Free The Shifter by Janice Hardy Page A

they looked nervous that I asked.”
    The door banged open and several mentors dashed out. Their dark heads swiveled back and forth over the courtyard. Enzie gasped and squeezed my hand tighter.
    “I don’t believe them, Nya, not anymore. She vanished, she and the others.” She glanced at the mentors again. “You’d better vanish too!”

FIVE
    “ W ait!” I called after Enzie, but she was already running away, hiding herself in the mass of green with the other wards. Two mentors herded them up while one cut through toward me. He wasn’t one of the old ones I could outrun. I limped for the safety of the sidewalk crowd, weaving between fat refugees and skinny day workers. I tripped over a waddling two-year-old and nearly splatted on my face.
    “Watch it, ’Veg!” the mother snapped.
    “Sorry!” What had I done? The fancy men were supposed to be after me , not Tali. How could they have snatched her from the League? The League had real guards with solid Baseeri steel weapons to protect it. Folks couldn’t just vanish!
    Vada’s gone…. The fourth apprentice to vanish this week….
    I stumbled again, but caught myself on a farmer with a basket of bananas under one arm. He glared and shook me off.
    Apprentices were disappearing from the League. Tali made five. For the love of Saint Saea, how could five apprentices go missing in one week and no one notice? Breath caught in my throat, and I ducked behind a pillar past the edge of the League’s fence, out of sight from a pair of soldiers. Maybe the Elders had noticed and couldn’t do anything about it. The Duke could keep them quiet if he wanted to. Was he stealing Geveg’s apprentices and sending them to Verlatta?
    Oh, Tali!
    I risked a look back. The mentor was shooing the last of the wards inside the League.
    My chest tightened and I understood how a reed rat felt, squeezed in a python’s coils. All my skin flashed hot, then cold. It was my fault. I’d led the fancy man right to Tali. He must have followed her back from the gardens, snatched her before she got to the League. He was even at the League yesterday morning! Probably picking his targets, finding apprentices who would be easy to kidnap.
    “Where are you?” I muttered, staggering away from the fence. He had to be close—he’d been close since yesterday, watching me.
    I stood in the middle of the bridge between the League and the basic-goods shops, turning a slow circle and scanning the edges of bushes and buildings. So what if the soldiers saw me? They weren’t the ones kidnapping Takers—those fancy men were, and when I got my hands on one, I’d make him tell me where Tali was or else—and I had enough pain left to make that “or else” something to reckon with.
    No yellow or green silk flashed in the bushes.
    Or at the corner of any building.
    Or anywhere that I could see. I climbed onto the wall of a bridge. Gray water rushed under me, while folks with nervous stares hurried past me. One of the soldiers glanced my way, nudged his partner, and pointed. My muscles gave out, and I sagged to the damp stone road. Thankfully, the soldier looked away.
    “Oh, Tali.” I had to find her, and my best chance to do that was to find a fancy man. It all made too much sense to be a coincidence. He had to be a tracker.
    Aylin! Maybe she’d seen him again. All the Baseeri went to the show house. They were the only ones left who could afford it.
    I jumped down. My thigh flared hot, shooting needles down to my toes and up into my belly. I paused, letting the pain subside, then limped my way to the show house.
    Aylin was there, dressed in blue with long feathers dangling off her skirt and sleeves. Her hair was piled on her head, with a few long strands left free to blow in the wind as she twirled and danced.
    She smiled as I approached. “Morning.”
    “Tali’s missing.” Tears blinded me, and I wiped them away.
    “What happened?”
    “I don’t know. I went to see her, but she wasn’t there. Enzie