Free Fallen Blade 04 - Blade Reforged by Kelly McCullough Page A

calves resting on the chair across from her, though her well-worn
     boots hung over the edge so as not to get mud on the seat. An oversized pack lay on
     the planks beneath her knees with Bontrang perched atop it. She had a steaming cup
     of tea in her right hand and her left resting on the hilt of a utilitarian sword.
     All in all, she looked more right and happy than I had seen her at any time since
     she took her sister’s coronet.
    When she saw me approaching, she nodded and smiled, dropping her feet off the chair.
     “I wasn’t sure if you’d make it, but I ordered you a cup of tepid slop anyway. Now
     that you’ve arrived I’m sure they’ll eventually deliver it.”
    “I didn’t get the paper.” There was no point in holding the worst news back from Maylien.
    She sighed. “I’m not surprised, really.”
    “I followed your uncle and the Lord Justicer to see whether they’d recovered them.”
    “And?”
    I quickly described what I’d witnessed. “If either of them had it, they pretended
     not to, though I can’t see why they’d have done so.”
    Maylien snorted. “At court lying is like breathing. The one only stops when the other
     does. But I don’t see any gain in it for either of them here.”
    The owner of the teahouse arrived then and rather unceremoniously dropped a chipped
     pottery cup on the table in front of me. The water was hot and the brown bits on the
     bottom suggested that he’d dumped a few ancient and twisted tea leaves into it. That
     or rat droppings. It was hard to tell the difference from the flavor, but I didn’t
     like tea anyway, so it was kind of a wash.
    While the two of us were dealing with the tea, Maylien tipped Bontrang off her pack
     and undid some straps that bound what I had taken to be a fold in the canvas but was
     instead a separate piece. Bontrang squawked and flew up to Maylien’s shoulder as she
     passed what turned out to be a second, smaller pack to me. I undid the flap and glanced
     in at a tangle of wool and silk and leather straps all tumbled together—my gear, including
     the Blade’s garb that her seamstress had made for me.
    “I didn’t have time to pack it properly,” she said, “but I thought you’d want it.
     This, too.” She picked up an oblong bundle that had been hidden under the pack until
     now. “Your swords and the longer knives,” she said very quietly.
    “Thank you.”
    “I knew you’d need them.” The door banged shut as the owner vanished into the depths
     of the tea shop, and Maylien let out a long breath. “If we don’t have the paper and
     they don’t have it, where do you think it went?”
    I shrugged, there were too many options. “It could easily have been destroyed with
     the way the Elite were throwing around magic there at the beginning, though I’d have
     expected to see some remnants if that were the case. Or itmight have gotten buried in the wreckage of the chairs. One of the nobles could have
     grabbed it, or that rogue Blade if the document stayed on the table when the duchess
     fell. It was within easy reach of the king’s seat and the shadow trail was all over
     there.”
    “Devin?” Maylien asked the question with a deceptive sort of calm.
    I winced. Not all that long ago she had spent some time with Devin, my onetime best
     friend who had since turned into an enemy and traitor to our goddess. He’d chained
     her up and threatened her familiar’s life as a way to keep her from using her magic
     to escape. That was back when Devin had been working to put Maylien’s sister on Thauvik’s
     throne—rather ironic considering present events. I suspected that Maylien hated him
     even more than I did.
    I shook my head. “No, even I’d have recognized
that
shadow trail, and Triss didn’t know who this was. One of the lesser masters of the
     previous generation, probably. Someone who either never had the opportunity to distinguish
     themselves, or simply didn’t have the talent.”
    “I’m not sure