Blooms of Consequence (Dusk Gate Chronicles Book 4) (25 page)

“I know I am,” Eloise said. “But something tells me we can trust you.” Her eyes were on Quinn again. “I take it you all know what this means?”

“We do,” said Quinn. “All of you?”

The look that Weston shot her could have withered a tree, but Eloise nodded.

“You hid it well,” Quinn said, looking at Weston, “with all your talk of compromising with Hector.”

“Hiding it is the point,” he spat, his gaze still on Eloise. “I guess now is the time to really hope it’s true that Stephen is sympathetic to our cause?”

“He is more than sympathetic,” Nathaniel said, pulling back his own collar. “Stephen is a Friend of Philip, as well.”

Weston put his hand in the air and waved. The two other people who’d been hiding in the trees stepped out; both of them were men, one maybe Simon’s age, and another who appeared to be closer to Nathaniel’s.

“All of
you
?” Weston asked. Marcus, Quinn, William, and Ben all pulled back their collars.

 “So does Stephen have a plan, then? Some direction we may be able to take?”

“He does,” Quinn said. “Maybe you should all come sit down and we can explain.”

“SHOULD YOU BE DOING that?” Mia’s voice surprised Thomas enough that he nearly dropped the sword he’d been practicing with.

He turned to face her. “I have to do something to keep my mind occupied. Might as well be this, in case I ever get my hands on the person who took Linnea.”

Mia’s eyes widened. His younger brother, Josh, who had been practicing with him, walked away from them, suddenly busying himself organizing the weapons along the far wall of the gymnasium.

“You wouldn’t actually hurt someone, would you, Thomas?”

“Would I want to? No. But if I had to, Mia…”

She sighed. “I know, Thomas. That wasn’t what I meant, anyway. I meant, should you be flinging a sword around so soon, with this?” She placed her hand over his chest. Even through both his shirt and the thick bandage, her touch made him flinch. She dropped her hand instantly.

“I don’t have time to be sensitive about it, Mia. I knew what I was getting into.”

Yesterday, after Linnea had been taken, and Quinn and William were preparing to leave, Thomas had gone to his father. He’d been willing to compromise before on waiting until his sixteenth birthday to join the Friends of Philip, but he wasn’t anymore.

To his relief, his father hadn’t objected at all; the only difficulty had been the close timing. It wasn’t an ideal time to be recovering from the painful procedure, but he was determined that it wasn’t going to slow him down.

“Yes, you did,” Mia answered, “but it’s only been half a cycle for me – I still remember what it was like.” She put her hand over her chest, where her tattoo was.

“I’m fine, Mia,” he said, kissing her on the nose. “I would be more fine if I was out searching for Linnea, but I understand why it’s better for me to stay here right now.”

“Have you had any news?”

“No. It would have been difficult with the rain last night, but I’m hoping sometime soon.”

With the connection between his bird and William’s, Thomas was best equipped to maintain the lines of communication between the castle and William’s group. William’s move to Philotheum was going to be a challenging transition for the birds. Eventually, he was sure, one of them was going to be short a companion bird – probably him – the birds would be likely to both follow their offspring to Philotheum.

For now, though, they seemed to be tolerating the traveling. Thomas had the large doors to the gymnasium open, listening for the birds. He expected Aelwyn to come sometime soon with an update from the travelers. Most of the other seeker birds in the castle were busy tracking Linnea’s bird, Zylia, to see if she could find her master.

Thomas’ bird, Sirian, though, was being kept at the castle in case they had a message to send in a hurry.

“I hope so, too,” Mia said. “Will you let me know if you hear anything?”

“Of course.”

She nodded. “I need to get back to the children. But I wanted to come and check on you.”

“Thanks,” Thomas said, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. As he pulled back, he caught a glimpse of something through the doorway that stopped him short. “I’ll see you in a little while?”

“Lunch in an hour. I’ll have some sent up to the common room. For you too, Josh,” she said. Thomas hadn’t even realized his little brother was still in the room.

