Chapter Text
1375
As Lila walked out of Castle Never’s assembly room, she felt as if she were looking down on herself from somewhere near the ceiling. She was floating weightlessly, and watching as a long-limbed young woman with a mop of hair enchanted into clownish blonde curls and a blue tunic fresh from the tailor’s took slow, careful steps across the floor. The steps echoed louder than a hammer striking an anvil, or they felt as if they did.
Little agitated groups cohered around the edges of the hall: court attendants, the few nobles who hadn’t already retreated to their town houses, senior clerks and guards in heavy armour polished to a high shine. Anxious looks were exchanged; eyes glanced towards the doors, then reverted to safer targets. For once, she wasn’t the focus of their attention.
The bodies from the attack had already been moved away, she noticed dimly. Stains and burn marks still marred the blue-and-white ceramic tiles where the fighting had been intense. Next time she came, if there was a next time, the palace servants would have wiped away every trace: it would be as if nothing had happened at all.
Gods, what’s happening? What will I do now? If the feeling of weightlessness disappeared, that would be a problem. Floating could turn to falling without warning, and it would be a long deadening fall, as long as the miles between Highcliff and the Crags. I’ve just agreed to join the Neverwinter Nine, I’m a knight – fucking hell, I’m the bloody owner of Crossroad Keep, not just its temporary minder – and Shandra was killed in the Haven. An irrevocable death, a blank in the present and future. And a voice at the back of her mind whispered in the voice of her githzerai councillor: know that she will never return.
Dried blood was mixed with the dust of slain vampires on her hands and forehead. She was desperate to go to a tavern – not the Flagon, not for this – to drink wine till she dropped from the stool. But the Keep was waiting for her. Neeshka and Khelgar and the rest were there, expecting her return. On the condition that she wouldn’t think about anything, and in particular wouldn’t think about the Haven, she could manage for another day.
Not think about the Haven. And that would be easy, wouldn’t it?
Her way out was blocked. She raised her chin and stared directly at the huge creature that was standing near the grand entrance doors of the palace. Ten feet tall, thick grey scales, claws like daggers. Lovely. The horned devil was ringed by the leavings of its most recent victims: smears of ash and tatters of black cloth.
As expected, she recognised the hard yellow eyes immediately. As soon as she’d glimpsed its spiny back in the second wave of attackers, she’d known.
The devil stared back without any identifiable expression.
After a long pause, some words came to her. They felt right. “Lord Nasher wishes the monster out of his home. There’s no welcome for you here.” And me? I want the monster out of my life. In theory as a knight and castellan, she could order someone with a strong right arm, no brain, and no sense of fear to carry out her desire; but, despite all her efforts to cast it off, she was still from West Harbour, and that wasn’t how Harbourfolk did things. “Come.”
She set her hand on the broad edge of the nearest door.
“Lila!” She turned. The head of the Neverwinter Nine – and thus her new boss – was striding towards her. After the hand-to-hand combat against vampires, the golden hair of Sir Nevalle was a little less perfect than usual. Apart from that, the knight looked like the essence of himself: glossy, godlike, and entirely without warmth. “It is not safe to leave with that thing. I have heard about such beings and of attempts to control them. They will break free at the smallest opportunity. I’ll send for a mage to banish it.”
“Thank you for your concern, Sir Nevalle, but there’s really no need. I used a scroll from a very reliable source,” she said, falling into the accent and manners typical of the well-heeled Blacklake District without thinking about it. The lie came to her just as smoothly, though her Neverwinter court persona was a loyal servant of the state, and wouldn’t have touched a scroll of devil-summoning if Tyr himself had caused it to materialise on her dinner plate.
Nevalle shook his head in disapproval. “Creatures of darkness bring only darkness. Be careful, Knight Captain. Amongst the great, as you are now, the chances to go astray become more common and dangerous.”
