After what felt like days, the wind and rain began to slacken. The calm didn’t fool me. I remembered it from the storm at sea, but I took advantage of the lull and started running. I took the long way via the highway, rather than risking the wooded path by the marsh. Fallen branches littered this road as it was, and I tripped multiple times. The old pain in my ankle flared up.
The storm began to resume just as Wisteria Hollow came into sight. I picked up my speed and was relieved to see the trellis still standing. The wind shook it violently as I made my way up and fought against the storm shutters. At last, I got the window opened and tumbled inside.
Back in my room, I peeled off my soaked clothes and was astonished to see the wig was still in place. It was a testament to my hairpin skills. I bundled up in a flannel nightgown, took a few extra blankets from Adelaide’s bed, and then dove into mine, wondering if I’d ever feel warm again.
I’d pushed myself past exhaustion, and even the raging storm couldn’t keep me from falling asleep. But as I drifted off, one thought kept replaying through my head.
Tom had left me behind.
He’d left me behind, knowing I’d probably die. He’d left those sailors behind to die too. Elijah had gauged the ship’s explosion correctly, but Tom hadn’t wanted to risk his cargo.
No matter the profit at stake, I always look out for my own.
A loud, rapid pounding sound startled me out of sleep. I jerked upright, wondering if I’d dreamed it, and then it boomed out again. The front door. I glanced out the window and saw the lavender sky of sunrise.
More knocking.
I pulled on my robe and made my way to the top of the stairs. A couple of other sleepy girls followed me. Mistress Culpepper, fully dressed, hurried through the foyer and opened the door. An annoyed Jasper joined her.
I didn’t recognize the two men outside. They wore suits and long coats, but the fabric was cheap. They weren’t potential suitors.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” one said, his eyes wide. “But Mister Doyle wanted us to come right away.”
A few more curious girls emerged from their rooms, and Charles and the Grashond party entered the foyer.
“Mister Doyle?” asked Jasper. “Isn’t he in Hadisen?”
The man who’d spoken hesitated. “He is. But . . . your girl . . . Miss Wright. She’s not here, is she?”
“Miss Wright is supposed to be in Hadisen.” Jasper looked between the two men, and both averted their gazes. “Why would you come here asking for her?”
The second man jerked his hat off his head and clutched it to his chest. “I—I’m so sorry, sir. We lost her in the storm last night.”
CHAPTER 28
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN . . . LOST?”
Jasper’s voice was very low, very cold. The two men shuffled their feet, each seeming to hope the other would do the talking. The first one gave in and explained. “It happened when we were about to sail last night—you see, we were all on board, ready to go. Then that storm started blowing in. And your girl, she just . . . just . . .”
“She panicked, sir,” supplied the second man. “She said she wouldn’t do it. She was hysterical. Jumped overboard, waded to shore, and disappeared into the woods.”
“And nobody went after her?” exclaimed Jasper.
“We did, sir! But it was dark. We don’t know how she got away so fast. We searched as much as we could. Then the captain said they had to sail right then or they couldn’t go at all because of the weather. Mister Doyle left us behind to keep looking.”
“Mister Doyle left without her?” asked Charles. Even he was incredulous.
“He didn’t want to, sir, but he had to get to Hadisen on time. Important business today. He thought we’d be able to find her. He thought for sure she’d come back here.”
“When the storm got so bad that we couldn’t search anymore, we headed back to town ourselves,” added the other man. “But we stopped at any house along the way, in case she’d begged for shelter. No one saw her. We thought . . . hoped she’d be here.”
I didn’t realize my knees had buckled until Rosamunde’s arm slipped around me. “Easy, Mira,” she murmured.
I felt weightless. Black stars sparkled in my vision.
“Well, she’s not here!” yelled Jasper. “And you shouldn’t be here either! You shouldn’t have stopped looking. Doyle shouldn’t have left!”
The two men cringed. “We w-would’ve kept looking, sir,” one said. “Honest. But you—you saw the storm. We could barely find our way through it, and it wasn’t safe for us to be in the woods, not with trees blowing over.”
I grabbed the rail again and pulled myself up. “Do you think it was safe for her?” I screamed down. “Do you think she was able to find her way through it when you couldn’t?”
Everyone looked up at me in surprise, but no one chastised me. Jasper fixed his glare back on the men. “Well, it’s safe now, and you’re going to keep looking. Everyone is. Charles, we have to go to town and get the militia to start searching those woods.”
The household sprang into action, but I stayed still. I couldn’t move from that spot. I kept waiting to wake up, but it didn’t happen. This wasn’t some dream brought on by the exhaustion of last night’s peril. This was the same horror that kept happening over and over in my life: my loved ones, snatched away. Except Tamsin had been returned to me. She wasn’t supposed to leave again.
I sat down on the top step and said to no one in particular: “Why would Tamsin do that? She wanted to go with Warren more than anything.”