“Josh, have you seen Maxwell today?” Thomas asked, after Mia left.

“No. I’m not sure I remember the last time I saw him, actually. Why?”

“No reason. Can you watch for Raeyan or Aelwyn for me for a while?”

“Sure.”

Leaving Josh behind in the gymnasium, Thomas ran back into the castle and dashed up the stairs. He reached Maxwell’s room just in time to see his brother touching the doorknob.

“Where in the hell have you been, Max?” he spat. “Everyone is frantic with worry, William and Quinn are on their way to Philotheum in the middle of a splicking war, and you’re what? Off with your girlfriend?”

Max pushed the door open and held his hand out, gesturing Thomas inside.

Once they were in, Thomas noticed that his brother didn’t look right. His face was drawn and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Of course, they probably all looked like that right now.

“Seriously, Max, what is the matter with you?”

Maxwell closed his eyes, putting his hand on his forehead. “Thomas… I think I’ve made a big mistake.”

“Aside from the obvious, you mean? Abandoning your family when something like this is going on? Look, I know you haven’t agreed with all of Father’s decisions, and that you’re upset you weren’t told about Quinn, but
this
?”

Max looked stricken. “I know, Thomas. I’m sorry. I was so stupid…”

A sick feeling settled in Thomas’ stomach. “What’s going on?”

“You know Catherine and I have been getting closer lately…”

“I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with her.”

“I should have realized it… should have noticed. I liked her, Thomas, or I thought I did… we had our issues, but she understood my frustrations with what was going on, and she understood how I felt. I should have noticed, paid attention. She’d been asking so many questions lately – never all at the same time of course, but a few at a time – about Quinn and William, about what’s going on between Eirentheos and Philotheum… about the castle.”

All of the blood drained from Thomas’ face. “Max… no.”

“Yeah, I think so. I realized last night that I hadn’t heard from her since right after the wedding, that she left early, said her brother was coming to pick her up… and all of the pieces started coming together. I went this morning, rode out to her family’s home, and they’re gone. Nobody is there. And it doesn’t look like they’re coming back.”

“Max, we have to go. We have to tell Father, tell Simon and Luke.”

Luke Willoughby, Mia’s father, was their father’s head guard, now that Marcus had gone. They had all left the castle early this morning to follow up on some leads about where Linnea might have been taken.

“I already sent a message; I don’t know what to do until they get back.”

*          *          *

Quinn was the first one to see the bird circling overhead as they rode. “It’s Sirian,” she called, and Marcus, who was leading the group, immediately stopped.

“It’s too soon for Aelwyn to have gotten a message to the castle and Sirian to have gotten here already,” William said. “Maybe they’ve heard something.”

“It’s my brother Thomas’ bird,” he said, addressing the newcomers in their group as he dismounted and made his way to where Sirian had landed gracefully a few feet away from them. The bird held out his leg so that William could open the silver canister.

“What is it?” Nathaniel asked, climbing down and walking over to him.

Quinn, too, dismounted from Dusk when she saw the alarmed expression on William’s face.

“They think they know who might have taken Linnea,” he said, handing the note to Nathaniel.

Everyone was off of their horses now.

“Who?” Marcus said.

“The family of Maxwell’s new companion, Catherine Whittier.”

“Whittier?” Gene said, a strained sound in his voice. “Is her father Edmund Whittier?”

“I’m not sure,” William said, “but that sounds right. Why?”

“Their family and Hector’s go way back. His father was from Dovelnia, and shortly after Jonathan’s death, Hector brought them over to Philotheum. Edmund’s father, Callum, has been the head councilman of our village for many cycles.”

“You don’t like him,” Quinn said, judging the expression on his face.

“He’s one of the reasons that we left two cycles ago with Elliott and brought him here to live with my brother. I’d heard rumors that his son had gone to Eirentheos, but I never knew if it was true. Nobody could imagine why he would want to. Hector has rewarded the Whittier family quite well for their loyalty to him. They’ve recently expanded their estate by another fifty acres.”

