Part 13 (1/2)
”I hate to admit it, but she does have a point,” Eli said, frowning. He went into the cabin and came out a few moments later, carrying a few sticks and a leather sack. ”Just a second,” he muttered, laying his materials carefully on the dirt. He kneeled beside them and began to talk in a low, soft voice. Miranda tried to listen, but it was impossible to get close enough to hear what he was saying without making it obvious that that was what she was trying to do. At last, he scooped up the shortest stick and, with a few more words, bent the wood into a circle as easily as one would coil a length of rope.
Miranda watched in amazement as Eli laid the loop of wood and the two remaining straight sticks on top of the leather bag.
”When you're ready,” he said.
No sooner did the words leave his mouth than the bag sat up. With a lively wiggle, the leather sack undid its seam and began wrapping itself around the wood, forming a tube around the two longer sticks. When the leather had wrapped itself as far as it could go, it pulled itself tight, and the thread from the seam st.i.tched itself lengthwise up the edge of the long, leather tube. When it was finished, Eli held up a long, but otherwise perfectly normal-looking, spear quiver, the exact size and shape to hide the Heart of War.
Eli thanked the quiver several times before handing it to Josef, who slid his sword into the leather with his own nod of thanks.
”How did you...” Miranda pointed a limp finger at the quiver that had been three sticks and a bag less than a minute ago.
”Easy enough,” Eli said. ”I've had the bag for a while. He always had higher ambitions than luggage, so he was happy to help. The sticks were greenwood, and they love any chance to move around a bit before they dry brittle.” He walked over to Josef and examined his handiwork. ”It's too bad we don't have any spears to really complete the effect.”
He kept talking, but Miranda's mind was too dumbfounded to make sense of it. She was still processing the enormous list of impossible things she'd just watched him do like it was nothing, like he did this every day. Talking to trees was one thing, but to make something new, just by talking, it was unbelievable. Not even the great shaper wizards could craft spirits without opening their own souls at least a little. This was like the wood and leather had decided to do him a favor, just because he asked. If she'd tried to do something like that without getting one of her servants to act as a middleman, the wood would have ignored her completely. Yet it did what Eli asked joyfully, as if he were the one who needed impressing, and not the other way around. She watched Eli as he talked, his long hands moving in elegant circles, and, not for the first time, Miranda caught herself wondering just what he really was.
”Are you feeling all right?”
Miranda jumped. Eli was looking at her quizzically. ”You were staring and not listening.”
”It's nothing,” Miranda muttered, fighting down her blush at being caught. ”Let's just get going.”
Eli shrugged and turned to follow Josef as he led the way toward the castle. Nico joined them at the edge of the clearing, fading out of the woods like a ghost. Miranda jumped when she saw the girl, half because of her sudden appearance, and half because she hadn't noticed Nico was missing in the first place. Then she realized that Nico didn't have a disguise.
”Wait, doesn't she need-”
”No,” Nico said, without stopping or looking back.
Gin padded back over to her, his eyes on the girl. ”Watch yourself,” he growled, ”and don't forget what she is. Demons can't be trusted.”
”Duly noted,” Miranda said, and she gave his fur a final ruffle before jogging into the forest after Eli and the others.
Though they were only half a mile from the city, it took over an hour to reach the wall. This was mostly because Josef led them in a crazy zigzag through the brush. They crossed back over their path more than once, and he insisted on keeping to the tall undergrowth and away from the game trails, so that with every other step Miranda had to beat back a branch or untangle her skirt from a nettle bush. To make things worse, Eli stopped every five minutes or so to murmur quietly to this tree or that rock. She made it a point to listen covertly, but so far as she could tell, his little talks were of the most mundane kind, an exchange of pleasantries, maybe a comment about the weather, like a country wife chatting with her neighbors. As he talked, he would do them little favors, flicking an ant away or sc.r.a.ping some moss off the peak of a rock so it could feel the sunlight. That was strange enough, but the truly amazing thing was the way the sleepy spirits perked up as soon as he spoke to them. Miranda could almost feel them leaning forward, eager to tell him anything he wanted to know. Whatever brightness Gin had been talking about, it seemed to have a universal effect.
Miranda expected Josef to complain about the seemingly meaningless stops, but he accepted Eli's little chats with bored inertness, as if he had long since argued every point of the process five times over and couldn't be bothered to care anymore.
