"Send a Scout Master out there. I want to know about the crossbowman."
"Yes, m'lord."
Veisan handed him a brush, and he dragged it through his wet hair.
"Lagar also reported an attack by a feline of unusual size."
He looked at her.
"There are two attacks to date. The first was a sentry on duty. The second was a man returning from the settlement with purchases. In both cases the animal took the weapons belonging to its victims. Lagar Sheerile estimates it to be about four yards long and seven hundred pounds heavy. The circumference of the paw prints - "
"Back up. The bit about the weapons."
"In both cases the animal took the weapons belonging to its victims." Veisan repeated the sentence exactly, reproducing the same intonation and pauses she had used the first time.
"Does Lagar have an opinion as to why it's attacking his men?"
"No, m'lord."
Odd. Spider dismissed the rest of it with a flick of his fingers. "Any news of Embelys and Vur?"
"They are still in hiding at the perimeter of Mar territory."
He didn't really expect them to capture Cerise. But one could always hope . . . Spider ran his hand across his cheek. Stubble. He'd have to shave.
Veisan produced a shaving kit, the soap already whipped into thick foam. He took it.
"What else?"
"John reports that the subject has regained consciousness. He says that in two days she will either be ready for instruction or her brains will ooze out of her ears, m'lord."
"I take it he's still frustrated with the rushed schedule."
"I believe so."
Prima donna. "He'll get over it."
"And if he doesn't, m'lord?"
"Then you can have him. Assuming you can limit yourself to one death."
Veisan licked her lips nervously. "I'll try. It's been . . . a long time."
He put his hand on her shoulder, feeling steel cables of muscle tense under his fingers. "I understand, Gabrielle. I apologize for keeping you idle."
She sniffled and a slow purple blush spread through her red skin. Like all agents, she had taken a different name when joining the Hand. He only used her birth name on special occasions. Spider made it a point to know the birth names of all agents under his command. Funny how a single word could have a devastating effect.
"Thank you, m'lord."
Spider strode to the manor, Veisan following at his heels.
"My lord?"
"Yes?"
"What's in that diary?"
He grinned at her. "A weapon, Veisan. A means to win the war."
"But we're not at war."
He shook his head. "When we obtain the diary, we will be."
007
WILLIAM raised his head from the rifle he'd finished cleaning and handed it to Gaston. Murid, Cerise's aunt with the sniper eyes, had asked for his help. He'd spent the last three hours cleaning the rifles and checking the crossbows with her at the range behind the house.
Murid didn't say more than two words to him, which suited him just fine, but she watched him. She wasn't too subtle about it, and the constant scrutiny put him in a foul mood. At first William had guessed she was keeping him away from Cerise, but now he decided she had something else in mind.
Murid had empty eyes, the kind of eyes a man got after he'd been through some rough shit and redlined. Lost his brakes, lost himself. It made her unpredictable, and so William didn't try to guess what she would do. He simply waited for the moment she would do it and prepared to react.
Murid test-fired a crossbow. The bolt bit into the target. She was good. Not as good as he, but then he was a changeling and his coordination was better. If she'd turned and fired at him instead, he wouldn't have been surprised.
His ears caught the sound of light steps coming. He glanced back. Lark, running from the house, Wasp in her hand. She saw him looking and slowed down, a scowl on her face. Upset at being caught. She sauntered over and stood on his left next to Gaston.
William picked up the last crossbow from his stack, raised it, and fired without aiming, purely on muscle memory. The bolt sliced into his target next to the other ten or so he'd put into the bull's-eye in the past hour.
Lark snapped her crossbow, imitating him, and fired. The bolt went wide.
"It won't work," Gaston told her with an expression of complete gloom on his face. "I've been trying to shoot like he does for the last hour."
He'd been picking up the bolts out of the grass for the last hour, too, William reflected. The kid shot well enough. Good hand-to-eye coordination, good perception. With proper training, he would be an excellent shot.
Lark jerked her crossbow up, fired another bolt, and missed. "How come you can do it?"
"Practice," William said. That and a changeling's reflexes. "I've been a soldier for a long time. I can't flash, so I had to use the crossbows a lot."
Lark hesitated. "I can flash."
"Show me."
She grasped a bolt in her fist. Pale lightning sparked from her eyes down to her hand, clutched the bolt, and vanished. Another white flasher. Figured. Flash usually ran in the family.
"Nice!" he told her.
Lark offered him a narrow smile. It was there and gone almost as fast as her flash, but he saw it.
William turned to Gaston. "You?"
"None of the thoas can flash." The boy shook his head, sending his black mane flying. The damn hair reached nearly to his waist. On the one hand, it was too long. If you grabbed the hair, you could control the kid's head in a fight. On the other hand, the hair hid his face. He looked human enough in passing, but he'd fail close scrutiny. His jaw was too heavy, his eyes were too deep set under the wide black eyebrows, and his irises luminesced with pale silver when they caught the light.
Still, the kid needed a shock to the system. Proof that he was done with his family. A rite of passage. William pulled a knife from the sheath. "Cut it."
Gaston's eyebrows crept up.
"Cut the hair."
Gaston glanced at him, glanced at the knife, and took the blade, his teeth clenched. He grasped a strand of hair in his hand and sawed at it with the blade. The black strands fell on the ground.
Lark crouched and picked them up. "It's not good to leave the hair out," she said quietly. "Someone could curse you with it. I'll burn it for you."
"Thanks." Gaston grabbed another handful of his hair and sliced it off.
Murid opened her mouth.
Here it is. William tensed.
"It's almost time for lunch."
He nodded.