“Well now you know why. Because his granddaughter was consorting with the Eirenthean royal family.”

“It isn’t good news,” Gene said. “That family has influence everywhere. They could have taken Linnea anywhere – could get her across the border undetected.”

“So what do we do?” Quinn asked.

“We don’t fool around with trusting people like Stephen has done,” Charles cut in suddenly. “We don’t stop in Cloud Valley and give your position away to even more potential people. We get you to the castle as quickly as possible, and we end this.”

She frowned. “Eli in Cloud Valley is a Friend of Philip. Can’t we use all the help we can get right now?”

“I trust Eli,” Nathaniel said.

“Isn’t all of this trusting everyone what has us in this mess?” Charles said. “Mother trusted Hector. Stephen trusted some girl to come into his castle to see his son…”

Charles’ words made sense, Quinn knew. It didn’t feel right, but he wasn’t wrong,
was he?
All of this had been caused by trusting the wrong people. And Charles already had enough problems with her.

She nodded. “Fine. We won’t go to Cloud Valley. We’ll send a message with Sirian, letting Stephen know what we know about the Whittiers. Maybe it will help them know where to start looking. And we will keep traveling.”

Nathaniel gave her a strained look, but she ignored it. They’d only planned on stopping in Cloud Valley for the night anyway, and the night was over. They should keep traveling.

“Gene, will you please write down anything you know that might be important about the Whittiers that we can include in our message?”

*          *          *

“Tired?” William asked, as he helped Quinn down from Dusk when they finally stopped for the evening.

“I’m ready to be done riding.” She slid down into his arms and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” He’d been thinking about it as they rode – she’d mentioned waking up during the night, but he’d never gotten the chance to ask her about it.

“A little.”

“Dreams again?

“I don’t think so. Just regular trouble sleeping. If any of this is regular.” He pulled her closer to him, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

“Lady Quinn, Prince William?” They both turned to see Ben standing a few feet away from them. “May I take care of your horses for you?”

William paused, looking to Quinn, waiting to let her handle the request. She started to shake her head to object, and he squeezed her hand gently, a reminder.

“Yes, Ben, we’d appreciate that. Thank you,” she said.

When Ben was a few feet away, William leaned in close to her ear. “Perfect.”

She sighed. “It still doesn’t feel right. We’re not at the castle. I should be pulling my weight.”

“You
are
love; it just looks different now.”

“What is it supposed to look like, then? Me standing around watching while other people do my work? There aren’t any decisions to make right now. Should I walk around and supervise, tell people what to do?”

He sighed. “No, I think what you’re doing is fine. Actually…” he put his lips near her ear again, “I think everyone is trying to make as much effort as they can to give us some time alone. We did just get married.” He twined his fingers with hers, and brought both of their hands up to his lips, kissing her fingers.

She smiled, resting her head against his shoulder. “I suppose that’s true.” A moment later, though, she looked up at him and frowned. “You think
maybe
that’s what everyone is doing, or you heard someone say something about it?”

He grimaced. “I heard someone say something.”

“
Who
?”

“Ellen. She was talking to Henry and Charles. They didn’t realize how close I was to them.”

She closed her eyes. “I guess I shouldn’t have hoped that we’d avoid being teased if we were away from Thomas and Linnea.”

William swallowed hard. There’d been no hint of teasing in the conversation he’d overheard between Quinn’s aunt and uncles. If anything, it had been one of the more serious conversations he’d ever been privy to.

His reaction didn’t slip by her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m not specifically
not
telling you something. It just didn’t come up – until now – that I heard them talking about us.”

“What did they say?” Her voice was suspicious now.

He looked around. Everyone was working – setting up tents, unsaddling horses, digging into saddlebags for food. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to them, but it wasn’t as private as this conversation should be, either. “Do you have your knife on you?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “Constantly now. Why?”

“I just thought maybe we could go for a little walk. It’s probably an excessive precaution, but…”

“But that’s where we are right now,” she finished for him. “Do you have yours?”