Roots of Insight (Dusk Gate Chronicles -- Book Two)

by Breeana Puttroff

  Quinn knelt quickly, arranging pillows behind Natalie, trying to help make her as comfortable as she could.

  William looked up at her, his eyes round with alarm. “The baby is coming any minute now,” he whispered almost inaudibly, his voice cracking.

  Panic twisted her insides. What were they going to do? They couldn’t let Tolliver hear them, and at the same time, they needed to hear him, to know what he was saying. She stood and walked away from them, over to the spot directly underneath where she could hear the voices coming through the floor.

  “Dinner is nearly ready, Tolliver. Perhaps you and your guest – I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name, sir – would like to have a seat in the dining room? I can bring out some wine, Tolliver. It’s not necessary to sneak sips from a flask in your pants like a peasant.”

  A chill ran down Quinn’s spine. What was Ellen thinking, antagonizing Tolliver? And offering to let him get drunk? Either Ellen really knew what she was doing, or she couldn’t be trusted the way Andrew – and Nathaniel – seemed to think she could be.

  It didn’t matter much, she supposed. Tolliver was definitely dangerous, and Ellen already knew where they were.

  “At least you’ve preserved some of your skills as a hostess, sister.” Tolliver was snickering as his voice drifted away, into some part of the house that was not above the basement.

  Quinn listened intently until she could be certain that three sets of footsteps had exited the kitchen – Tolliver’s, his guard’s, and Ellen’s. She squinted through the dim candlelight to William. He was crouched down in front of Natalie. Andrew sat directly behind her; her head was in his lap, her hands clutched tightly to his.

  Any minute, the baby would be here. Quinn dashed for the stairs, climbing them quickly, as darkness closed in around her. At the top, she pushed gently on the ceiling. The trap door moved easily at her touch, but no light trickled through the small crack she opened. She pushed harder, opening it all the way, and climbing out into the pantry before setting it back down silently. A thin ribbon of light shone beneath the door, but no sounds came from the kitchen.

  Her heart thudded violently in her chest as she stood there, trying to decide what to do next. Before she’d decided anything, she heard the swish of one of the kitchen doors opening, and then the sound of someone – one person – walking into the kitchen. She crouched down on the wooden pantry floor and craned her neck until she could see out through the crack under the door.

  She held her breath, straining to catch a glimpse of whoever had entered the kitchen. After a moment, familiar-looking leather sandals under the hem of a long cotton skirt came into view.

  An unexpected wave of calm washed over her. She stood, and opened the pantry door just enough to poke her head out.

  “Ellen,” she whispered.

  Ellen’s face turned white with surprise, and she crossed the room quickly, stepping into the pantry in a way that forced Quinn to back up to the far wall.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Do you not realize how dangerous it is for you to come up here?”

  Quinn’s eyes met the older woman’s straight on. “Andrew and Natalie are down there with us.”

  Ellen nodded. “Good. I was hoping they would realize that I’d gotten Tolliver out of the house for a bit and go down there to safety.” Her tone was sharp, reprimanding. As she spoke, she was reaching down toward the floor.

  “The baby is coming. Right now,” Quinn said.

  Ellen had already begun to pull up the trapdoor, and right at that moment, a low moan came through the opening. The door fell shut with a muted thud, and she turned steely eyes on Quinn.

  “I’ll do what I can to keep Tolliver away from this side of the house,” she said. She turned and exited the pantry quickly. Her demeanor suggested that she was in charge and had everything under control, but in the second that the pantry was flooded with light before the door closed behind her, Quinn could see that her hands were shaking.

  She nodded to herself, and reached again for the hidden handle of the trapdoor. Before she had it all the way open, though, there was the sound of another door in the kitchen, and more footsteps going in, rather than the sound of Ellen going out. She carefully eased the door back down, and then crouched, hiding as best she could, in the corner of the black pantry.

  “I came as quickly as I could. What is Tolliver doing here?”