An answer came, unexpectedly, from Winnifred. I didn’t know her well, but she’d been on board the Gray Gull with Tamsin. “I can’t speak for her. She never seemed as afraid as the rest of us, but I have a hard time getting on any boat now. We took a river skiff part of the way from Grashond, and it just about killed me. If someone tried to put me on a boat during another storm, I might run too.”
I studied her. Before Adelaide had become the diamond, that title had been Winnifred’s. She was poised and beautiful and liked to flaunt her superiority, but her face was deadly earnest now. If she had been so affected, why not Tamsin?
Because Tamsin never once uttered a word about a fear of boats. When she’d say anything about their time in the northern colonies, Tamsin would mention her dislike of the weather, the rough lodging, the strange customs of the Heirs. But boats hadn’t made her list of complaints, not even when she’d referenced that river trip.
Rosamunde tried to tug me up again. “Mira, come back to your room. You should rest.”
“Rest? How can I rest?” I jumped to my feet. “My best friend is out there in the woods, cold and scared! Maybe injured!”
“You only assume your friend is alive.” The woman from Grashond stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at us with pale, cruel eyes. “She was a prideful, unrepentant girl who reached too far. She didn’t heed the first warning Uros sent, and now she’s been dealt her final punishment.”
Both Rosamunde and Winnifred had to stop me from running down the stairs. In the foyer, Gideon took his companion’s arm and steered her away. “Come along, Dinah.”
The fury she ignited smothered my shock and sorrow. I was wide awake now. My focus grew sharp and clear. I wouldn’t sit around and lose myself to my own despair. I would act. I would find Tamsin. She had survived one storm and could survive another.
Getting anyone to let me help was difficult, though. Jasper and Charles mobilized quickly but didn’t expect us girls to have any part of the search. The Glittering Court was supposed to go on as usual, though most of the day’s events had been cancelled in the wake of the storm. Other lost people had been caught unaware last night, and many places had suffered damage—especially the poorer areas, where they didn’t have the means to brace against these seasonal storms. Lowlands had flooded. A few fires had broken out,
and I even heard one brief mention of the Sun’s Promise. The militia and army were in high demand, but Jasper secured some of them for a search, along with other civilian volunteers.
“Let’s go,” Aiana told me around noon. I hadn’t seen her at all that day, but she must have either guessed or heard that I’d want to help—and that I’d been denied.
After having my offers of help constantly rejected, I didn’t even pause for a coat or cloak when she spoke. But as we headed for the front door, I asked, “Won’t I get in trouble? Won’t you?”
She walked along briskly, her expression grim. “Not enough to matter. There are too many other things going on.”
The coasting ships that ran between Cape Triumph and the far sides of Denham Bay left from a small quay on the city’s edge. It was south of the main commercial port I’d been in last night—the one that received the bulk of incoming and outgoing ocean vessels. The quay was easily accessible via a well-traveled dirt highway, but the land surrounding the road and wharves had seen little clearing and soon gave way to even denser forest to the west. I could understand how anyone wandering off the main road could easily get lost in those woods, especially in last night’s conditions.
And Warren’s men hadn’t been wrong about the dangers. I’d faced plenty myself last night. Now, in day’s full light, I could see fallen trees and all sorts of debris littering the road. The woods themselves were worse, barely traversable in some places.
The militia had put together a relatively organized search. They had a map of the area and had portioned it off, assigning teams to systematically scour each region. Aiana and I earned a few strange looks, but the militiaman in charge still went ahead and assigned us a team. It was too much to hope that I could have worn pants, but I hiked my skirts up to mid-calf and would deal with any of Mistress Culpepper’s wrath later.
It felt good to be doing something—far better than when I could only sit around helplessly after the Gray Gull’s disappearance. As the day went on, my spirits began to flag. I clung to my burning hope— insistence—that Tamsin was alive. But as we fought through overgrowth and fallen limbs, I began to imagine how easy it would be for someone to get crushed or trapped. I’d even heard that winds from these storms had been known to carry people off.
No one reported finding Tamsin’s body. No one reported finding any trace of her at all. And as dinnertime neared, many of the volunteers left with muttered apologies, and some of the militiamen were assigned to other duties. We weren’t the only ones who needed help.
“I’ve got to bring you back now,” Aiana told me. “We can’t push it much further, and there’s a dinner I’m chaperoning that’s still on for tonight.”
“But we haven’t found her,” I protested. “How can we go?”
“We’ve covered a huge amount of area, miss.” That was one of the organizers, and he showed us a map. Parts that had been searched and cleared were marked off, and that included a radius of a few miles around the quay.
I could feel my frustrated tears returning. “Maybe she made it a long way.”
“Possibly.” The militiaman didn’t sound very confident. “We’ll search some of those far areas. And a squad of bloody rangers even showed up. They’re going to spread farther out and recheck a few of the other spots.” He nodded toward two men heading off into the trees. They wore rough woodsmen’s attire, but military insignia stood out on the breasts of their coats.
“What are rangers doing here?” asked Aiana wonderingly.
