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Alric carefully moved them to a pillow on the sofa, and then got up and put his cloak back on. “I need to go home, but I can’t until I get my magic back. So it’s up to us to try and stop these things and find the chimera.”

“Chimeras. Plural. Probably twenty, judging by the holes.” I had no idea where this artifact chimera was, but chances were there was a fleet of live ones zooming around the city even as we spoke. I really hoped their eating habits weren’t like the sceanra anam.

“I still don’t see how there could be live chimeras flying around,” Alric said. “And I don’t know how they would be related to a deadly artifact even if they were. But first I need to go get my things. I left them in the park, then we can go to your dig site.”

Harlan and I looked at each other as I walked to where my jacket was. I had a bad feeling about this.

“In the park? Where in the park?” Harlan hadn’t caused the fire, but from the tone of his voice he still felt guilty since he’d been following Alric without knowing it.

“In a tree near the center by the ruins. I spelled a chest and left a running spell on the tree as….Why are you both looking at me like that?”

Harlan didn’t answer, but I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the charred remains of leather straps, the remaining hinges, and a very shiny magical lock. “I think these might be yours.”

Alric had been working yet another piece of fabric into his covering but looked up at the tone of my voice. “Are those the remains of a chest?” He was beside me in an instant and gently took them out of my hand.

“More importantly are they the remains of your chest? There was a fire two days ago in the park. Only a single tree was burnt, but it was destroyed. This is what I found in it.”

Again I was finding myself feeling sorry for him. I tried to remind myself that if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be in the messed-up situation I was, and wouldn’t be questioning my very being. Okay, my life would still be messed up. But he held a lot of responsibility for the situation in general. I ignored the whole him-saving-the-world bit.

He let out a heavy sigh and slipped the burnt pieces into his cloak’s inner pocket. “Yes. Every bit of information I had on what was going on here was in that chest.”

He ran his hand through his hair, dislodging his hood. He’d have to watch his subconscious moves out in the city or someone was going to haul him into the guard. I’d seen at least four reward posters for an elven lord last night on the way home.

“I was sent to find the chimera.” He held up his hand as I was about to comment. “I know you said there was more than one. But the fact is there should only be one, and it should be inanimate. It shouldn’t be erupting out of anything. But there’s something else going on that may be related to someone trying to get the glass gargoyle back. Someone with connections up on The Hill.”

Harlan crowed and puffed his chest out. “I told you there were shenanigans going on up there. Mark my words, there is something vile afoot in the rich quarter.” Satisfied that he had vindicated the last month of paranoid snooping around, he went over and moved the now dozing faeries back into their castle. If chocolate actually put them to sleep I might be willing to share with them on a regular basis.

Something didn’t fit though. “But your people have the glass gargoyle, right? In a secure place where no one can get to it?”

“Of course it’s secure.” He looked away quickly. Alric as an elf was not nearly as good a liar as Alric the human. “We know far better than most what that thing does. And what it might do if there is another piece to it.”

“Really? What then? And why are you looking for someone who is trying to take it if it’s safe?” Alric was still looking like he was planning on going to the dig site, so I got ready as well. He wasn’t going there alone—I wanted some answers.

“We’ve had attempted breaches on our borders. After one of them we caught a magic user the likes we’d never seen in someone non-elven. He eventually confessed to trying to get the glass gargoyle but then killed himself before we got more out of him.”

It was going to take days to get all of his information out at this rate. “But it is secure, right?”

“Yes, of course it is.” Without his glamour he was such a bad liar it almost hurt.

“Is it or is it not safe?” I had grabbed his cloak and was starting to shake him when Harlan pried my hands off of him.

“The man said it was. I think we can believe him on this.”

“The
elf
,” I laid a heavy emphasis on the word, “is lying, isn’t he?” I don’t know why it was so clear to me he was lying through his teeth, but Harlan, who was the most suspicious person I knew, was failing to catch it.

Alric looked from one of us to the other and finally shrugged. “I’m not lying per se. In theory it is still safe.”

“Theory?” I was going to start throttling him again and this time I didn’t think Harlan would stop me.