  Quinn breathed a silent sigh of relief. It was Henry.

  “Why do you think he’s here? He wants my support in trying to trade Thomas for Linnea.”

  “Of course he does. And now we have to feed him?”

  “I was just about to take in some glasses of wine.” Her voice dropped even lower, “Natalie is about to have her baby.”

  “Did they make it safely … down?” Quinn had to strain to hear Henry’s words.

  “Yes. And the others are with them.”

  For a moment, Quinn thought that they had stopped talking, but then Henry made a noise that sounded like a gasp. Disregarding the possible consequences, she stood and pushed the pantry door open just far enough to be able to look out. Henry’s arms were wrapped around Ellen’s waist, and she was stretched up, whispering in his ear. Her eyes were on the pantry, and Quinn watched them narrow at the movement of the door.

  Her heart sank.

  Ellen whispered something else to her husband, and he, too, turned to face the pantry.

  For what felt like many minutes, they both stared, unmoving, and she looked back at them.

  Finally, Henry lifted two heavy, crystal goblets from the countertop. “I’ll take these to the dining room,” he said, and disappeared through the door.

  Ellen crossed the room to the pantry so quickly that Quinn had to blink. She threw open the door and stepped in, backing Quinn up into the far wall.

  “You need to get downstairs, now.” Her whisper was the most commanding sentence Quinn had ever heard, but she wasn’t as intimidated by it as she knew she should be.

  “What are you hiding from me?”

  Ellen’s pause was so minute that at any other time, Quinn would have missed it entirely. Then she rolled her eyes. “You’re not entitled to know as much as you think you are, Lady Quinn. If Tolliver discovers you here, you have no idea the damage that will cause. Please, for the love of the Maker, go back down and stay there.”

  Ellen turned and walked out of the pantry. As the door swung back and forth on its hinges, Quinn could see her pick up a large ceramic bowl and carry it through a doorway into another part of the house.

  For a moment, long enough to surprise herself, she considered not going back down into the basement. She didn’t know what Ellen and Henry were hiding, and the whispering conversation she had just witnessed reminded her a little too strongly of the stranger’s voice two nights before at Thea’s house.

  The longer she was on this journey, the less she trusted anybody.

  It was a difficult decision. Though Tolliver scared her more than anyone else ever had, he was here, in the same house, and he knew where Thomas was. If he would just let one thing slip…

  Regardless of her suspicions about Ellen, though, Quinn knew she was right about one thing. If Tolliver were to discover that she and William were here… her last two encounters with him left her with no doubt about what would happen if he ever got his hands on her. And if he was bold enough to kidnap and hold one prince of Eirentheos – as soon as an image of William being held by Tolliver flitted across her mind, she lifted the trapdoor.

  The heavy wood had barely fallen closed when there was a muffled moan from somewhere below her, and then the distinct, quiet cry of an infant. Quinn ran down the stairs as quickly as she could, carefully keeping her hand to the stone wall in the blackness, as she didn’t have a candle.

  By the time she stepped into the pale, flickering light of the basement room, it was silent again, except for the labored breathing of those who had been working to deliver the baby, and the even softer sounds of the litt
le person lying in Natalie’s arms, suckling for the first time.

  Although Quinn tried not to make any noise, William’s head still snapped around in her direction as soon as she stepped off the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” he whispered. “Where did you go?”

  She crossed the floor and knelt down beside Natalie, who looked sweaty and exhausted, but stared, enraptured at the tiny face nestled against her chest. Andrew looked nearly as tired, but he, too, was fascinated by the baby, a little girl, still naked and streaked with blood. William unfolded a large, heavy, quilt and laid it over mother and baby. Quinn helped tuck the edges around them.

  “I told Ellen what was going on,” she said. “She’s going to do what she can to keep Tolliver away from where he’ll easily hear us.”

  William nodded, relief evident on his face.

  “Of course, that means we won’t be able to hear him, either.”

