The whole process of getting the group together and making their way to the right part of town was taking too long. Adrian felt the unease boiling inside him, simmering just under the surface of his magic, and it was taking everything he had not to grab the child up and shake him until all the answers fell out. The boy had run from one random corner to another trying to find Barkley and he was hopelessly lost by the time he’d made it to the manor. Going backwards was a maze of circles and backtracking and tears.
“Barks,” Adrian growled, drawing the captain closer.
“These things take time,” Dia said with a wince as Ken turned towards the female guard and started crying into her pants. Dia put her hand down on Ken’s head and reminded them all, “He’s just a child. He’s just a child.”
“Repeating it is not helping,” Adrian seethed. He turned his glare towards Barkley. “None of this is helping. Why didn’t we get more details before letting him slip out?”
“He didn’t ‘slip out,’ you let him go home,” Barkley snorted. Dia was balancing Ken on a hip now, her sword angled away so the child didn’t accidentally slice up an ankle. Her partner was scowling and rearranging the awkward fold of the cloak as Ken pulled at the neck of the woman’s shirt. It would be cute if the two guards weren’t normally bickering like bratty siblings. They’d been assigned together for their talents, discretion, and the fact that Adrian knew both of them.
But the tiny tyke shedding tears like a fountain wasn’t helping his simmering panic.
Adrian turned his back on the scene and eyed the crowd they were drawing. They were attracting a lot of attention. Even though they’d dressed as normal guards under their cloaks they stood out. Their clothes were too clean, their backs too straight, and they had a bit too much purpose to be casual. Dia and Travers might pass with Ken on Dia’s hip, but Adrian and Barkley were too noticeable. “Is there anything we can do to make this go faster?” Adrian hissed. A trader caught his gaze and gasped at his recognizable face. There was only one person in the city who had red hair. Magic-touched made him extremely unique. Rumors were going to start in minutes, or less.
“The kid was lost. It’s a miracle he even made it to the manor.”
Adrian frowned. “So let’s make him un-lost.”
“That’s not a word.”
“I just made it a word,” Adrian snapped. “We know where you picked up Anubis, and we know somewhere near there is a church that runs a school. How many could there possibly be within a few streets of the services?”
Barkley pursed his lips for a moment, making his beard quiver. He knew the city as well as most, but he hadn’t lived there his whole life. “Travers?” he asked.
The male guard’s head snapped over to them, and he stopped fiddling with the look of Dia’s cloak over tiny feet to listen. “Yes sir?”
“Lower Ridge, dog services. Know any churches near there?” Barkley asked.
The man’s frown pulled down further as he thought. Dia bounced Ken once to help the added weight settle. The sniffling child was locked onto her and she couldn’t seem to dislodge him, so it seemed she was getting comfortable. “Little mister,” Travers asked turning to the pair, “do you go to a church?”
There was another sniffle. Dia looked like she might vomit. “I go to school,” he said. “With the sisters and Father Magus.”
“Father Magus. That’d be - east side of Lower Ridge, next to the Dancing Inns.”
“Dancing inns?” Adrian asked.
“Yeah, someone got the bright idea to put about four inns on the same street,” Travers said. “Floor level is a bar, upper levels are all rooms for rent. They got a theme going, thinking they could get more customers with some strange sideways logic. Didn’t make any sense. There’s - uh- Dancing Goat, Dancing Bard, Dancing Feather, and - I think - Dancing Blade?”
The child started bouncing a bit on Dia’s hip. “I know those!” he cried as the woman winced.
“Good,” Adrian said. He couldn’t keep the shortness from his tone. “Travers, lead us there. Then the kid can take us the rest of the way.”
Adrian tried to calm down as the group made faster progress towards a known destination. Dia had managed to get Ken on his feet again and was making sure he kept up. Adrian would feel bad about leaving the child to the lone female in the group if he wasn’t itching over Anubis.
They were almost to their destination when Ken made a sound of recognition and suddenly took off in a different direction. The four of them moved to follow automatically, letting the child lead them.
The building they entered was wood, and old, and halfway to falling apart. Adrian wanted to burn it down. His treasure wasn’t spending another night in this shabby excuse of a rat hole. They didn’t bother introducing themselves to anyone on the ground floor; they just followed the pint-sized terror upstairs. Ken stopped on the third flight and peeked out around the corner. “I feel like I’m about to fall through the floor,” Barkley muttered. “This can’t be safe.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not staying here,” Adrian whispered back. He crouched down to be on the same level as the boy. “Ken? Is this where your brother was?”
Ken nodded, and pointed down the hall. “He was here, but he’s not now. I don’t know where he is now.” There were tears in his eyes again. “I did bad?”
“No, sweetie,” Travers said, pushing forward to pull the child back. “You did just fine. But now we need a bit of help, okay? Can you tell us which room is yours, and which one belongs to - Terron?” He only gave a slight hesitation over the name.
Ken pointed down the hall. “Count two on the right, and that’s ours. Count two on the left, and that’s his.”
“Are there keys to the rooms?” Dia asked.
This confused the child, black eyes narrowing as he worked out what she meant. “Keys?” he asked after a few moments.
“Are the doors locked?” Barkley tried.
The small head tilted. “You mean like a treasure box? In the stories?”
“Exactly,” Travers gave a small grin of encouragement.
Ken shook his head. “No. Why would doors have that? We don’t have any treasure either. Except maybe Jay’s new shiny. He didn’t say where it came from, but Terron saw it and called him a whore. I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s a bad word,” Barkley said as he slowly moved out into the hall. Adrian followed him and saw the narrow passageway was empty. “It means a person who tries to make babies with multiple people for money.”
Adrian almost tripped over that very inaccurate (and inappropriate) explanation. “It is not.”
“Then what is it?” Ken asked.
Blue eyes looked down at the child and decided this conversation could be had later. Much later. When the kid was twenty. “You can ask your brother later. Barkley, Dia, take his room. Travers, you’re with me. Ken, I need you to stay in the stairway and be very, very quiet.” Terron was more likely to take Anubis into his own room and not back where Ken could walk in on them.
They entered slowly, and Adrian felt his anger flare. Flame was dangerous in an old wood building. He reminded himself of that, but it didn’t stop him from feeling like a caged wolf.
There were noises inside the room. Travers held his finger up in the sign for silence and waited for Adrian’s agreeing nod. They needed to know the situation and it looked like the other man had a plan. Very slowly, Travers opened the door a slight inch and slid a piece of paper from his pouch into the gap.
Adrian leaned against the wall and breathed while waiting for Traver’s magic - air magic - to bring him the conversation.
“I don’t know what to do anymore, Terron. You’re in deep shit, you know that right?”
“He came at me! He deserved every hit he got.”
“You slugged him in the face. It doesn’t matter who’s house he’s slithering into, you don’t hit the bed warmer in the face. It damages the goods.”
“He’ll heal.”
“You think I care about that? Ter, think about it. If you’re lucky he’s sold himself to a pimp to put the pipsqueak through school and you’ll have to pay a fine we can’t afford. If you’re not you just slugged some noble’s new plaything and even if they don’t find something to Judge you on, they can make life miserable for the both of us.”
“Nothin’ woulda happened if he just let me have a taste.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Oh, don’t pretend like you wouldn’t bite if he offered. That was why you were so sweet to the anklebiter, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe he’ll wake up and we can convince him he fell down the stairs or something.”
“Not likely,” Adrian growled, furious.
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