sleep.

  But her mother was still in the shop.

  She made her way through and found her mother scowling at an old book of herb lore.

  “Mama?”

  “Oh, Thea. I didn’t realise you were still up.”

  “I was about to go to bed. What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t identify this plant,” her mother admitted, sitting back on her stool and rolling her shoulders. “Ageless, how long have I been sitting here?”

  “A few hours, I think. I was writing a report and didn’t notice the time, either.”

  “We are a pair, aren’t we? I can’t think straight anymore,” her mother said, and slid off her stool, tidying her record books away, and lifting the ceramic dish with the grass in it into a cupboard that she reserved for any more potent potions she had. She locked the cupboard and returned the book to its place before turning to Thea. “You look worn out.”

  “I feel it,” Thea admitted. “Dina said she would come by tomorrow. Did I tell you that already?”

  “You did.” Her mother hesitated a fraction, then moved across the shop, taking down a pair of vials from one shelf and another pair from another shelf. “A few hours of sleep,” she said, handing one of the first vials to Thea. “You need it,” she added, before Thea could protest. “And take this one when you wake up. It will counter the effects of the sleep potion.”

  “Will it help keep me awake?” Thea asked, eyeing the second vial with interest.

  “No. It just counters the sleep potion,” her mother said, frowning slightly. “Why?”

  It was Thea’s turn to hesitate.

  “You can’t tell me,” her mother said, mouth tilting in a smile. “It’s alright. But, no, I will not give you something to help you stay awake.”

  “You’re taking some, too?” Thea realised, seeing the second vials in her mother’s hand.

  “Yes. I want to see if I can get some answers for Dina. And it’s been a busy day here, too. There’s some kind of stomach illness going around the neighbourhood. Lots of people coming in wanting remedies.”

  “Anything serious?” Thea asked, following her mother out of the shop and waiting while her mother closed and locked the heavy door.

  “I don’t think so. Just unpleasant. I had to make two more batches of stomach cure, though.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Yes. And now I need my sleep, and so do you.” Her mother hugged her, and Thea breathed in the familiar scent of herbs and medicine. “Good night.”

  “Good night, mama.” Thea took her vials to her bed and, true to her mother’s skill, slept without dreams until morning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  If Thea had ever doubted her mother’s skill, the sleeping potion and its counter-agent would have reassured her. She woke at dawn, a slightly heavy head dispelled immediately by the counter-agent. And, in another wonder, both potions tasted more of honey than anything else, so her eyes didn’t water, either.

  Her mother was frying something with single-minded intensity when Thea arrived in the kitchen. It did not smell burned, and there was no other chaos visible, so Thea felt relaxed enough to come closer and give her mother a one-armed hug.

  “Duck eggs?” Thea asked, seeing the contents of the pan. “Where did they come from?” It was the one down-side to having a garden mostly used for medicine. Her mother could not afford to have her plants pecked and eaten by chickens, so eggs were a rare treat.

  “One of the neighbours who was grateful I settled his stomach. There was a whole lot of things left just inside the gate at first light,” her mother answered, glancing across with a smile of pure mischief. “I think they’ve forgotten they paid me already.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be experimenting with more new recipes?” Thea asked, taking a wary step away from her mother.

  “So you don’t want eggs for breakfast?”

  “Oh, no, I would love eggs for breakfast,” Thea said, smiling at her mother before she turned to fill the kettle.

  “Some people actually like my cooking. Some people think experimenting with food is a good idea.”

  “Who in the world said that?” Thea asked, setting the kettle on the hob. “Have they tasted your first attempts?”

  “They aren’t that bad.” Her mother glared at her, and waved the spatula for emphasis.

  “We spent a whole week cleaning the ceiling once,” Thea reminded her, fetching plates and cutlery. There was even fresh bread, and a round of butter from their grateful neighbours.

  “Only once.”

  Her mother filled the plates with unnecessary emphasis as Thea filled the teapot. Strong, black tea was required, she thought. Even though her head was clear, she suspected she had an equally long day ahead of her.

  ~

  Breakfast was delicious, and Thea made sure to compliment her mother on how well she had cooked the eggs, leaving the house to a mock-frown from her mother and a threat not to cook ever again. It was an idle threat and one that her mother made almost every time she had tried, and failed, to create something new.

  Thea managed to keep the bubble of laughter inside her as she began making her way to the captain’s station, trying not to think of what lay ahead for the day.

  Then she reached the street crossing where the shadow of the Citadel fell over her and looked up, as she always did, and the laughter inside her died.

  The Citadel was impossible to ignore in the city, no matter how hard she tried. It was a constant presence, and the wings of the Ageless in the air around it were bright flickers of white in the sky, no matter what the weather was.

  There seemed to be more wings in the sky today. She paused, wondering if she had imagined it. But, no, she had not. There were a lot more Ageless in flight than she was used to seeing. And they were not soaring in lazy circles, either, but in tight-knit formations, interweaving.

  It reminded Thea of drill practice. Repeating patterns over and over until they were second nature.

  The Ageless were carrying out combat practice.

  In the skies above her city.

  Her stomach twisted. The Ageless had no intention of waiting for the Watch to solve the mystery of the forged coins. They were readying themselves for battle.

  And she was fast running out of time to get answers before the streets were flooded with the Archon’s warriors, winged and otherwise.

  She took another two paces forward and stopped, looking up again. There seemed to be a gap in the formation. Which was ridiculous. She did not know enough about battle formations, and her eyesight was not good enough to tell at this distance. Still, there was something out of place. Something her eyes had seen and her mind was trying to tell her.

  She had turned back towards home before she knew what she was doing. She was going to be late for the Captain, but her feet were propelling her forward. Back to her mother’s shop.

  There was s
omeone else in the shop already when she got there. A tall, dark-haired figure that she knew, staring intently at her mother across the short distance of the shop floor.

  Reardon.

  He was not flying with his men in the skies above. He was here.

  He had found them.

  Thea’s stomach lurched. She had spent a lot of time as a child wondering what it would be like to meet her father. To have him know who she was. Those day dreams had usually ended badly, and she had not wondered about it for years. Even with the Ageless as part of the investigation, she had hoped he would never find out who she was. Or find her mother.

  “Thea,” her mother said, voice high and thin. She was sitting on the stool behind the shop counter, gripping the counter top with white-knuckled fingers, face pale, her whole body stiff.

  “Officer March,” Reardon said, his voice full of frost. “I have business here. You may leave.”

  “I don’t think so,” Thea said, moving around the Ageless to stand next to her mother, turning her shoulder to Reardon for a moment, focusing on her mother. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes. He just walked through the door before you got here.”

  Thea’s jaw tensed. If she had not stopped to look up at the skies. If she had not seen the formations. If something in the massed wings above hadn’t seemed out of place. She might have continued on her journey and missed Reardon’s visit, leaving her mother to face the Ageless alone.

  “This is not your concern,” Reardon said, words bitten out.

  “Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of Thea,” her mother said, lifting her chin. “Although I cannot imagine what you have to say to me.”

  “Can you not? You left without a word,” Reardon began, the air around him shimmering with Ageless power.

  “I left? Me? You were the one who took a commission and vanished,” her mother said, voice still high. But no longer thin. Shaking. From anger. Anger that she had held on to, along with grief, as long as Thea had been alive.

  “It was my duty.” Reardon was standing motionless in the morning light, his human aspect fading. “You knew what I was.”