  Andrew looked over at her, scrutinizing her face. “We can trust Ellen to tell us what we need to know. I know you’re not convinced of that, but she wants Prince Thomas back safe, too.”

  Quinn wasn’t convinced, but she gave him a half-smile anyway. Then she and William turned their attention to silently cleaning up the mess and getting the new family comfortably settled.

  When, at last, they’d done as much as they could with their limited resources in the dim space, and Natalie and the baby both slept, wrapped in Andrew’s arms, Quinn and William retreated to the opposite wall of the basement. They laid out several blankets and pillows to distance themselves from the cold, hard floor, and then simultaneously collapsed.

  “Thank you,” William whispered, after several minutes.

  She lifted her head from the pillow she had buried it in, and looked up at him. A question about why he was thanking her rested on the tip of her tongue, but when she saw the sincerity in his eyes, she bit it back, and nodded instead.

  Suddenly, his hand reached for hers, his warm fingers nestling next to her palm, and warmth flooded through her as she grabbed onto it, twining their fingers together. She didn’t know what it meant, or even how things would be between the two of them tomorrow, but for that moment, she didn’t care.

  Tolliver was upstairs, and Thomas was still missing. Her mother was surely in a panic, and Zander was probably never going to talk to her again. The only thing in her world that felt right just then was her hand in William’s.

  ~ 24 ~

  The Friends of Philip

  “QUINN!”

  The frightened whisper roused her instantly from sleep, although she could tell she’d been deeply under. She blinked several times, trying to focus on William’s face in the candlelight, while also attempting to shake off the vivid dream she’d been having and decide if this was real or yet another vision.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered back. William didn’t look fully awake, either. She wondered what time it was.

  He didn’t answer, but a second later she didn’t need him to. The sound of heavy footsteps on the wooden floor above them reverberated through her body, speeding her pulse. There were no voices, but at least three different people were walking across the kitchen. Her breath caught when all three reached the back of the kitchen, paused, and then the steps moved inside the pantry.

  It wasn’t a conscious decision – by the time the first foot touched the top wooden step, all but one of the candles had been extinguished, and William and Quinn were crouched on either side of Andrew and Natalie, both of them awake and wide-eyed in the faint glow from the single flame that William held close to his face, one hand cupped around the light, ready to extinguish it instantly. The tiny girl in her mother’s arms let out a quiet grunt as she shifted in her sleep.

  The footsteps slowed and softened as they came down the stairs; the sound was almost cautious. Only one person was actually coming down. Quinn frowned at William, and he nodded. Her breathing calmed.

  “Hello?” the soft, familiar voice called from the bottom step.

  William held the candle out in front of him, casting a small circle of light over their huddled group. “We’re over here, Nathaniel.”

  “Is everyone all right?” Nathaniel asked, his eyes surveying the disarray.

  William stood. “Yes, everyone’s fine,” he whispered.

  “Tolliver is gone now,” Nathaniel said, speaking in a low, but normal voice. “Ben and Marcus followed him for quite a while. He isn’t coming back, at least not tonight.”

  Quinn hadn’t realized just how tight the muscles in her chest had been until they suddenly released the tension they’d held the whole time she’d been down in the basement.

  “Did he … do we know where Thomas is?” she asked.

  Nathaniel shook his head, his eyes on the floor. “Marcus and I were able to come up with a few leads today, but we don’t have anything solid yet.”

  “What kind of leads?” Quinn pressed, a growing sense of urgency rising within her as images from the dream she’d been having assaulted her.

  “We…” Nathaniel looked around, studying the little family on the floor, the massive pile of dirty linens. “It looks like it’s been a long night for everyone. It’s very late, or rather, it’s very early. We can talk about this in the morning, upstairs in the light, when we’ve all had some rest.”

  “Thomas is hurt.”

  The lines around Nathaniel’s eyes grew tighter, but he didn’t look surprised. “That’s possible.”

  “We need to find him. Now.”