At last, they had reached the edge of the forest, where the king's deer park met the city's northern border. The trees ended a good twenty feet from the wall, leaving a broad swath of open ground carpeted with overgrown gra.s.s and saplings. Josef made them crouch in the scrubby bushes at the edge of the clearing as he scouted ahead. While they were waiting for the swordsman to come back, Miranda took the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity and she crept over to where Eli was crouched in the gra.s.s.
”Okay,” she whispered, ”I give up. Is the weather talk some kind of code?”
”What?” Eli's eyebrows shot up. ”No, no, I'm just building good will.”
Miranda gave him a confused look. ”Good will?”
”It's a harsh world,” Eli said. ”You never know when you'll need a little good will from the local countryside.”
Miranda was skeptical. A mossy rock didn't seem like much of an ally. ”So you weren't doing reconnaissance or anything?”
”Sorry, no,” Eli said, shaking his head.
Miranda frowned. ”But-”
”Quiet.”
Miranda and Eli both jumped at the sudden command. Josef was kneeling in the tall gra.s.s not a foot away from them, glaring icily. Miranda hadn't even heard his approach.
”We move now,” he said.
”Wha-” Before Miranda could even form her question, Josef took off for the city wall at a dead run, Nico and Eli right on his heels. Miranda took a deep breath and charged after them, covering the s.p.a.ce of open ground between the trees and the city wall faster than she had ever moved in her life. She slammed into the wall and dropped to a crouch just in time. No sooner had she reached the stones than a small troop of guards appeared out of the woods only a few feet from where they'd been hiding just moments before.
Miranda clapped her hands over her mouth as the soldiers fanned out. They patrolled the edge of the forest in a wide sweep, poking their short spears into the underbrush. Finding nothing, the leader waved his hand, and the unit faded back into the woods. Only when the sound of their boots had died to a whisper did Miranda release the breath she'd been holding.
”That was lucky,” she said.
”Luck's got nothing to do with it,” Josef said in a low voice, peering at her through the gra.s.s. ”Those patrols have been sweeping the area all day. If it wasn't for the fact that the forest doesn't want them to find us, all the luck in the world wouldn't have gotten us this far.”
Miranda started, and Eli winked at her from his hiding place farther down the wall.
Josef gave Miranda a look of grudging approval. ”Nice sprint, by the way.”
”Thanks,” she muttered. ”What now?”
”Now we have to find that panel,” Josef said, turning to the wall. ”It should be close.”
”It's here.” Nico's quiet voice made Miranda jump. Nico was crouched on Josef's right, one small white finger sticking out of her voluminous sleeve to point at the iron square, barely larger than a laundry chute, set into the wall beside her.
”What is it?” Miranda asked, leaning in for a better look.
”A bolt hole,” Eli said, crawling over to crouch beside Nico, ”in case the royalty need to make a fast exit. Very common in cities like this.” He gave the iron door an experimental push, but it didn't so much as rattle. He tried again, harder this time, but he might as well have been pus.h.i.+ng the wall itself. ”Hmm.” He frowned. ”This one seems to be locked.”
Miranda gave him a puzzled look. ”Isn't this how you got in last time?”
”Of course not,” Eli said, looking insulted. ”First rule of thievery, never use the same entrance twice.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. ”How many 'first rules' of thievery do you have?”
”When one mistake can mean your head on a pike, every rule's a first rule,” Eli said cheerfully.
The thief ran his long fingers along the door's edge, which was set flush against the stone. Miranda watched with growing uncertainty. There wasn't even a keyhole, so far as she could see. When he had tapped every inch of the metal, Eli leaned back, brow knit in thought.
”Can't you just talk it open?” Miranda asked, moving a little closer. ”Like you did with the prison door?”
”I could,” Eli said, ”but-” He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small leather case, monogrammed in gold with an ornate capital M M-”sometimes a simpler solution suffices.”
He flipped the case open, revealing a startling selection of lock picks. Carefully selecting the longest and thinnest, he leaned down until his nose brushed the door. He held out his hand, and, without further prompting, Josef handed him a knife. Eli expertly wedged the slender blade into the hair-thin crack between the iron and the stone. Then, using the blade as a lever, he carefully lifted the door out of its niche. It opened just a fraction before sticking again with a soft clang.
”Lever and padlock,” Eli muttered, switching out the thin lock pick for a slightly longer one with a crooked head. ”Josef, if you would.”