“When the breach came, and we realized what they were after, the elven lord scholar who was examining the gargoyle went into a magic lockdown.” He winced. “We can’t find him or the building he was in. It became untethered in reality.”

“How can something become untethered in reality? No, you know what? I’ve had too much information flung at me in a very short period of time.” I pointed to Harlan. “And I can just see your brain spinning with questions, but it’s going to rain this afternoon, and if elf boy wants to see the dig site, we need to go now.” I narrowed my eyes and swung my pointing finger back and forth between the two of them. “Questions, lots of them, later.”

Alric looked relieved at not being hounded, but he didn’t realize I was just giving Harlan and myself enough time to process everything. The hounding would come later and would be quite painful.

Chapter Fifteen

Alric was silent as we walked toward the dig site. I kept an eye out for more of those sceanra anam, or evidence of their passing. The ruckus that we’d first heard outside my door seemed far too loud to have been the result of a single soul-stealing flying snake and the card shark it was feeding on.

“So, you really don’t want to ask me questions right now? Or was that just for Harlan’s sake?” His voice was muffled as he’d wrapped a thin fabric around most of his face, except his eyes. His hands were uncovered, but while a bit longer and more tapered than previously, they didn’t look abnormal.

I noticed people giving him a wide berth though. The only people in Beccia who would be dressed like him would be from the leper colony a day’s ride away. Luckily for me and Alric, people were no longer allowed to chase, harass, or torment the lepers, but that didn’t mean they wanted to get too close to one. Good enough cover for me.

“Oh, I have questions about what you just told us, I just need some time to absorb everything. Not to mention I’m still pissed at you taking off three months ago.”

“I had to get the item back home.” Good man, mentioning the glass gargoyle in public would be a sure recipe for folks coming closer.

“You could have come back.” There it was and I managed to keep most of the self-pity and hurt out of my voice as well. The fact was I had been starting to have feelings for him when he kissed and ran. I thought at the very least we had actually become friends.

He was silent for a bit, then finally gave a sigh. “I know and I would have. I should have. But there are things going on back home…it just wasn’t a good time to leave.” We walked a few more feet in silence when he coughed and continued. “That’s not completely true. I wasn’t planning on coming back to Beccia.”

At least he was being honest for once. Although even after three months it still stung.

“Don’t you want to know why?” Great, now he wanted to rub it in.

“Look, I was just curious. The girls were really upset and I don’t want you doing that to them again.” I stopped and poked him in the chest although with all the fabric he probably didn’t feel it. “I want you to be very honest with us, them, this time. You’ll be leaving after this thing is found and that will be it. We’re all just trying to get you out of here as soon as possible. Got it?”

I turned and resumed walking. After a few steps he fell in beside me. “Agreed. I’ll explain it to the girls sometime when they’re sober. Although, I think the scholars will be almost more excited about them than the item if we find it.”

We were about five feet from the weekend guard and watcher when I turned. “I don’t want to talk to you about this right now.” All the hurt and anger I’d repressed for the last three months chose now to come out and play. Wonderful. “I need you to look at the holes, tell me if you have any insight, then we head back home.”

Alric’s eyes widened and the bastard had the nerve to look sympathetic. I had to fight down the urge to sell him out to the watcher bird. I just kept reminding myself we needed him for now.

Finally he nodded. “Agreed. And I’ll move out as soon as I gather some funds. Don’t worry, I won’t be there more than a day or two.”

I gave him a curt nod. At that point I just wanted both of us to stop talking about it.

The guard was a round human with thinning greasy hair. The ones there during the week were tough bruisers who cowed people almost as much as the watcher bird. This guy couldn’t intimidate a six-year-old girl. The watcher was different too. This one had a lot of gray in her feathers, and one eye was completely white.

Seemed like the powers that be weren’t real worried about people causing problems on the weekends. They might be right; we didn’t have a digger Union yet, but enough progress had been made that most patrons and patronesses didn’t work their diggers on Saturday and Sunday.

The guard looked us over, and took a step backward when he figured that Alric was a leper.