  “Yes, Quinn, we do. But not in the middle of the night with Tolliver still out and about not far from here.”

  She jumped when William’s hand found her shoulder. He was trembling, but his squeeze was reassuring. “Tomorrow. We’ll find out where he is tomorrow, no matter what we have to do.” His voice was determined, fiercer than she’d ever heard him, and his words were just enough to get her through the next half hour as they worked to get everyone upstairs and settled.

  There was no discussion of William or Quinn heading for their separate rooms this evening. William pulled blankets and pillows from the linen closet, and they lay down on couches opposite each other in the sitting room. Nathaniel told William that he would take over the nighttime care of Natalie and the new baby, after congratulating him on a job well done.

  * * *

  Quiet voices and low clinking sounds coming from the kitchen woke William from his light sleep. He glanced over at the windows – only the barest hint of light came through the cracks in the curtains. It was still before dawn.

  He looked over at Quinn, asleep on the couch across from him. She appeared to be soundly asleep, which relieved him. Her dreams during the night had been vivid, making her restless. He worried that she wasn’t getting enough sleep, and even more he worried about how much more often her dreams had been coming, and the way she often woke disoriented and frightened. He was afraid that their increasing intensity didn’t bode well for any of them, Thomas in particular.

  He made his way into the kitchen, and was surprised to find Ellen, Henry, Marcus, and Ben gathered around the table, fully dressed and awake, finishing breakfast. Nathaniel sat by himself at the long counter, bleary-eyed over a large mug of tea.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Ellen stood, and began carrying dishes to the sink. William walked over to the table and started gathering up the serving dishes.

  “We’re getting ready to leave,” Marcus said, his deep voice still thick with exhaustion. “We’re going to try to get in touch with some contacts who might have an idea of where Thomas is being held.”

  “We’re?” William raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Ellen interrupted. “The four of us. You, Nathaniel, and Quinn are going to stay here with the Grambles.”

  “What? No! I want to go – Quinn will want to go.”

  “What you want is not the issue here,” Ellen said, meeting his gaze squarely. “Nor is what Quinn wants. It is too dangerous. You’re a prince
of Eirentheos, William. We can’t risk having you out on the roads, or in the villages, exposed. Putting you or Quinn, or even Nathaniel at any more risk of being discovered here could jeopardize everything, and none of it will bring Thomas home safely.”

  “But…”

  “It doesn’t matter. The decision has been made. Nathaniel wasn’t happy, but he has agreed. The dreams that Quinn has been having… We will find your brother William, and we will do it today. But you must stay here. My home is the safest in Philotheum, and it’s close enough to the border to get you all out quickly. I know you don’t trust me; I can see it in your eyes. But for right now, it’s a chance you need to take.”

  He sucked in a breath, and looked over at his uncle. Nathaniel stared back, a pleading expression on his face, and finally, William nodded.

  Quinn awoke just after everyone had departed. He was sitting on the couch across from her, watching and waiting.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. Strands of her auburn hair had come loose from her braid while she slept. The sight of her caused a strange, warm feeling in William’s chest.

  “Nathaniel is back with Natalie. Everyone else left.”

  “What? Where did they go?” In an instant, she looked wide awake.

  “Ellen said they are going to try and find some contacts that might help them find out where Thomas is being held. I got the feeling they weren’t all going to the same place.”

  “And what are we supposed to do? Just sit around and wait all day here again?”

  Her frustration matched his. It was all he could do to sit there and not take her hand and go flying out the door, but he knew they couldn’t. Instead, he shrugged.

  “That’s all we really can do right this second.” Nathaniel said, appearing at the end of the hallway. “It’s safest for the three of us to be here, rather than out where we might be seen, or worse.”

  His irritation with Nathaniel came flooding back.

  “What exactly are we doing here? Why didn’t I know any of this, Nathaniel? How could you have brought us to the home of Tolliver’s half-sister without telling us? Does my father know?”