“Your council is much valued,” she replied. In different circumstances, she would have been grinding her teeth together at the condescension, whether his advice had solid ground under it or not. Now, it drifted past her like a roke from the sea. “I will send word from the Keep.”
“Do so as soon as you arrive. We would not wish to think that the hero of the hour had been eaten by a demon.” From his face, it looked almost as if he was trying to make a joke.
“As you say, Sir Nevalle” she said blandly.
Throughout the exchange, the silent presence of the grey devil loured over them. As she turned away from Nevalle, she rattled her sabre in its sheath to be sure of its readiness, and patted her small pouch of vials. She still had a few tricks left over.
She opened the door, and stepped out into the Blacklake District. It was a busy afternoon around the forecourt of Castle Never; various market traders peddled their expensive goods, Dayne and Peppin in their midst. The customers browsed from stall to stall with a few here and there daring to make an offer on something pretty and over-priced. When the guards recognised her, they nodded, and after noticing the blue tunic and knightly cloak, added salutes. Their steel visors couldn’t conceal their surprise.
Wait till you see what’s coming out next, she thought in the part of her mind that was still working. But the devil didn’t appear. She could almost imagine that her lie had become real – that the creature had obligingly retreated to the Lower Planes, and the matter would end there.
She was telling lies to herself now. It wasn’t a real devil, and – yes, there – the right-hand door of the castle was moving without visible help. He was following.
She walked straight across the city. Avoided the docks: with trouble at her heels, she wouldn’t endanger Duncan. Even apart from that, her adoptive uncle was as fond as anyone of Shandra. How would she tell him? What should she say? And him living alone now, or as alone as an innkeeper ever could be.
The hot wind of late summer blew against her face as she crossed the Wyvern Bridge. As she reached the other side, she sensed that she was no longer alone, and in more than one way. Sometimes she heard steps behind her, or at her side. Of course, when she looked, there was no one there.
There were more material pursuers too. They kept their distance, and tried to blend into the local populace by stopping to look at fruit stalls and chat with ballad sellers. But one face amongst them was familiar; according to Sand, the man behind the face was a colleague of the Aarin Gend who had headed a network of spies for Lord Nasher, and likely had not left the city’s secret-gatherers when Gend did after the war.
So, someone hadn’t believed her story about summoning scrolls. Did it matter? She didn’t even know why she’d lied now, unless it was in a doomed attempt to win back a speck of control over her life.
The spies disappeared as soon as she left Neverwinter through the Aganazzar Gate. What exciting gossip they’d have to bring their master! ‘Lila Farlong walked through the city. She spoke to no one, stopped nowhere, and bought nothing. I tried to strike up a conversation with a ballad-hawker as cover, and now I own a pamphlet called Traditional Kobold Battle Hymns and Love Songs.’ The day before yesterday, she’d have had fun describing the spies’ questionable competence to her friends, with the added pleasure of re-enacting the moment one of them trod on a cat while he was trying not to seem he was watching her. Now, she couldn’t imagine fun of that kind happening again for a long time.
Half a mile out of the city, she stopped. Pulled off her new tunic and cloak and stuffed the bundle under one arm. It wasn’t exactly an out-of-the-way spot, not while travellers were hurrying up and down the highroad, but she was invisible to anyone on the walls: trees blocked that line of sight. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her sabre.
On the verge of telling her shadow to show himself, she turned, and saw him already plainly visible and standing several yards to her left. For the first time, she examined the man in the full light of day.
And it was just a man. A man dressed in a beaten-up cuirass of hardened leather over a heavy robe. Aside from the beard and tattoos, his face was hard, severe, and his forehead marked by deep frown-lines. On the side of a dusty road under bright sunshine – and it’s beautiful today. Why is it so beautiful? The gods sleeping on the job as usual – and away from caverns and murder sites, the man’s unnerving aura of power, the sense of darkness that had accompanied him, had faded into insignificance.
But she still couldn’t let her guard down. The main source of his power might have been destroyed, yet the circle of destruction around him in Castle Never was evidence enough that he had other abilities to draw on.
