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H
ara said to Talen as their passenger Puck left the Blazing Blunderbuss. “Follow him.”
Talen nodded and disappeared. Alice, who was standing with Hara on the deck, asked, “Do you think he has secrets?”
“Yes. It was too convenient that the Duke knew who Demetrius was. We had come straight from court. So it couldn’t be rumours and it couldn’t have been a spy at court because our ship is faster than almost anything but a royal courier ship. He must have been the one to talk to the Duke.”
Alice frowned. “Are you sure the Duke didn’t figure out who he was because the Duke and Demetrius are both nobles?”
Hara leant on the railing to look at the figure of Talen disappearing in the crowd after Puck. “No. Demetrius might be betrothed to the Empress’ niece but he really is a nobody in the noble world. His parents own a harbour port and they are pretty much chained to their business. They never come to court. The Duke on the other hand is a local to the mountains. He seduced the only daughter of a lord and married her. A year after her father died and passed on his title to Lysander, she also disappeared. Duke Lysander has been keeping low. Neither Demetrius nor Duke Lysander would have been in the same circles. He wouldn’t have known Demetrius, from a look. Someone had to tell the Duke that Demetrius was Hermia’s groom. Even Hermia wouldn’t have been able to point out her groom.”
Hara was sure Puck had a part to play in this drama. And those machine parts in that room in the castle’s basement made her think he might be the brawn behind the Duke. It was a risk to let the engineer return to his master but hopefully it would lead them to Demetrius.
Alice said, “There is a ship in port that is very similar to the one we saw leaving the Duke’s castle.”
Hara looked at Alice with surprise. Hara hadn’t realised the girl was so adapt at recognising ships to be able to tell them apart. After all, the ship they had seen leaving the Duke’s castle had been in the distance and in the semi-dark of dawn.
There were several ships in the large trader port and they were obscured by each other. Before Hara could ask for more details, Liam was calling for her. They had worked through the night on the project to deal with the large automata. Liam had really come into his own in the last year.
He was a worthy apprentice for her Opa’s knowledge.
