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“This one dutifully records the entire conversation between two wives of two low-level aides in the Cloud Mist Clan. They talked about a woman named Melinda, who was in labor for three days and had triplets.” Ari snapped his shut.
They worked for a while in silence. Janco’s vision blurred as he skimmed an inventory list in a factory in the Moon Clan’s lands—spare wagon wheels, hitches, nuts, bolts, drying racks, rollers, glass bottles, tubing... As he was about to close the file, an item jumped from the page. A barrel full of leaves.
Why would a factory need leaves? Maybe it was for a medical substance. Yelena’s father created all types of medicines and healing salves from the plants he’d collect in the Illiais Jungle. Janco read the rest of the report.
The spies had targeted the place because there had been plenty of activity inside, but as far as they could determine, no products had been produced. They had sneaked in and still couldn’t figure out what the factory was manufacturing.
If they’d been making medicine, then the spies would have spotted vials or pouches. What else could be made from leaves? “Cigars.”
“What about them?” Ari asked.
Janco handed him the file. “I think this place might be producing them.”
Ari flipped through the pages. “It’s possible. But there’s no way to know if they’re manufacturing the illegal Greenblade cigars or regular cigars.”
“The building is located in Lapeer near the Ixian border. It’s an isolated area of the Moon Clan’s lands and far away from the other factories down in Greenblade’s forests. It’s a place to start.”
“We should talk to Valek. He might know what this is.”
They found Valek outside his office. He unlocked his door and ushered them inside.
“Did you find something?” Valek asked.
Ari explained about the factory, handing the file to Valek.
He scanned the report, then tapped on a page. “This mentions an amber-colored liquid.”
“Could be honey-tree sap used in the cigars,” Janco suggested.
“Or real honey or resin or adhesive,” Valek said. “There could be a number of different explanations.”
“We should check it out since we’re going to Sitia anyway.”
“You are?”
“Uh...” Janco glanced at Ari for help.
Ari gave him a you-got-yourself-into-this-you-get-yourself-out-of-it smirk. Some partner. Janco told Valek about their meeting and conclusions. “It makes the most sense. We’re not going to get far on this side of the border.”
Valek studied him for a moment. “Finish reading through all the reports first.”
Janco groaned. “That’ll take days.”
“Then I’d suggest you enlist the help of the rest of your team members,” Valek said.
“But...”
“But what?” Valek used his flat warning tone.
Janco ignored it. “We don’t trust them, do we?”
“I trust you to keep an eye on them.” He accompanied them out of his office. “I’m going to be leaving in a few days, as well.”
“Where are you going?” Janco asked.
“North to MD-2.”
“Investigating our new recruits?” Ari asked.
“Yes.” Valek locked the door and headed in the opposite direction.
As they walked down the hallway, Janco scratched the scar where the lower half of his right ear used to be. “If he doesn’t trust them, then why are they working with us?”
“No idea.”
“What should we do?”
“We’ll do what Valek said—keep them close.” Ari shrugged. “Who knows, they might prove useful.”
Stranger things had happened.
* * *
While Ari rounded up the grunt and Little Miss Assassin, Janco carried armloads of files over to a conference room. Over the course of multiple trips, he filled the long table. By the time the others arrived, Janco had finished writing the cheat sheet to help them decipher the code to read the reports.
Sergeant Grunt frowned at the piles, but Little Miss Assassin sat down and tucked her bare feet under her.
Ari explained what they sought from the reports. “...an oddity or something that doesn’t belong. Anything that sticks out.”
“Like your bare feet,” Janco said to the young pup. “Don’t your feet ever get cold?” He couldn’t resist asking. Not many rugs covered the stone floors of the castle.
“No.” She kept her gaze on Ari.
“Well, when we go undercover, you’re gonna have to wear boots.”
“Okay.”
Janco deflated. He’d hoped for an argument, but she wouldn’t rise to the bait. She wasn’t the chattiest person, either. At least the grunt asked a few questions as they spent the rest of the afternoon and evening reading reports. How could a person keep quiet that long? Was it part of her assassin training? If so, he’d never pass the test.
When the words blurred together and his eyelids drooped as if they weighed a thousand pounds, Janco called it quits for the night.
The next morning after running laps and training with Ari, he returned to the dreaded task of going through the files. Little Miss Assassin had beaten them there and she had quite a stack of rejects piled on the floor near her seat.
“Have you been here all night?” Ari asked as he sat.
“No.” She handed him a couple of files. “These meet your ‘odd’ criteria.”
Janco peered over Ari’s shoulder as he flipped through the pages. Most of the information she flagged could be explained.
“Sitians use magic all the time.” Janco shuddered. “It is odd, strange, unnatural, weird, crazy—”
“It’s a tool,” Ari said. “You just don’t like magic.”
“For good reason! Remember the time—”
“Why did you tag this one from Ognap?” Ari handed her a report.
The pup scanned it and pointed to a passage. “The agent counted sixteen wagons going into the mines, but only thirteen leaving. Doesn’t make sense. These mines produce coal and ore, so they’d need all those wagons to ship out the product.”
“Maybe they were having a slow day,” Janco said. “See? The next day they had sixteen in and then sixteen leave... Oh.” What happened to those other three?
Ari reclaimed the file. “Looks like there’s a pattern. Every three days, more wagons arrive than leave.”
“Could this be the smuggling route?” Janco asked. “Through the mines?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who spent a few weeks undercover at Vasko’s ruby mines.”
He scratched his scar. “There are a million miles of shafts under the Emerald Mountains. It’s possible that there’s a way to cross under the Ixian border and come out in the Soul Mountains. But...”
“But what?” Little Miss Assassin asked.
“The mine owners guard their maps with their lives. They don’t let strangers into the mines. For one person to know how all those shafts connect...” He shook his head. “Impossible.”
“They don’t have to know all of them. Just the right ones,” Ari said.
“And you said Sitians used their power all the time. Why couldn’t they use magic to find a passage into Ixia?”
The young pup had a point. Unfortunately. A cold dread coated his stomach. Two things Janco despised more than anything—magic and being underground. And it appeared he might just get both at once. Oh joy.
17
YELENA
I gaped at Devlen as blood slammed through my heart. Did he just say...? “You know what the poison is?”
“I believe so. But I am not sure how it will help you.”
Relaxing my grip on the teacup before it shatter
ed, I calmed my out-of-control heart rate. “Please explain.”
Devlen set his cup down and sat in the other chair opposite Opal’s desk and between me and Leif. My brother perched on the edge of his seat and Opal leaned forward. All our attention focused on Devlen.
“Your symptoms of being hot and then cold sounds like the effects of a poison called Freeze Burn,” he said. “It is made from the roots of the reedwither plant that grows in the Avibian Plains.”
“How come I’ve never heard of this poison?” I asked.
“Only the Sandseeds know about it, and the plant is so rare, only one was found during my father’s lifetime, but the Sandseed who discovered it refused to divulge the location. According to our stories, it is fatal, but before the victim dies, they suffer those extreme temperature swings you described for a full day.”
Another near miss. The familiar ache of disappointment panged. “It can’t be Freeze Burn. I didn’t die.”
“That’s ’cause it’s you,” Leif said. “You said you expelled most of the poison from your shoulder. Combine that with your healing powers and...voilà! You survived.”