The examination wasn’t happening in only one direction. The warlock was looking at her as if he’d just noticed an unusual species of slug sliding towards him. In a locked room after sunset, the body of a victim lying sprawled before the fireplace, the expression was frightening. Here and now, Lila was surprised to note that they were the same height.
“Why the hell are you here?” she demanded.
At the same time, Jerro started to say something; she didn’t catch his words. There was a short pause that felt like the moments after the opening of a formal duel.
“Why did you take Shandra to my Haven?” he asked, the tone of his grating voice making the question sound like a command or a curse. “You destroyed everything – and her. You destroyed her as well. You and your friends rushing in blind, using her to fulfil whatever idiotic fantasy you were enacting. Did you have any idea what you were doing? She should never have been there. You betrayed my granddaughter to her end.”
Despite the bitterness of the words, he spoke at a measured pace, and the wild rage she’d seen in the Haven remained locked away. The controlled manner gave his speech a veneer of credibility that for a moment made her hesitate, as her mind caught up with what he was accusing her of.
Then she blinked, turned, and continued to walk along the road. She was shaking from head to foot with anger. How fine it had felt to throw the bound form of Moira on the floor of the Watch headquarters! She should have done the same with Jerro. ‘Lord, I’ve solved the murders of the Blacklake, and – see! – here’s the guilty man in chains of adamant.’ Or perhaps even, ‘see! the corpse of the guilty man.’
They’d found Shandra curled up in a corner of one of the hexagonal holding chambers, her weapons sheathed, her arms still held in front of her face in a last effort to protect herself. Her right shoulder and hands had been burnt black, her breastplate discoloured and ruptured, and she had died before knowing they’d come for her. Lila could never not see that sight, or undo it, just as it had been with Amie. And now the murderer was trying to shove the responsibility onto her.
She kept enough of a grip on herself to listen for trouble behind her. She’s been stupid to show her back to him, extremely stupid, but now he seemed more bent on attacking her with his mad accusations rather than through violence.
She heard his steps again, and noticed that the second step was dragged each time. Had Bishop injured him in the fight in the Haven? Or Qara? Had Lila herself pierced his leg with her sabre when she’d finally managed to dodge a wave of stunning power and creep close to him? Smiling coldly, she walked faster. With a little luck, the warlock wouldn’t be able to keep pace with her. Then, at least for a precious day or two to give her a window of recovery and reassessment, he’d be someone else’s problem.
Another half-mile, and the limping steps still followed her. The Royal Lodge wasn’t far now, a grand old inn with stabling for twenty horses. The lads there would be ready to lend her one for a fair price.
“Farlong. You are Farlong, are you not?” the harsh voice began again. “The girl that won the duel against Garius’s moronic lackey. Mephasm told me something of it.”
Her hackles went up to hear him speak so sneeringly of Lorne Starling, Bevil’s brother. She’d said the same and worse on many occasions, but she was from the Mere, not a murderous aristocrat, so she had the right. She stopped walking, and turned back to him. “Don’t you remember?” she asked with fake levity. “We’ve met before. In the caves of the githyanki, and in the Moonstone Mask. You tried to kill me, as I recall.”
His face remained hard and arrogant. “And failed.” He sounded as if he regretted the failure more than the attempts. “I remember how you rushed into plans that you didn’t understand at all. But I did not know who you were then.”
She couldn’t believe him. Was the lack of a formal introduction supposed to excuse the violence, the attacks he’d ordered?
“You haven’t answered my question,” said Jerro intractably. “Why did you take her there? What was my granddaughter doing with someone like you?”
“Someone like me?” hissed Lila. Perhaps the traces of her old Harbour accent had slipped out… She wasn’t going to asking for an explanation that would only incense her more. “We went to the Haven together to look for records about the silver swords of the githyanki. As you realised, a piece of a silver sword is stuck sound in my chest.” He’d planned to cut it out. Perhaps still was. “So, research was our purpose. I needed Shandra’s help to enter the place, but she gave it willingly. She was stubborn.” Her throat caught at that. Was. “If she didn’t want to do something, I couldn’t have forced her to do it.”
