“Now I know you’ve found my daughter,” he told her. “I have missed that particular tone these last few months.”
Roeglin chuckled and hugged her close. “You did sound a lot like Aisha just then.”
“Did not,” Marsh grumbled and didn’t bother disputing the laughter that followed.
She shot Master Envermet a rebellious look and took them to the table the children had chosen as their hiding place, ignoring the smirk on their father’s face. She didn’t want to hear that he’d seen that look before.
She definitely didn’t want to hear Master Envermet’s confirmation. So have I.
“Me, too,” Roeglin murmured, and she leaned into him, strangely comforted.
She leaned down to peer under the table, only to be defeated by the think blanket of shadow cloaking its depths. “Tams?”
“Tams?” she tried again when she got no reply and was rewarded when cloth rustled and the extra layers of darkness faded.
To her surprise, Brigitte looked up at her.
“You’re lucky I was awake,” the shadow mistress told her, then peered past Marsh to take in the other adults standing behind her. Her face lit up in a relieved smile. “Oh, you found Vi’s and Basil’s parents! They’ll be so relieved.”
Again, Vi’s mother looked worried. “Is Jens there too?”
Brigitte gave her a reassuring smile. “Yes. They’re all asleep, but I don’t think they’ll mind being woken for this.”
Roeglin looked alarmed, obviously recalling what Vi was like in the morning. “Do we have to?” he asked. He gave her parents an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry, but she has a terrible temper in the morning.”
“Do fu...” The girl must have caught sight of Master Envermet’s face looking under the table, “Deeps-be-damned not!”
Her father chuckled and nudged his wife. “She certainly has your way with words, dear.”
The look he received in return would have melted stone and he stifled his smile, waiting until she turned away before mouthing “She does,” and nodding vigorously. His wife ignored him.
“That’s not the kind of language I want to hear my daughter using,” she scolded, and Vi scowled back in a mirror image of her mother’s expression.
“Shouldn’t have taught me so well,” she snarked from the safety of her shelter.
Her mother sniffed. “I didn’t teach you ‘Deeps-be-damned.’”
It was a thin argument at best, and Vi ignored it. “You want to hear some of my other new ones?” she asked, her voice as sweet as pie.
Her mother pursed her lips. “Not right now, dear.”
Vi gave her a sly grin. “But later, right?”
The teasing in her voice brought a smile to her mother’s face. “Maybe.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “When there’s no one else around to hear us.”
The father rolled his eyes. “See? They’re plotting already.” He turned to Master Envermet. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep her?”
“Hey! I heard that!”
Master Envermet gave him a bland smile. “Quite sure, although you could send her to the Monastery if she shows an aptitude for magic.”
“What does that look like?” the father mused.
His wife sighed and stuck her head under the table. “Do you want to come home?”
“Are you kidding? After all the trouble we went to to get out of this place?” Vi must have caught the flash of hurt on her mother’s face because her own face softened. “Of course, I want to come home. Just promise me you’ll go with these guys if they want to take us somewhere safe.”
“Done!” her father said before her mother had a chance to respond. “I’ve been dying to get out of here myself.”
“Stop exaggerating, dear,” the mother scolded, but she was smiling as she turned back to her daughter. “That’s a promise. Can we go now?”
Vi frowned but started to worm her way out from under the table. “Maybe we should wait until the mages are ready to go. I don’t think they’re up to it tonight.”
Marsh caught the look on Master Envermet’s face and smirked. His eyebrows had hit his hairline again, and his eyes were wide with disbelief.
“I don’t know if I want to take you,” he muttered as Vi went past.
Basil followed and patted him on the shoulder. “Pretty sure you don’t get a say,” he advised. “Ask Pa; he’ll explain it.”
“We’ll be mustering in the morning,” Master Envermet told them, helping Jens out from under the study table and pushing him into his mother’s arms.
At his words, they all froze.
“It is morning,” Vi’s mother informed him. “Everyone’s waiting in the town square.”
“For us?” Master Envermet managed after a moment of startled silence.
“Who else?”
Master Envermet groaned. “Can you make sure everyone is fed? We’ll be along shortly.”
Her gaze flicked from him to Marsh to Brigitte and over to Tamlin’s and Aisha’s father and siblings. “I’ll let them know you’re on your way.”
She didn’t ask any questions but guided her family toward the front door. Marsh smiled to see the woman wrap her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and take her youngest by the hand. It was good to see them safely reunited.
Which didn’t mean the next reunion was going to be any easier. She glanced at Tamlin’s and Aisha’s father.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” she suggested. “They’ll be out in a minute.”
She’d caught the telltale movements as the children had woken, but they had stopped while Vi and her siblings emerged. Now that the older teens had gone, they started again. Brigitte tucked herself into one corner, and Marsh figured the shadow mistress was getting ready to provide support if either of them got a sudden case of cold feet.
To her surprise, Aisha was the first to emerge. The little girl clawed her way out from under the table, hesitating as she reached the edge and glancing from Brigitte to Marsh.
“You gonna say hello to your papa?” Marsh asked, and the little girl gave her wide eyes before screwing up her face and turning to face her father.
