THE MOONLESS SKY gave the colonel only a dim idea of where the road went, so Mikael walked ahead of the slowly moving carriage, lantern in hand, a human beacon in the dark. It hadn’t snowed this far north of the capital, so he could pick out the road that led them up into the mountains. Pines crowded the edges, damp and pungent, the scent making Mikael long for a warm fire. His nose and fingers stung with the cold.
Before they’d set out, he’d had a chance to go back to the palace and dress properly. He’d left his pistol and sword back in his quarters at the palace, though. He hadn’t reckoned he’d need them. Even so, he would have liked having his pistol should a pack of wild dogs or a bear appear.
A few hours after darkness fell, Mikael had sensed Shironne again. He felt sure her captors had stopped moving, although he couldn’t pinpoint why he thought that. They were getting close—close enough that neither he nor Cerradine wanted to wait for morning.
The hostler hadn’t been too keen on the idea of letting them rent his horses. Cerradine promised an extravagant payment though, and the man let them continue in the dark when, he told them, any sensible traveler would have stopped for the night.
Mikael didn’t feel sensible.
According to the map, the nearest asylum, Mountain View Sanitarium, was within five miles, but at this rate they wouldn’t reach it until after midnight. Mikael pulled up his hood, to keep the cold off his neck, and continued walking, following the road in the darkness. The horses clopped slowly after him.
The rolling farmland had given way to hills during the afternoon while he’d stewed in the carriage. The travelers now hugged one side of a slope heading upwards into the foothills of the Southern Enderi Mountains. The map showed a valley over the first steep rise. Just off the road was an estate that once belonged to House Deravides, a long-extinct Anvarrid noble family. The crown owned the estate now.
Why send her here?
A long slow walk awaited him when he wished to run—anything other than this creeping progress, not knowing if she’d been hurt. Mikael forced himself to stay in the middle of the road, placing one foot at a time. The colonel drove patiently in his wake, on into the night for what seemed like eternity.
* * *
Mikael missed the turn-off. Fortunately, the driver had replaced Cerradine on the box a few minutes before. More familiar with the roads in this part of the country, he spotted it. He backed up the team and painstakingly repositioned the carriage for an ascent through the trees.
Cerradine joined Mikael, the other carriage lamp in his hand. His breath steamed about him as they began to climb up the graveled road. “Are you certain this is the right way?”
Mikael closed his eyes momentarily, trying to sense Shironne, but failed. “I think so.”
They crossed through another dense glade of trees and came into a clearing. A large iron gate loomed before them, guarding a sheep-trimmed lawn. The fence blended off into the trees, but Mikael didn’t doubt that it encircled the entire estate. Not waiting for Cerradine, he made his way to a dimly lit gatehouse. A guard glared at him over the muzzle of an aged rifle he extended through a half-door in the stone wall.
The guard’s nervousness flared through Mikael’s senses, and he ground his teeth together. “We’ve been sent from the capital,” he told the man, “to retrieve one of your . . .” What did they call them? Visitors? Prisoners?
“We have a writ from the king.” Cerradine spoke calmly from behind him. “To produce one of your patients.”
“In the middle of the night?” the guard retorted. “I think not.” Cerradine reached into his jacket, and the guard swung his rifle toward the colonel, no longer watching Mikael.
Mikael grabbed the barrel of the rifle and jerked, pulling it clean out of the startled man’s hands. “Don’t hold a weapon you don’t know how to use.”
The guard gawped at him. From inside his overcoat, the colonel drew forth one of the letters from the king and passed it to the guard. The man glanced down at it, his dark eyes squinting. “How am I supposed to know what this says?”
The carriage caught up to them. The driver set the brake, the vehicle groaning as it settled back on the road. One of the horses stamped a foot, startling Mikael. I will never be comfortable around those beasts.
The guard glanced nervously at the letter and then at the colonel’s uniform. His eyes narrowed.
“You’ll have to give this to the doctors,” the guard told them, clearly deciding he stood in the presence of authority; Cerradine had that effect on people—one of the advantages of being tall. The guard fumbled with a ring of keys, producing one that fit a ponderous iron lock chained about the gate. “Give me the rifle back.”
“Open the gate,” Mikael bargained, “and then I’ll give you the rifle.”
The man peered at him, apparently trying to judge his honesty, then capitulated. Unchained, the heavy gate swung open, and Cerradine led the way through, the driver wheeling in behind him.
Mikael checked the breech of the rifle, removed the cartridge, and then passed the weapon across. He bounced the linen-wrapped cartridge in his hand before pocketing it. “I’ll give you this on our way back out.”
The guard scowled at him, and Mikael decided his guess had been correct; the man had a rifle only to fire warning shots to alert those up the road. He didn’t merit extra ammunition.
They would have surprise on their side, at least.