Jerro’s expression didn’t change. Although his rough red beard hid the lower half of his face, she could make out the narrow line of his mouth, and it was inflexible. Why was she trying to justify herself to him? He was the one with the blood of his victims on his hands.
“I will accept that – for now.” He appeared to think he was making a generous concession. How the man had returned to life after being missing for more than twenty years was a great mystery. How he’d ever survived long enough to have a child was a much greater one.
She narrowed her eyes. “Do you really believe the rubbish you’re talking? Listen: you killed Shandra in your Haven. You killed Melia and Evlyn in the Mask. It was you that attacked my friends and me in the caves when we were on our way to save Shandra from the githyanki. They’d captured her because of you – they thought she had information about you, and she knew nothing.”
No sign of regret or shame crossed the hawkish features. Jerro didn’t straighten his back: it was parade-straight already, despite his unsoldierly dented armour and grey-brown robe. But he folded his arms, and the frown lines deepened.
“It’s easy to see why Nasher favours you. He was always seeking out servants as self-righteous and ineffectual as himself.”
“If what you call effectual is killing the girl that was coming to get your coat, I’m glad to be ineffectual, thanks,” she retorted.
“What?” That time, she saw doubt in his eyes. But it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
“The hostess in The Moonstone Mask. White skin, brown hair, about so high.” She raised her hand to the level of her shoulders. In truth, Evlyn had been a difficult person to like, behaving sharply and snobbishly to anyone without money or status. Still, that shouldn’t be the point. She’d been harmless.
“I had to reach the shard,” said Jerro without inflection. “There was no time for subtlety.”
“Do you remember her at all?”
There came a pause, then afterwards, abrupt: “No.” He made eye contact with her. She braced herself for another challenge. “But I know that the sabre there isn’t hanging on your belt for show. Do you remember how many creatures breathed their last on it?”
His eyes flashed with yellow light. He really does think a lot of his own powers of insight, doesn’t he? Garius and Zeeaire had surely been the same. “No, I don’t remember. But I know that every one of them had been trying to kill me, not ask whether I’d care for a whiskey now or later.”
“Wagon.” She was about to ask what fucking sort of response that was, then the sound of rumbling wheels reached her. “Behind you.”
She shot a look over her shoulder in time to see a wagon drawn by at least four huge carthorses bearing down on her. She must have been too busy hating the warlock to notice the clamour it made. Cursing under her breath, she jumped across the ditch to the overgrown verge of the highroad. The vast hulk of weather-worn timber and metal fittings rattled past leaving a trail of charcoal powder and chips behind it.
It had to be a consignment of fuel bound for the potteries in the east of Neverwinter. Shandra was always trying to organise better supplies of coal and wood for the Keep. The place burnt through a ton of logs every day, and that was with a skeleton force in occupation. Once winter came, and if the sergeants continued to bring in new recruits, double or triple that amount would be needed. Shandra had been working on a plan to deal with it. I hope she wrote her ideas down.
She shoved her hands in her pockets, feeling tired and heartsick and just plain sick, and looked at the black trail running down the middle of the highroad. Well, that was something to put in the ballads. ‘Captain Farlong boldly sprang away from death; a badly-driven cart failed to steal her mortal breath…’ Then something else, though there were no more good rhymes for death…
Unfortunately, Jerro was standing unharmed at the roadside too. It wasn’t far to the Royal Lodge, but the presence of the warlock would make it seem much longer. She allowed herself another few moments of quiet before speaking. He was watching her in silence.
“The ancient rite of the Illefarn, the Ritual of Purification,” she said at last. “Someone completed the last part of it. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” He gave a sharp look. “I imagine that you or one of your associates completed the other parts.”
“Correct,” she replied.
