Ash and Quill(35)

"I think the doctor is doing his best," Morgan said. Jess moved past them to plunge his hands into the cold water and used the sand provided next to it to scrub the charcoal from his skin. The cuts, he had to admit, looked bad. And they stung. "And the captain is strong. A few days of rest will let him heal."

"If he doesn't take another turn for the worse," Dario said. When they all glared at him, he held his hands up. "We were all thinking it."

"I wasn't," Glain said, and shoved past him. "And I'm not. The captain's going to be fine."

"What if he isn't?" Thomas asked. The question fell into a sudden, and very dark, silence. "What happens to Wolfe?"

"We look out for him," Khalila said. "As he'd do for any one of us. But Captain Santi will be fine. That might be only my love of him speaking, but it's what I must believe."

She'd be the only one to admit it, but they all loved the captain, Jess thought; Santi brought out all the best parts of Wolfe. Without him . . . Jess could only think of the term Beck had used. Stormcrow. Without Santi, Wolfe would be more that than ever.


      ///
       
         
       
        

They were all silent for a moment. Not even Dario found anything stupid or inconsequential to say. Jess, without thinking about it, put his arm around Morgan, and she leaned against him, a lovely burst of warmth.

"Progress?" Jess asked quietly, and Khalila seemed relieved to have something else to think about.

"Find me a pen and paper," she said. "I took time in Beck's office today to study a city map."

"What map? You never moved from your chair!" Glain said. "I sat across from you the whole time, and it was easily the most boring day of my life!"

Khalila slowly smiled at her. "The map was hidden in plain sight," she said. "Framed. On the wall above your head."

Glain froze, thinking back, and Jess saw the exact moment she remembered. She looked well kicked, but Jess didn't blame her at all. He'd been in that office. He didn't remember a map, either.

"It looked like another of their damned Burner paintings," Glain said. "Mostly in orange. They like things the color of flames."

"It's not detailed, but it clearly shows fields behind city hall, the walls, the streets. A primitive style, and not by any real mapmaker. But it gives a good idea," Khalila said. "Paper?"

For answer, Dario plucked a sheet fastened to the inside of his cell-the paper wall-and handed it over. "I'll make ink." He walked over to the very small pile of coal near the furnace that sat by the door-designed, Jess thought, to barely keep them alive in colder weather-and took one piece. With efficient motions, he used his boot heel to pound it into bits, grinding it fine, then used another paper sheet stripped from his cell to wrap into a cone, and scraped the black powder in. Added some drops of water and stirred, measuring and adding carefully, until he had a little pool of black, watery ink in the cone. It wicked steadily into the paper, but he presented the cone to Khalila, and a small stick he found just at the door. She accepted both with a dimpled smile and an appreciative flash in her eyes, and set to work.

"I don't have colors," she said as she carefully crosshatched lines across certain of the buildings, "so I am using patterns. This one, I believe, shows the location of shelters, like the ones they use for bomb attacks." She used diagonal lines for the next, fewer landmarks. "These, I don't know. We should take a look at them. Storehouses, perhaps? They might contain something useful."

"Brilliant," Jess said. "Dario and I located a smugglers' tunnel marked here-" He hovered a finger over the part of the wall they'd strolled past earlier. "They've put more guards on it, which could mean that they're getting ready to receive goods through it." A thought suddenly struck him, and he tried to think how his father would have conducted such a business, if he'd sat in that city hall office instead of Willinger Beck. He'd be much, much cleverer than that. "Or they just want us to think that. If Beck is smart, he'd have increased the guards just to draw our attention to it. Make us commit to an attempt at using it. That gives him an excuse to draw us out." 

"Or it could be genuine," Dario said, "and Master Beck is just a provincial warlord who doesn't think like you do."

"I've talked to him," Jess said. "I wouldn't trust anything he does."

"And if we tried to use it-"