“That won’t help Illia,” Seregil said, clasping his friend’s shoulders. “We have to find out how they’re doing this, and-please, Illior-if there’s a way to undo it.”
“If?” Kari clutched Elsbet’s arm for support.
“I’m sorry, Kari, but it’s best to be honest with ourselves. Alec and I are going to burgle the Basket Street theater tonight. It would help if we knew what we were looking for, though.”
“I think I know,” Elsbet said softly. “The little silver filigree ring you gave her for her last birthday-I noticed it was gone the next day and scolded her for it. She said-” Tears slipped down her wan cheeks. “She said all the fine ladies were giving him things and begged me not to tell Mother or you.”
“But if he’s had it all this time, why hasn’t Illia fallen sick sooner?” asked Kari.
“We won’t know that until we find out what he does with the things he’s given,” Alec replied.
“I’m going with you,” said Micum.
“Can we count on you not to do anything rash?” asked Seregil. “With it being your daughter and all?”
“Will your hearts be any less broken than mine if she dies? Don’t worry. There’ll be no killing until I’ve gotten out of them how to save my girl.”
“Good, then we’ll start at Basket Street.”
“Why there?” asked Kari.
“We’ve seen Atre over that way since he bought the Crane. There didn’t seem to be any reason for it.”
“What about Thero?” asked Alec. “We’re looking for something magical and we don’t have much time. We should bring him with us, like a scent hound.”
“Don’t let him hear you call him that.” Seregil glanced out the window, gauging the time. “You two go and scout out Basket Street. I’ll meet you there in a few hours with Thero.”
CHAPTER 40. Basket Street
THERO needed no persuasion. He listened in silence, then changed quickly out of his robes and tucked a few things, including his crystal wand, into a belt pouch.
Seregil restlessly scanned the scant night crowd as they made their way to the old theater; no ravens, but any of the passersby could be one of them in some other disguise.
The theater stood at the far end of Basket Street, near the poultry market. The windows were boarded up, and the front doors chained shut. Weeds had sprouted between the paving stones of the untended courtyard. It looked utterly deserted.
Glancing around to make certain no one was there to see, Seregil dismounted and led his horse to the back of the theater. They found Alec and Micum waiting for them in the alley behind it. It was deserted and strewn with refuse, weeds, and dirty feathers.
“Someone’s been coming and going pretty regularly, at least since the last rain,” Micum murmured.
“You can tell that from this mess?” whispered Thero.
“He can track a duck through water,” Alec told him.
The stage door was secured with a large, rusty padlock, but Alec already had it open.
“The wards are well oiled,” he whispered to Seregil.
He inched the door open and the four of them slipped into the silent darkness beyond. Micum closed the door; they stood a moment in the corridor, getting out lightstones and letting their eyes adjust. They were at the center of the
building, with the wings extending to either side of them, and a wide central corridor opening onto the backstage area.
It was a strange, shadowy world behind the stage, like seeing the seamed side of a fine garment. A plain scrim still hung from its long rod, and a few abandoned set pieces cast madcap shadows in the glow of their stones as they moved about. To either side, the wings were divided into a maze of different rooms by sheets of coarse muslin strung from wires.
The only sounds were their own breathing as Seregil and Alec crept out to the stage. Dust lay everywhere. The theater space was lost in shadow beyond their lights and already had that smell of dust and mice that empty places took on. Somewhere, out there in the darkness, was the box they had occupied with Kylith, the first time they’d seen Atre and his players. A few stars shone above them where a skylight had been left half open.
“Do you think he’d hide anything out here?” whispered Thero, joining them.
Seregil cast around with his light, looking at the dusty floor. “No one’s been out here in a while.”
“But someone swept down the corridor in the right-hand wing, and I think I found us a door,” Micum whispered from the shadows behind them.
He led them past the ghostly muslin cubicles to a boarded-up door. Seregil inspected it closely, feeling here and there, and soon found a loose board that pivoted, exposing a latch and lock. This one was new, complex, and fitted with recessed needles. Given the size of the holes, the needles were large ones.
“Stand back,” Seregil told the others. Working with a bent pick, he tripped the device and jumped back as several steel needles shot across the corridor and embedded themselves in the far wall. “Nasty.”
Lifting the latch, he gave it a pull. As he’d guessed, the nails holding the boards to the door frame and wall gave easily from worn holes. Stairs led down into darkness, and a cold draft carried the moldy scent of a cellar. Seregil took the lead, sword drawn.
The low-ceilinged cellar was filled with dusty props and long rolls of discarded scrim. A few mouse- and moth-chewed costumes still hung from stone support pillars, and there were dozens of crates and trunks covered in more than a few months’ worth of dust and cobwebs. The floor was packed earth, the walls of mortared stone. Across the way a stone stairway led up to a large trapdoor that probably opened onto the stage.
“Bilairy’s Balls, this will take all night!” Alec exclaimed softly.
“Which is why you brought me, I believe.” Drawing his wand, Thero drew an orange sigil on the air. It swirled, then sank to the floor and rolled over it like fog, leading them across the cellar and disappearing behind a pile of crates stacked against the right-hand wall. “There is something there, or has been.”
“We should bring you along more often,” whispered Alec as he and Micum began shifting the crates away from the wall to expose a low door. The thick oak panels were painted black, with enormous iron hinges and a thick hasp secured with a large, new padlock. Alec did the honors this time and pulled it open. More cold, dank air greeted them as they cautiously stepped inside, but there was also the unmistakable aroma of candles recently snuffed.
A plain wooden table stood in the center of the small room, and one wall was half filled by two wooden racks, similar to wine racks, that stood six feet tall and appeared to be recently constructed of new wood. Dozens of bottles, some empty, others sealed with green wax, were arranged there on their sides. Seregil quickly counted them. There were one hundred twenty-eight: seventy in the left rack and fifty-eight in the right, all neatly arranged in rows. Some were sealed with dark green wax; others were empty, but something about the arrangement niggled at Seregil, the way the sight of Brader in disguise had.
On the table were a thick tallow candle in a cracked dish, a small workman’s box, sticks of green sealing wax, a basket of corks, and a waste bowl that held what looked like a few used seals made of the same green wax. Opening the
workman’s box, Seregil found a small collection of delicate tools and a worn copper stylus gone green with age, except for the tip, which glinted red where it had been recently sharpened.
“Hmm. There’s a bit of wax on the stylus.” He glanced over at the sealed bottles. Sure enough, they had some sort of writing in the wax and Thero appeared to be quite interested in them. “I wonder what these jeweler’s tools are for?”
Alec peered up over the edge of the table from whatever he’d been looking at under there. “Maybe for these?” He stood and triumphantly placed a large open casket on the table between them. Inside was a glistening collection of rings, earrings, necklaces, brooches, every piece of the finest quality and every one of them tagged with a slip of parchment tied on with a blue silk thread. Each slip bore a name in Atre’s elegant, precise handwriting. “He’s made it easy for us.”