Now would be the right time to attempt some sort of conciliation. Yet she felt unwilling and unready to create an alliance with this man. Directly after the Haven, she had felt something like pity for him when he was looking close to death himself, and following her stunned like a wanderer lost in the Mere. After they’d been teleported uncontrolledly to the wood at Marlside and in the dusk had staggered down the hill to the crossroads, Nevalle had almost ridden into them. He’d had a spare horse, and ‘urgent mission for Lord Nasher’ written all over him.
Acting without thinking, she’d pushed Jerro behind the others, pulled his hood up to hide his face, and freed his wrists from the rope around them, which was in any case there for symbolic reasons more than practical ones. And then she left for Neverwinter, trying to answer Nevalle’s questions about her opinions on the subject of marriage, its purpose, and its capacity to contribute to a flourishing civic culture. Under the conversation, her thoughts had been running in circles: from Shandra to Amie to West Harbour to the King of Shadows to Jerro and back to Shandra. But she could recall perfectly that there had been no warlock travelling with them through that long, black night.
“Why are you here?” she asked again. “I left you at the crossroads and – how did you get here, anyway?”
“The castle, soldiers and shards of the sword are in your keeping. I have nothing now,” said the warlock without looking at her at all, speaking with the paving of the road rather than her. His voice sounded almost soft then. Of course, it reverted in the next heartbeat. “You are the leader.” And he was looking at her again, though in order to glare, naturally. “I did not wish to waste time speaking with your hangers-on.”
She opened her mouth to ask how much time and practice it took to become such a bitter old bastard, but forced herself to stop. Spending hours calling each other names wouldn’t improve the situation or change what had happened.
“You could have waited.”
“Perhaps,” he said flatly.
“You didn’t say how you followed us so quickly,” she tried again.
“If you’d been paying attention earlier, you would know.”
It was her turn to glower at him. She wasn’t in the mood for guessing games. Still, she considered the possibilities. There weren’t many. He certainly hadn’t walked. “When you were in your other shape, it had wings,” she said, remembering the grey-scaled monster in the hall. “So, that was how you followed us. You flew.” She waited for his answer. Then, tired of waiting: “Well?”
“Of course. Obvious enough, I would have thought,” he drawled.
She paused to let a peasant family shuffle between them; the group trudged on steadily with laden packs, carefully refusing to spare a glance for the dubious pair of humans loitering next to a road a mile out from the city. One woman hurried the smallest child along, eyes fixed to the ground.
“And the palace?” she asked when they were gone. “What were you doing there?”
“I saw the shadows gathering at the corners of the building, and fought against them – exactly as I have always done.”
She was quite sure that the man hadn’t been slaying shadows in his crib like some sort of miracle child of prophecy. She was sure too that any enquiries about the details of his history wouldn’t be welcomed. Jerro radiated hostility. More than likely in his crib he’d had a red beard and imperious frown already prepared to see him through life.
“Now,” he said, “I have answered your questions. You have answers due to me. Since we met, your motivations have been obscure. What do you think you are doing?”
“You could have asked that a year ago,” she snapped, partly because it was true, yet also to buy time. There was no quick way to describe her reasons for acting as she had. Most of the time, she felt like a dragonfly shooting hither and thither across a pool while pikes with empty eyes watched her from under the surface. She could never admit that to him.
“A year ago I saw a band of warriors coming towards me with blood on their weapons.”
“Githyanki blood.”
“Githyanki blood is red, the same as ours.” If she hadn’t seen the warlock’s blood, she would have doubted that. “As I thought, you have little idea about the war or anything else.”
It looked as if they were back at name-calling.
And then, she heard a familiar sound: the ringing of silver coach-horse bells. A pure, cheerful noise aside from the one that chinked awkwardly after the rest instead of chiming.
Fortune did smile on her occasionally. Now she wouldn’t have to kick Jerro’s good leg out from under him.
