The top of a wooden carriage with gilded corners could be seen in the distance, and before it, the two sets of cream-colored ears.
“Come on.” Throat dry, she adjusted her grip on Emrys and managed to at least tug them further into the shadows.
The royal carriage drew near, and hushed whispers spread throughout the crowd. As they rounded the cobblestone road, Lilac saw two more carriages following the first.
“His Grace,” those around her were whispering. “Why is His Grace here?”
It was her father.
Garin finally shoved Emrys in. Anyone watching them would have seenhim do so with the inhuman strength of a single hand, but no one seemed to notice.
The moment he hit the carriage floor, it lurched forward, the open door nearly toppling her and Garin. Adelaide’s and Giles’s surprised cheers could be heard at the front. The horses moved slowly through the crowd, the glowing insect resuming its loops through the air as if nothing had happened.
They jogged to catch up with it; Garin gripped her hand and pulled her through the open door with him. They both landed in the car, her on top of him and partially Emrys, who was still sprawled on his side. He reeked of onions and ale, and was in desperate need of a scalding bath. She groaned and shoved herself off, pulling herself onto the seat, dragging the warlock with her.
“Whathappenedto him?”
Garin swore from the bench opposite, reaching past to slam the door shut. “I don’t know. Lori said he’d stopped showing up and never re-rented about a week ago. I’m not sure if there was a fight or something that upset him while I was at the castle.” A flash of regret crossed his face, and he wiped it away with a pass of his hand.
Gently, he lifted Emrys off of Lilac’s lap and placed him against the wall on his bench, where he continued snoring, snuggling into his oversized robes.
Lilac’s ears were ringing as the top of Adelaide’s head popped up in the front window.
“Well? Was your support vampire not enough?” Adelaide growled. “Did you need an elderly chaperone?”
“Your tracking spell led us to him, the carriage only began to move once he was in it.Go,” she urged. “Faster.”
Giles prompted the horses, and their carriage increased its speed, eliciting shouts and jeers from the morning crowd.
Why was Henri there? He said there’d be an investigation at the Le Tallec manor, but he’d never mentioned attending. Did he come to ensure she was in town?
To preemptively announce her intent to marry?
“He’s made an announcement,” Garin said, concentrating. “His crier is shouting out the window.”
“What is he saying?”
“They’re passing through.” He paused to listen, the smuggest smile she’d ever seen on him growing wider by the second. “They’re coming for Sinclair’s arrest.”
They rodeout of town in silence. According to Garin, who continued his surveillance of Henri’s announcement out the window of their own carriage, Sinclair’s arrest was the only thing her father’s town crier had divulged to the public.
They exited the last of Paimpont through the northern path, finally steering right at Miss Quillrose’s Tea and Spice Emporium, which was much further from the Le Tallec estate than the southern path that hugged the property. As soon as they were out of town, Adelaide demanded that Giles halt the carriage at her cottage. Garin teased that she wouldn’t get out of the journey that easily, and at the witch's stony silence, Lilac realized that was exactly what Adelaide wanted. Garin apparently understood the same and told her that was an idiotic idea, Lilac adding that she was the one who wanted to find the market to begin with, when Adelaide promptly shut the communication window.
This did little to stop the argument.
They were silenced when Giles whoaed the horses as they approached her cottage, and the animals, ensnared once more by the fluttering insect, made no movement to do so whatsoever. With a final goad from Garin about jumping from the carriage, the matter was settled—Adelaide would be accompanying them to find the Midraal Market. The witch spent several minutes snarling on about how ludicrous it was the horses wouldn’t halt for her when it washertracking spell directing them.
Garin sat across from Lilac, supporting Emrys’s bobbing head on his shoulder. When he began to stir, he tipped the warlock’s head back and made him sip from a wooden flask he’d acquired at the bar to help him sober. He’d taken a few sips before pushing the flask away and retreating back into his cloak once more. Parts of the concoction, which contained oats and eggs, had dribbled out and dried in his beard, which was so long itcoiled over Lilac’s feet. It didn’t take long as the morning grew warmer to notice the carriage reeked of sweat, ale, and maybe some kind of cheese. Out of both disgust and guilt, Lilac reached down and set the mound of Emrys’s hair onto his lap so it at least wasn’t touching the floor. After a bump on the road, it slid off his legs again, and a hand darted out. Garin tied the beard into a loose knot, which hung effectively above Emrys’s lap as he drifted back off to sleep.
From Lilac’s nervous peeks through the curtains, for which Garin cursed everyone, it seemed they would venture into the Low Forest. But before they broke into the dense thicket of winding tree trunks and twisting roads, the horses took a sharp turn to the right, jostling everyone as the carriage teetered one way, then the other. Garin’s arm shot out across the aisle to keep her from being flung against the wall, but his hands were off her as soon as they were righted.
Garin frowned, and when he lifted the curtain on their right, she saw they rode along an iron gate. Within it was a slightly overgrown garden. They were behind the Le Tallec estate, sandwiched between it and the edge of the Low Forest.
The curtain was dropped once more, and she forced her thoughts to her father and the scene they’d left in Paimpont. Sinclair would finally be brought to her dungeon, where he belonged, ruined by fire or not. The blacksmiths had hammered at least a couple of the four damaged cells brand new, as far as she was aware. He could sit in the smallest cell and await the fate she decided for him—the gallows or guillotine. Which one depended on how much she felt like making him suffer.
Lilac absentmindedly rubbed at the scar on her leg, thankful for the belt from Garin that now held her dagger. Her father had publicly covered for her. He didn’t have someone else do it or leave room for speculation; he had done it himself. For her. Sinclair was guilty to the public, the Le Tallec family soon to be found guilty for treason. There was no mention of a trial or her audience, no need to show her scar to a jury of people who might not have believed her otherwise.
Garin’s voice broke into her musings, though he seemed to be talking to himself as he glanced outside. “How odd that we’re headed south, away from the path that would allow the market to sell to the Fair Folk.” Heglared out the front window, retreating into his thoughts again. His chest moved noticeably, as if he were focusing on controlling his breathing.
