Free Window Wall by Melanie Rawn Page B

as always, Hadden replied, “If you’ve any questions or suchlike for my son, it will have to wait. He’s still recovering from the accident.”
    “Accident,” muttered the Gnome.
    Cade pushed past Mieka out of the wagon and descended to the cobbles. “What’s the difficulty here?” he asked, drawing himself up to his full six-foot-four.
    “Inquisitors Office?” Mishia said suddenly. “Why would the Inquisitors Office be interested in—?”
    “Purely a formality, I’d wager,” Hadden contributed.
    “If you’re not here for any of the members of Touchstone,” said Mishia, “then would you please move your hack so they can get started for Seekhaven? They’re due at Trials, you know.”
    Yazz sat forward on his bench and rumbled, “Move!”
    All this while there was frantic movement by the front door, partially screened by the crowd of family. Mieka hopped up to the top step of the wagon and peered over everyone’s heads just in time to see Blye and Jed helping Jez inside. The door closed behind them. Mieka located the bronze-gold head of his wife and jumped down to the cobbles. He dug the wadded cloth from his pocket, slithering between Cade and Crisiant and Kazie and Petrinka, and pressed the wrapped glass into her hand.
    “Give this to Blye—she’ll know what it is,” he said urgently.
    “Miek!” Yazz thundered. “Wagon!
Now!
”
    “Why?” she asked. “What is it?”
    “Just give it to Blye. That’s me darlin’ girl.” He kissed her hard on the lips and wove back through the crowd to the wagon.
    The hack driver had obligingly moved his vehicle. Mieka made a leap for the steps. Cade caught his hand and hauled him up as the wagon jerked forward.
    “What was all that about?” Cade got the steps folded inside and shut the wagon door. “What was that you gave her?”
    Mieka flopped into one of the chairs and looked up at Cade. “Something Jinsie found in the rubble. She gave it to me that night, remember? It’s the crimp end of a withie. One of Splithook’s.”
    Cade understood at once. “You mean one of Black Lightning’s.”
    Rafe turned from the window where he was getting his last look at his wife and son. “If they’ve found any glass—or if someone was obviously injured by flying glass—”
    “Blye’s a glasscrafter,” Jeska interrupted. “And they’ll say it’s hers.”
    “No glass in the building yet,” Cade argued. “She was there to take the final measurements. Mieka, are you sure it’s identifiable as Master Splithook’s work?”
    “His hallmark’s there for anyone to see.”
    “But not to prove where Jinsie found it,” Rafe said. “And before you have a seizure, Cade, and order Yazz to turn around so we can go back, consider this: If nobody can find anything wrong with Jed and Jez’s work, they’ll find something wrong with their work anyway.” When Mieka opened his mouth to protest, Rafe pointed a long finger at him. “It can’t be an accident, not if a withie was used the way a withie isn’t s’posed to be used—the way
we
use them, or near to it, every time we shatter one at the end of a show. So if it’s not an accident, and no other cause can be found—and
won’t
be found, because there’s a withie involved—then it’ll have to be the Windthistle Brothers’ fault.”
    Cade was nodding slowly. “Sheer chance that Jinsie found it. Any other piece of glass—there’s a specific formula for a withie, they all use it by law, so there’s no identifying whose it was but for the crimp end.”
    “And it’s not just Black Lightning uses Splithook’s work,” Jeska said. “Some of the newer groups—”
    “But the point,” Cade interrupted, “is that to use a withie like that requires a Wizard or an Elf. And only theater groups use withies, and theater people are mainly Wizard or Elf, no matter what else may be rattling around in their backgrounds.”
    “And the person who dreamed up using a withie like that was your very own