She jumped back across the ditch, and stood on the right-hand side of the road as an open-topped carriage drawn by two horses bounced across the paving stones. The carriage was a light one, supported by four high wheels and a bevy of enchantments to hold it together across the rough surfaces that it had to cope with south of Helm’s Hold.
“What –?” began Jerro.
“Hey there, Harcourt!” she called. “Don’t drive over me, if you don’t mind.”
Before she’d finished speaking, the young man in the coachman’s seat was reining in the piebald horses. The secretary and man-of-all-work shadowed his eyes against the afternoon sun as he looked down at her. It was good to see him. He was one of those people that made the world seem a little more sane and reasonable whenever he was close by.
“Lila? I thought you were at the Keep.”
“Heading that way.” She glanced over his shoulder to where his master Aldanon was sitting. The silver-haired old scholar smiled and waved at her. Apart from Aldanon himself, the carriage was filled with piles of books and objects wrapped in satin cloth. “You too?”
“That’s right,” said Harcourt. “We meant to set off yesterday, but, well–”
“–librarians can be very unreasonable,” interjected Aldanon. “Enchanting people, of course, on their good days. But these ones, however, were up in arms, and only because of a few missing books. In the end we had to persuade Marshall Cormick, who happened to be passing, to distract them while we left through a back window.”
For the first time since the Haven, Lila remembered the light feeling of laughter. Everything would be easier with problems like those of the amiable scholar, or at least with his attitude to them. “The excitement never ends there, does it? You’ll find living full-time in Crossroad Keep very dull after all your trouble with kidnappers and angry librarians.”
Harcourt pulled a face. “You want a lift?”
“I do, thank the gods. And thanks to you as well.”
“And your…companion?” said Harcourt, throwing a doubtful look towards Jerro. The warlock was still standing on top of the raised verge by the road. She didn’t have to turn her head to know his expression: like that of a prince observing a rabble of peasants.
“He isn’t…” she began.
“Ammon! Unbelievable – quite unbelievable!” Aldanon spread his hands in wonder, then reached them out towards the warlock. Lila blinked. The shock surged then faded. But of course they know each other. It was Aldanon that told us about the Jerros to start with. Without Aldanon, we would never have rediscovered Shandra, and then… “Ammon Jerro. Alive and well, and not looking a day older. Well, this is marvellous news.”
“Aldanon,” acknowledged Jerro without a glimmer of warmth, after descending from his vantage point to join her on the road.
Lila realised she had failed to ask something important last year. When Aldanon was chatting happily about an unassuming, mild scholar who used to be an expert on the githyanki and their silver swords, events could have played out very differently with the addition of a single question: ‘So, what did he look like?’ If she’d been told that he had glowing tattoos instead of hair, yellow eyes – also occasionally glowing – and a blood-red beard, she wouldn’t have taken Shandra and a small escort to the Crags. She’d have gone with an army and six crates of Grobnar’s blast globes.
An unassuming, mild scholar. Fucking hell.
“Have you read the latest paper from the Thornhold sisters about the lack of cultural artefacts surviving from the Late Illefarn period?” said Aldanon, apparently in the best of spirits, not pausing for an answer. Jerro didn’t look like someone about to supply any answers regardless. “When I read it a month or so ago, I thought immediately of you. A remarkable, important work, I’d say. Changed my perspective completely. Of course, I have to admit that I didn’t have much perspective on that period in the first place. It was always more your field than mine, you know. You’ve missed so much interesting research…”
Harcourt climbed down from his seat in order to rearrange the piles of books: no small job. He was able to create gaps on the benches only by building the piles higher, and they were high enough already.
She sensed the presence behind her before she heard the whisper, harsh but fluent, at her ear. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself not to jump.
“When you are tired of congratulating yourself on your flawless morals, speak to me again. The enemy is coming. You will need me then.”
She turned in time to see Jerro taking a step back. They exchanged frowns, and then Harcourt was offering his hand to her courteously to help her to a place in the carriage. Though she was unhurt physically and didn’t need his assistance, the thoughtfulness of the gesture touched her.