“I’m with Qianru’s dig and this is my old Uncle Al. He’s dying soon, but wanted to see a dig site one last time.” One thing about Alric, he was quick. As I spoke I could see him hunching over out of the corner of my eye. By the time the guard slowly turned his head completely toward him, Alric’s stature was of an old frail man not much taller than myself.

“Fine, but don’t let him touch nothing.” The guard pulled out a pair of grimy work gloves and made to hand them to Alric. “Why doesn’t he have gloves…oh.” I looked over and Alric had lifted both hands to show he was now wearing thin fabric gloves. He hadn’t had them earlier but obviously had used the leper disguise before.

“Go in, no touching.” He moved out of our way and let us pass in front of the watcher. The old bird didn’t seem too interested in Alric, for which I was grateful, but it leaned down as I passed by. I’ve had far more young and in-their-prime watchers study me over the last three months and none have given me a second look. So why was this old bird focusing on me?

The guard’s piggy eyes narrowed to almost nothingness, and his frown etched a few more years into his face. He was just stepping toward us when the watcher gave a caw, and resumed its post.

The guard nodded for me to move on and I let go of the breath I was holding as I passed Alric. “Come on, Uncle, it’s not too far.” Without looking back, I led us into the ruins.

“Watchers, eh? How long have they been around?” Alric was back up to walking alongside me and had resumed his usual stance. His question caught me by surprise. On his previous visit, he’d actually had a hidden camp inside the ruins, and he spent most of his time in here. But he’d clearly been back for a while and hadn’t come to the ruins once.

Even though he was looking for another artifact.

“Your people thought it had already been found.” I mentally patted myself on the back when he gave a startled oath. That was why he’d been focusing on The Hill.

“Not necessarily….” He trailed off when I stopped mid-path and folded my arms. “Fine. There were signs that it may have already been found.” When I still didn’t move he gave a wave around the jungle as if to remind me where we were. “We can talk about it later, but there is evidence that the items are connected on a metaphysic level. One surfacing meant the other would, too.”

“You know if we are going to work together, and yes, yes we are, so don’t flash those eyes at me, you have got to tell me everything. Harlan too.” I thought about it. “Change that, tell me everything and tell Harlan some stuff that won’t get him in trouble. He seems to be having a mid-life crisis of sorts.” I wasn’t sure if it was mid-life or old age. I thought chatalings lived for a long time, but he was definitely going through something.

Even though I told him not to, Alric’s eyes narrowed and he seemed to forget he didn’t have any magic. His eyes were quite lovely, but they weren’t going to get him out of this one.

“Fine. I will.” He nodded for me to move on, but I wasn’t finished.

“And please explain why you wanted to see the dig site if you didn’t think whatever popped up was what you were looking for.” I relented and started walking again.

“I think there is something going on that my people weren’t expecting. And those flying things shouldn’t even exist.”

I knew he wasn’t going to give me much more, at least not out here in the open, so I shelved bugging him about it. I’d dug around the chimera holes, but I had deliberately avoided the ones the sceanra anam came out of. He could study those all he wanted.

The dig site looked pretty much as I’d left it yesterday. Qianru’s little flags were still flipping in the light breeze, the chairs and tables she left were unmolested. Aside from the two-foot-wide holes scattered about, it looked like a normal dig site.

Alric paused at the edge and seemed to be taking in the layout. Then he took off his gloves, tucked them inside his cloak, and moved forwards to one of the green-flagged holes. He peered down it silently, then dropped to one knee and started sifting through the dirt. Within a few minutes he held up a shiny black sliver.

“Did you find more of these?” He didn’t turn toward me, just held it higher in case I hadn’t seen it when he found it. He didn’t seemed surprised at the shard, but his voice was too neutral for it not to mean something.

I was beginning to realize that many times what Alric didn’t say, or how he didn’t say it, was more important than what he did say.

“Yes.” I could be cryptic as well. When I didn’t elaborate he finally turned to me. “Not here.” Served him right.

Alric shook his head and went back to shifting.