Mikael followed the colonel over a hill to where an ancient palace graced even lawns. The moon had risen and shone on pale marble arches, metal-capped domes, and pointed spires. Like the palace back in Noikinos, it was not designed for the cold. In the dark, the bulk of the house remained undefined. He couldn’t tell if it was crumbling or well maintained. Lights glowed in several windows, strange so late at night. There wouldn’t be gaslights this far out in the countryside, so those had to be candles or lamps.
The driver pulled the coach up into the drive. Mikael walked faster, catching up, his breath steaming in the cold.
“I need to keep ’em walking, sir,” the driver called down. Cerradine waved him off, and the coach turned on the lawn, beginning a wide circle.
Mikael sensed Shironne. Just faintly, but he could feel her waking, rising into one of those periods when he could touch her. He felt her fear, her knowledge that something was terribly wrong.
“Mikael, are you ready?” Cerradine repeated, irritation spreading about him. “Mikael?”
He must not have responded the first time Cerradine spoke. He firmed his jaw, brushing away the fear. “I’m sorry, sir. Yes.”
Cerradine peered up the wide stair that led to the doors. “Let’s go, then.”
He followed the colonel up the steps. The officials here weren’t going to listen to the pleas of some Family boy like Mikael Lee, but they would hear out Colonel Jon Cerradine. I’ll just have to bite my tongue.
The doors were locked, but the colonel rang the bell as if he’d come to make a morning call. They waited on the step and the colonel pulled the bell chain again. In a hushed voice, Cerradine asked, “We do not leave here without her. That’s our plan, right?”
A month before, Shironne had been taken hostage by a man who saw her as a prize to be spirited off to his home over the Pedraisi border. Mikael had promised her then that he would come after her should anyone do so again. Now was the time to keep that promise. “Yes, sir.”
He felt Shironne’s fear increase abruptly, making him want to break through the door, to find her himself. No more polite waiting.
Just as he stepped back to kick the door in, it opened slightly, and a stocky Larossan man in a plain tan tunic and darker trousers blocked the opening. He actually had to look up to meet Mikael’s eyes, a rarity. “Do you have a patient?” he asked in a puzzled tone.
“No,” the colonel said, “we’ve come to take one.”
The man blinked. Obviously, he didn’t hear that request very often. “I . . . You can’t just take one.”
The colonel produced the letter. “This says I can.”
The man read it, cast a surprised glance at Cerradine, and then reread it. “I’ll have to fetch a warden.”
He slammed the door before Mikael could get a foot in it, leaving them standing out on the cold steps.
“I can feel her, sir,” Mikael said. “She’s awake, almost.”
Cerradine glanced at him in the entryway’s dim light. “Is she well?”
“Scared,” Mikael admitted.
“Are you all right, son?”
Mikael met Cerradine’s eyes, not knowing how to respond. He’d be much better once they had her away from here. He’d feel better if she were safe, away from these people, and away from whatever her captors intended for her.
The door opened again, revealing a tallish Larossan man in a burgundy velvet overrobe. His hair appeared rumpled, as if he’d been fetched from his bed. He drew himself up and attempted to appear dignified, the letter from the king in his hand. “Who exactly are you?”
A couple of inches taller than the man, Cerradine managed a far more impressive appearance. “Colonel Jon Cerradine, of the Army’s Intelligence and Investigation Office. The patient in question is in my employ, so the king felt I would be a fitting choice to retrieve her.”
“The patient was committed by her father. There could be no question of her mental state. We were not to release her until he came for her.” The man glanced at the writ. “What assurance can we have that this isn’t a forgery?”
“None at the moment,” Cerradine allowed. “But the young woman’s father has been dead for three months now. The king has requested her return directly into his custody.”
Fury and frustration flooded through Mikael’s senses, replacing the fear. An odd taste stung his mouth, foul and bitter. “They’re drugging her again, sir,” Mikael said. “I’m going to lose touch with her.”
The warden’s eye widened at Mikael’s announcement. “What is he talking about?”
Cerradine ignored the man’s question. Instead he asked Mikael, “Can you find her right now?”
“Yes, sir.” He was sure he could hold on to his sense of her for a few more minutes.
Cerradine drew a pistol out of his jacket and leveled it at the warden’s face. He shoved his way through the door, forcing the man to stumble back. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but we prefer not to wait.”
Mikael slipped in through the now-open doorway. In the midst of a grand foyer, an elegant staircase led away into the upper reaches of the manor. Doors shut off access in both directions, hiding the chambers of the first floor. He heard voices, calling through those shut doors, an odd unnerving murmur. Even in the dead of night, the denizens of the place were awake and restless.
Confusion dragged at his mind, as if dozens of people tried to speak to him at once. Mikael closed his eyes, trying hard to pick Shironne’s voice out of the tumult.
“Mikael,” the colonel’s voice cut through his concentration. He handed Mikael a ring of keys he’d evidently removed from the warden’s custody. “I’ll stay with our host and explain the situation. Find her.”
There, in an eastern ell of the house. Mikael could barely hear her failing whisper among the voices calling to him, but he fixed the direction in his mind. “Yes, sir.”