On seeing him, she gave him a fierce scowl. “I have a puppy,” she announced, and his eyebrows rose.
They rose farther when Aisha added, “And a kitty.”
That last was said with such defiance that Marsh didn’t know what to do. Her father only had one reply. “And do you have a hug?”
Aisha’s scowl grew deeper. “No.”
The man’s voice grew softer and he held out his arms. “Do you want one?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then the child threw herself into his embrace. “Yes!” she cried, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest.
She clung tightly to him for a long moment, then Marsh caught the sound of movement from under the table and glanced down. Tamlin had shuffled forward, clinging to both Scruffknuckle and Perdemor. Neither animal looked impressed.
Their father wasn’t deaf or totally oblivious. Marsh watched as he snuck a glance toward the edge of the table before looking down at his daughter. “Did you say you had a puppy?”
She lifted her head, her face lighting up. “Yes. His name Scruffy!”
At the mention of his name, the pup surged forward, pulling Tamlin halfway out from under the table before the boy managed to let go of his collar. His father pretended not to notice, just focused on the pup.
Watching his face, Marsh saw what the effort cost him. Her heart eased a little when she saw his decision to play along, and the surprise when he took a good look at the pup was genuine.
“What is that?” he demanded, and Aisha laughed.
“That’s Scruffy!”
He nodded sagely and asked, “And where is the kitty?”
Perdemor had kept himself mostly under the table, and waited for Tamlin to scramble back to him. When Tamlin gave him a gentle nudge, the kit gave the boy a cool look.
“Please
, Perdy, be nice,” Tamlin whispered. “Aysh needs you.”
That caught the cub’s attention, and he gave Tamlin a long, thoughtful stare before rising slowly to his feet and stalking into the open.
“By the Deeps!” Shock made the words come out more strongly than the man expected and Perdemor froze. He flattened his ears to his skull and hissed at the strange man holding his mistress.
Aisha was horrified. “Perdemor!” She gave him a pleading look. “This is my papa. Pleeeease be nice.”
The kit twitched its ears and cocked his head.
“Please, Perdy...” Aisha sounded close to tears, and Marsh almost intervened.
“Wait,” Roeglin murmured, and she hesitated.
Perdemor slid her a look over his shoulder and twitched his tail in her direction.
Aisha gasped. “Perdy! That’s rude.”
The cub ignored her and walked toward her father’s shin. The man dropped a hand down where he could inspect it, and Perdemor sniffed cautiously before accepting a finger scratch under his chin.
As all the fingers came into play to scratch, the kit gave a rumbling purr.
“That is the biggest kitty I’ve ever seen,” Aisha’s father told her, and Aisha gave him a happy smile.
“His mama’s bigger.”
Her father shot Marsh a startled glance, and she shrugged. “It’s a long story,” she told him, and he nodded.
“You must tell me sometime,” he said, and she nodded.
Movement near her feet caught her eye, and she glanced down in time to see Tamlin come out from under the table. The children’s father stayed where he was, keeping an arm around Aisha but stretching one toward his son.
“Tams...”
The boy hesitated, his eyes darting around the space they were in. The question he wanted to ask was obvious. He refrained, though, and accepted his father’s hug before looking up to catch his eye.
“Where’s maman...and Alain?”
The happiness leached out of the man’s face and he knelt before the boy, moving his other arm to gather his children together. “They were taken,” he said simply, and tears glimmered in his eyes.
Tamlin froze, then cast a wild look at Marsh. “Can you find them?”
She swallowed hard, remembering the closeness she’d seen in the family when they’d been traveling to Ruin’s Hall.
“I will try,” she promised.
The look the man gave her said he had questions, and she hoped he’d hold them until later. She was having a hard enough time keeping her emotions under control as it was.
Tamlin caught her gaze and nodded, then turned back to his father. “She saved us,” he said simply, “and she wouldn’t leave us.”
His voice caught. “And she promised to find you and maman.”
His father smoothed a hand over the boy’s head. “She’s kept her promise, son. If your mother hadn’t been...” His voice caught and he looked at the ceiling, swallowing hard before finding the words. “She kept her promise, boy. You can’t ask for more than she’s done.”
Tamlin looked back at Marsh, and his expression said he Deeps-be-damned could ask more, and he was.
“I will do my best,” she repeated. “It’s all I can guarantee.”
He held her gaze for a second longer, then nodded, and Marsh breathed a sigh of relief. Roeglin hugged her, and she relaxed. Tamlin’s next question caught all of them off-guard.
“Where’s my sister?”
Instinctively, Marsh looked for Aisha, but the little girl was right beside him, and he had his hand on her shoulder. Tamlin looked at his other siblings, frowning. “I don’t have three brothers.”
His father laughed and turned the little boy in his arms.
“Sasha!” Tamlin exclaimed and hugged the child.
He was frowning when he looked up at his father. “What’s she doing dressed like a boy? And what did you do to her hair?”
The man gave Master Envermet a pleading look but struggled to answer the boy’s question anyway. “I had to hide her from the raiders...” he began, and Tamlin’s face darkened.