I moved closer. I hadn’t seen any diggers in any of the sites leading toward this one, but I needed to be careful. I also needed to move Alric along. “The green flags are where Qianru predicted a chimera would be based on the soil samples. The yellow are where she wasn’t sure ones would come up, and the red are where she hadn’t predicted any to come up.” I nodded to a red flag three feet from where Alric crouched. “The red-flagged holes are also where the flying snakes came from.” I was getting as paranoid as Harlan. Right before I said sceanra anam my brain pointed out that if anyone had been around they might wonder how we knew the creatures’ name.

Alric said nothing but moved over to the red-flagged hole. “No shards here?”

I stayed where I was. I had a healthy respect for those things when they flew out of the ground, which became a healthy terror when one of them had his dinner on my front porch. “I don’t know. I didn’t go near them.”

He had shaken off his hood and pushed back his hair with the back of his hand. I noticed it was longer than it had been in his glamour. It also looked much healthier white-blond than the weird black he used to dye it. I’d have to ask him later why he had to dye his hair when he magicked everything else.

After a few minutes digging through the dirt surrounding the hole, he moved closer and peered in.

“I wouldn’t do that. I threw a snap glow down one of the other ones and it is really deep.” I was a little concerned about him getting that close, but not enough to move closer myself. Those sceanra anam scared the crap out of me and since those holes gave them birth, so to speak, they scared the crap out of me, too.

“This isn’t deep, Taryn.” Ah, the superior tone was coming back. I knew it was only a matter of time.

I inched closer but could only see part of the wall of the hole. “I told you, I didn’t look in those. The other holes are deep.”

Alric looked at me then walked back to the one he previously had been at. “That’s weird.” He then walked to five more holes nearby, regardless of flag color. “They’re filling up, and fast.”

Great, elf boy was losing it. “Holes can’t just fill up, at least not from underneath.” I went over and looked in the one I’d thrown the snap glow in. The bottom was visible now even though the glow was long gone. And I swore it was moving.

I backed away from the holes. “If those things are filling in from underneath, they have to be getting their dirt from somewhere, right? We might want to move.” For the second time in as many days I had visions of my job vanishing before my eyes. Those holes had been very deep and at about two feet across each that was a lot of dirt. Which meant all of what we were standing on could be falling into itself at any moment.

He made the same connection. He’d dropped down on his knees next to another hole, but scrambled to his feet and joined me. We kept moving backwards until we both felt we were safe. Also we were in the trees, and if they started feeling it in their roots it would show and we could run like hell.

I waited for the resounding collapse that was going to happen once all the dirt settled.

Nothing. After five minutes it looked like all the holes were filled up. They still had the mounds of dirt around them but they were completely full from what I could tell from our place in the trees.

But no great collapse, no rumbling, nothing that would indicate where that dirt came from. “How in the hell did that—” I had been about step back into the clearing when I heard feet, heavy booted ones and lots of them, heading toward us.

Alric grabbed the back of my jacket and pulled me back into some bushes. He had already replaced all of his coverings and was only a pair of bright green eyes wrapped in fabric again.

Right now I just found myself appreciating the heavy cover this Glouster bush was providing.

We were right to hide. The owners of those boot-clad feet stomped into view and there was no doubt of their destination. At first I thought they were guardsmen, their uniforms were very similar. But a closer look told me they were someone’s private guards. Many of the wealthy on The Hill held their own private armies, sending them to fight for their own gain in distant lands as well as sending them instead of their own people in times of war.

Most of these armies stayed outside of town; feeding and taking care of them was cheaper out there. Also, the people on The Hill didn’t trust each other anymore than they trusted tax collectors—they didn’t want their neighbors knowing how big their army was.

I couldn’t say I’d seen too many personal armies but usually you could guess who they belonged to by the colors and livery. This group was fifteen men and women, about half of them troll breeds and half of them human, wore grey tunics and black pants with a thick red line running up their left side on both articles of clothing. That wasn’t helpful as no one on The Hill would use something so bland. One member, off to the side and standing a quite a bit taller than the rest, was covered almost as well as Alric was, but his cloak and fabrics matched the guards’ colors.