Harcourt didn’t offer the same help to Jerro; to judge by the rare shadow over the young man’s face, he was quickly drawing conclusions about the grim stranger. Thinking about the murders in Blacklake and the attack on the Mask, perhaps. The Watch had circulated her description of the warlock she’d seen standing over Melia’s corpse.
Jerro stepped lightly up onto the rail despite his injured leg, and took the only place available on her side of the carriage, opposite Aldanon. He sat with his back straight, and stared expressionlessly into the distance.
As soon as Harcourt shook the reins, a tower of books in white leather bindings leaned to the right. To prevent their total collapse, she grabbed the six volumes that were uppermost, and dropped them on Jerro’s knees. It was petty, but she hoped it hurt.
If so, he didn’t show it. After glancing at the books’ titles, he put a hand on them to keep them still.
And in the meanwhile, Aldanon was talking again. “It’s so lovely to have you back, Ammon. We scholarly types need to keep going and stick together. So many of my friends cut their last quill after the war against Luskan. Tecla said – you remember her, of course, the archivist – Tecla said that she didn’t know her own city anymore. She went to Baldur’s Gate, and dozens of learned men and women did the same. You were wise to avoid the messy business with Luskan. Where have you been, by the way?”
The fingers of the warlock closed on the rim of the carriage. “Business matters kept me from Neverwinter for longer than I expected.”
When they were stumbling down Marlside last night, Jerro had explained his absence rather differently: he had been held prisoner in the Lower Planes. She had believed him about that then, and, to her own surprise, believed him still. Not only because of the damage he was doing to the carriage door through the strength of his grip, but also because his account fitted in with those told in West Harbour about the battle. The battle that killed her mother.
She had to learn more about the circumstances. She had to learn the reason why her mother had died back in those days before memory, days painted by second-hand stories with shadow and fire, the nightmare of her childhood, and reality of her present. Her small, claustrophobic village lay empty and abandoned. The grave of her mother was on its own, untended among the ruins. Before long, it would be twenty-four years since she’d died.
To whom should she give the blame? The perfect candidate was sitting one foot away, on the same bench. If she asked him to describe that night, more than likely he’d try to convince her it had all been her fault for crying too loud, or some other vicious nonsense.
“I was so sorry to hear about your daughter,” remarked Aldanon. Although his sadness sounded genuine, she knew from experience that he’d be cheerful again as soon as the next distraction presented itself. “Hanna. I remember her so well. She was so clever and determined.”
“Yes,” said Jerro without inflection. The pale skin of the warlock was losing what little colour it possessed.
“At least,” continued Aldanon, “you have Shandra as a comfort to you. When I met her the first time –” the scholar had invited Lila and all her friends around for lunch after the githyanki raid; incredibly, he’d even invited Bishop “– I thought to myself: she isn’t like Hanna at all. Physically, she takes after her father, I expect. I never met him. But the more I get to know her, the more I can see Hanna’s influence.”
She watched Jerro’s reaction with the interest of a connoisseur. The man stayed completely impassive. The people going past on wagons heavily loaded with summer fruits would see someone sitting rigidly in a carriage, listening with half an ear to the chatter of his fellow travellers. But, from her position, she could register the unnatural stillness, the grip trembling on the rim of the door, and the eyes boring into a knot in a wooden panel as if they were trying to find some secret trapped inside it. Curious, she thought. I wanted to hurt him and failed. Aldanon isn’t even trying, and Jerro looks like a man who’s just caught a spear with his chest. Kindness injures him more than anything else.
She averted her gaze. Flocks of birds were flying from strip-farmed barley fields into the shelter of the woods on the eastern side of the highroad. As the traffic became sparser with their growing distance from Neverwinter, Harcourt put the horses through their paces, and soon clouds of dust were rising from the wheels. Crossroad Keep was waiting for them.