“I’ll kill them all,” he declared, and energy crackled across the ceiling and down the walls.
“She’s safe, Tams,” Marsh hurried to intervene. “We killed them. We killed them already.”
She reached out to touch the lightning waking in the room around them.
“That is one Deeps-spawned temper he’s got,” Roeglin murmured, and Tamlin snapped a glare in his direction.
“You’d be angry too, if it was your little sister!”
Roeglin’s eyes flared white. “I’m angry, and she isn’t my sister,” he shot back, and Tamlin froze.
Whatever Roeglin was doing, it was enough for Marsh to touch the lightning. “We are safe,’ she assured it. “You are not needed. The boy did not mean to call you. Peace. Return to the darkness. We will call you when we need you.”
“Peace,” she repeated, both surprised and relieved to hear Brigitte and Master Envermet repeating her words. She glanced at Roeglin and saw his eyes were still white, and that Tamlin was firmly caught in his gaze.
The standoff lasted for a few more moments before the lightning abruptly subsided and Tamlin relaxed.
“Thank you,” he said and Roeglin nodded, leaning more heavily on Marsh than he had before.
Marsh slipped an arm around Roeglin’s waist, and Tamlin’s eyes widened. The boy slipped out of his father’s arms and hurried over to the mind mage.
“I’m sorry.”
Roeglin managed a shaky smile. “Don’t be. You needed to know.”
Master Envermet scowled. “Apprentice, you and Shadow Mage Leclerc need to work on your control.”
“I said I was sorry!”
“That won’t help your control.” Master Envermet managed to sound reasonable and angry at the same time. “You will not call any lightning until you have been instructed on the how and proven you can control it. Am I understood?”
Tamlin closed his mouth on the next outburst and nodded. “Yes, Master Envermet.”
His father watched the exchange curiously. The shadow captain caught his look. “Let me explain,” he began and was interrupted by the sound of running footsteps.
One of the guards rounded the end of the bookcase closest to the entry, his look of worry melting into relief. “Oh, there you are. They’re waiting for you in the square.”
When Master Envermet didn’t immediately respond, he looked troubled. “You’re needed.”
He didn’t explain, but the shadow captain nodded. He looked at Tamlin’s father and extended his hand.
“Levi,” he said, “and you are?”
The man hesitated, then accepted his hand. “Alain...the senior.”
“May we talk later?”
Alain looked at his son and shifted to where Aisha stood with Scruffy on one side of her and Perdemor on the other. “I think we must.”
Master Envermet nodded and released his hand. “Stay with us.”
He glanced at his team, then led them out of the Library and into the glaring light of day.
26
A Rocky Road
The town square was crowded when they arrived. Their guide led them onto a wooden stage that had been erected at one end of it and then left them. Looking out over the people in front of it, Marsh saw they were gathered in distinct sections.
Those taken from the Grotto stood at the edge. Some had found the armory and now carried the weapons once used to subdue them. They looked grimly satisfied.
The ex-raider guards and their families were clustered between them and the other slaves. The men looked worried, and the women defiant. The ex-slaves seethed with anger, resentment, and curiosity.
All eyes watched as Master Envermet and the shadow mages took their places.
“We have removed those in charge in the Library,” Master Envermet told them, “but we cannot promise to protect you from any returning raiders.”
He raised his ha
nd to still the murmuring that rose. Looking at the guards, he asked, “Are the gates still secure?”
“Yes, sir!” Xavier called, “But there are no men on the walls.”
He gestured around. “They’re all here.”
A low snarl coursed through the slaves, and the people of the Grotto moved restlessly, as though they would intervene. Again, Master Envermet raised his hand, and the crowd stilled.
“By now, you will be aware that the ex-raiders among you were not here of their own free will.”
Murmurs of dissent rose to shouts of disagreement, and the shadow captain waited for them to die down.
“Let me show you,” he told them, and Roeglin gasped.
Marsh gasped, too, but she suspected it was for a totally different reason. Master Envermet turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the crowd, the emotions and images he shared taken from a dozen different minds.
Marsh recognized the feelings of Arlin, the raider who’d stood between his captives and his raider colleagues. She saw the thoughts that had run through his mind as he’d begged for judgment and felt the raw terror he had for his family’s safety because of his action. From somewhere in the midst of the raiders’ families, she heard a gasping sob, but the images moved on.
The next montage came from a different mind—Xavier’s. Marsh saw a little girl being healed and felt the desperate desire to protect the druid who’d risked his life to do it.
The images shifted again, and she heard a guard directing a brute’s attention to a corner as a young woman slipped over the wall. Fear rose for his family and followed him as the brute turned away.
Realizing what the shadow captain was doing, Marsh slid a glance toward him and saw his eyes shone white. Wondering where he got the strength, she looked at Roeglin. It did not surprise her to discover his eyes were also white, or that sweat sheened his skin. Remembering how he’d leaned on her after sharing whatever he had with Tamlin, she frowned.
If he was helping Captain Envermet, it wouldn’t be long before he collapsed. She wondered how many more incidents the shadow captain wanted to share.
Trading Into Daylight (The Magic Below Paris Book 6) Page 20
