“Should you ask him first?” I asked. “Showing up with fifteen people is a lot to put on a person on short notice.” And I didn’t want to abandon the town house until we knew we had somewhere to go.
“Might not be a bad idea. I haven’t spoken to him since we went into hiding. He may have lost the place by now.”
“How fast can you get there and back?” We’d need time to search the town house for as many valuables as we could carry anyway.
“A day or two. He’s not far from the marsh docks.”
Danello’s little sister, Halima, dashed over and hugged him.
“I won’t be gone long, don’t you worry,” his father began, then looked at Danello. “You OK to watch them?” Something in his tone made me think he meant more than just the family.
Danello nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on everyone.”
“Hold them safe. I’ll be home tomorrow night.”
“Be careful, Da.”
“I will.” He sounded strong but I caught the worry in his eyes.
Bahari glared at me like I was purposely sending his father away. Jovan nodded stoically as ever, while Halima just looked scared. Danello’s father hugged his family one more time, then went upstairs to pack a bag.
“What about the Takers?” Tali asked after a minute. “They’ll come with us.”
She shook her head. “I mean the ones we haven’t found yet. There are dozens more out there at least.”
“Tali, I can’t save everyone.”
“I know, but—”
“If we stay here, we risk everyone else getting caught.”
“Maybe we can get the word out that we’re leaving so more can come find us?”
“Someone besides the Takers will find out. The soldiers are actively looking for me now.”
She sighed and nodded. “I was just hoping to find a few more missing friends.”
“Me too. Maybe we’ll find some before we have to leave.” I turned to the group gathered on the stairs. “Everyone, go to your rooms and start searching for anything of value. Smaller is better since we’ll have to carry it, but if it’ll sell, grab it.”
“Who’s gonna sell it?” asked one of the less-trusting Takers we’d found. I couldn’t blame him. League guards had broken into his family’s home in the middle of the night looking for him. He’d barely gotten away.
“We’ll choose folks to go to the alley market first thing in the morning. If a bunch of us hit the vendors, it won’t be as obvious we’re selling off a lot at once and they won’t lower the prices on us. After, we’ll split up the oppas and make sure everyone has enough in case we get separated.”
This seemed to make everyone happy.
“A friend who repairs boats has been helping us smuggle people off the isle. He usually has several at a time he’s working on, so he’ll have enough space to get us all to the mainland.” Risky to use Barnikoff again if there was a chance he was being watched, but we could trust him. He had a good heart and no love for the Duke. “With a little luck, we’ll be able to leave tomorrow night soon as Danello’s father returns.”
Or a lot of luck. It wasn’t nearly as easy to get off the isle as I was making it out to be, but they didn’t need anything more to worry them.
“What happens if this farmer doesn’t want us there?” another Taker asked.
“We’ll find another farm. Let’s not worry about that right now. Once we get out of the city, we’ll have more time to figure out where to go without soldiers breathing down our necks.”
Aylin kept sneaking me looks, and she’d have her own set of questions as soon as she got me alone. So would Tali, no doubt.
The others though? A few looked unsure about this plan, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they grabbed their share of the money and ran. And Saints help me, a few less people to worry about suited me just fine.
But what if we weren’t welcome anywhere? Refugees from the Duke’s siege of Verlatta couldn’t be fleeing just to Geveg. The farms might be flooded with them. We might get there only to find there was no room for us.
Or worse, we might find the Duke cared about sweet potatoes after all and there was nowhere to run to.
“Can we keep any of this for ourselves?” Tali asked as we searched through the drawers in Zertanik’s study. She dangled a string of rose-coloured beads from her fingers.
“We need to sell as much as we can. We don’t know who we’ll have to bribe or how long it’ll take us to find work once we’re settled.”
“What if we can’t find a place?”
“We will. Hand me that knife, would you? This drawer is locked.”
Tali slipped the beads over her head and passed me the knife. “Half the drawers and cabinets in this place are locked. Zertanik didn’t trust people, did he?”
I jammed the knife into the lock. “He was a thief.”
“I guess that would do it.”
The lock popped and I pulled the drawer out. Stacked on the bottom were pages written in neat glyphs, like Papa used to write.
Those are funny letters, Papa. What do they do?
They help me teach the pynvium to hold pain, Nya-Pie.
Pynvium talks to you?
No, but it listens.
“Nya?” Tali touched my arm and I dropped the pages. They fluttered to the carpet. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just… nothing.” I grabbed for the pages before she saw them, but she snatched one first.
“Papa used to write like this.”
“I know.”
“Enchanter’s glyphs.”
It surprised me she even remembered. She’d been seven when he died, and he hadn’t done much enchanting in the year before that. Like everyone else in Geveg, he’d been busy fighting a losing war.
She stared at the pages, her eyes watering, then wiped away the tears. “Are they worth anything?”
“I don’t know. Depends on the enchantment, I guess.”
“They’re easy to carry, so we should try to sell them.” She collected the pages from the floor and smoothed them. “Are there more?”
“I didn’t look.”
She rooted around in the drawer and pulled out a thin pynvium plate the size of a book. Glyphs were carved into the metal with the same neat handwriting as the papers. Shiverfeet raced down my spine.
“Ooo, pretty.” She ran her fingers across the glyphs. “This is worth something for the pynvium alone. Look how blue the metal is. It has to be pure.” She handed it to me.
I jerked away. “That’s OK.”
“What’s wrong?” She stared at me funny, then looked at the pynvium. “It won’t bite.”
“I…” Didn’t want to touch it. Didn’t even want to be in the same room with it, and I couldn’t say why. “Put it back.”
“Put it back? Do you know how much this is worth?”
With the pynvium shortage going on, probably more than anything else in the town house.