“Dunno,” the militiaman said. “They just came here and said they were joining the hunt. Not my place to ask questions.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Part of the royal army, but they specialize in woodlands and other rough terrains,” Aiana said. “My understanding is they do a lot of scouting and ambushes in times of war.”
The militiaman nodded. “Did a lot in the campaigns against the Icori. They know every stick in Adoria and can track down anything. They’ll cover ground faster than we can and even work at night. If your girl’s out there, they’ll find her.”
My spirits lifted fractionally. I’d been certain darkness would put an end to the searching, but hope wasn’t lost yet. Maybe these rangers could do what the rest of us couldn’t.
If your girl’s out there, they’ll find her.
If. But how could she not be?
Other searchers left as we did, and I caught sight of Warren’s two men. I waved them over. “Will you be returning to Hadisen soon?” I asked.
“In the morning,” one said. “Mister Doyle will be anxious to hear what happened.”
If he’s so anxious, why didn’t he stay and search as well?
Instead, I asked, “Would you be able to bring a letter over when you go?”
“Of course, miss. Get it to the governor’s house by ten, and we’ll bring it with us.”
I spent the rest of the evening working on the letter. It took me three tries. How could I explain to Adelaide what had happened? How could I put the horror of this event into writing? But I had to. She had to hear it from me, not someone else. After stopping multiple times to wipe away tears, I finally finished and sealed the letter. When I went downstairs, I was surprised to see how late it was. Nearly everyone was asleep. I’d never even thought about dinner.
Mistress Culpepper kept a tray near the door for outgoing mail that a courier picked up twice a day. I dropped the letter in to go out with the early morning batch and felt a lump form in my throat when I thought about Adelaide reading my words. As I turned to go upstairs, I heard a voice on the other side of the foyer whisper, “Miss Viana?”
It was one of the hired bodyguards, Alan. They were all discouraged from interacting with us, and he glanced nervously around the empty foyer. “Yes?”
“I shouldn’t . . . I shouldn’t do this, but . . . well, there’s a man at the kitchen door asking for you. It’s . . . one of the royal rangers. I’m not sure what to do . . .”
The rangers must really have a fierce reputation if they could make Alan waver from keeping us away from strange men. “It’s okay,” I said, mystified. “Take me to him, and then disappear. I’ll be fine, and I won’t say anything about you if I’m caught.”
I had no idea why a ranger would ask for me specifically, but I quivered with excitement as I hurried to the kitchen. A ranger, here! I’d hoped all night a messenger would come to Jasper with miraculous news about Tamsin. Maybe it was coming to me directly.
The man at the door was unshaven and wore a fur-trimmed hat. His leather coat had seen rough times, but there was no mistaking the lion of Osfrid stitched into it in green and gold. He touched his brow in greeting but didn’t take off the hat.
“I’m sorry for the late hour, but I was told to talk to you discreetly. I’m Lieutenant Kenmore, fifth rangers’ division.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“We’ve been scouring the woods all night and finally just called it quits. And . . . I hate to say it, but we couldn’t find Miss Wright. Not even a trace.”
There went another piece of my heart.
Mira, you will never lose me. No matter what else happens or where we go in this world, I will always be there for you.
“Th-thank you for telling me,” I managed to say. “I’m sure it must have been difficult.”
“It was. And I’m sure the storm wiped away plenty, but I’m surprised we didn’t find anything. Not a scrap of dress or a blurred footprint. But we looked. We really did.”
“Will you continue searching tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “There isn’t much more to search. We doubled the field, and I can’t believe she got farther than that in the storm.”
“But then, what happened to her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’ll turn up in some impossible place. Maybe she made it back to town and
is hiding. Stranger things have happened. I wish we could do more, but we’ve got to report to Armsfield at first light. How we even ended up here is beyond me.”
I tried to push my despair aside for a moment. “Weren’t you dispatched here?”
He frowned. “Eh . . . yes. And no. Our commander got a requisition this morning asking us to assist in the search and then unofficially let you know the results.” Lieutenant Kenmore took a rumpled piece of paper out of his coat pocket. “Signed by Silas Garrett of the McGraws.”
Silas had told me himself the McGraws had a lot of power to throw around when they needed it. Most royal resources were obligated to help him if called.
“I’m surprised he’d do this for me,” I admitted.
Kenmore scratched at his beard as he collected his thoughts. “Well, I’m not sure he did.”
“You just said he did.”
“I said we got a requisition signed by him. But the thing is, I know Silas Garrett. Good guy. I also know that he’s not in Cape Triumph right now—which is where this was sent from. I checked the requisition against some other documents he’d signed. The signature’s a perfect match.”
“So . . . what are you saying?”
“That someone else sent this, pretending to be him. Someone who can do a damned good match of his signature—pardon my language.”
I held my expression and didn’t dare to even blink for fear of giving anything away. “If you knew it was a forgery, why didn’t you say anything?”
“We were nearby. Maybe it’s an abuse of resources, but I had no problem searching for that girl. I certainly wouldn’t get in trouble.” He held up the piece of paper. “But whoever wrote this? That’s another story.”