Page 61 of A Divided Duty

Tybalt tensed, but didn’t say anything. The “at a distance” made me feel a little better, since it implied that this Rider hadn’t originally belonged to the Court of Cats. Not that there was any way of being sure without asking directly, and I was not going to do that. Punching someone dead in the trauma is very rarely a good idea.

“Why are you here?” asked the Rider.

“We’re looking for Rayseline Torquill—the Lady’s granddaughter,” I said. “She was abducted and taken here via the Rose Road. But before we could recover her, someone else stole her from her kidnapper.”

“She isn’t in the stable, although you can look as you like,” said the Rider, still running the comb in long, smooth strokes over the hide of their mare. “I haven’t seen your missing girl.”

“Would you tell us if you had?”

The Rider stilled again, tilting their head as they considered my question. Finally, they resumed grooming, and said, “I think I would. Not all of us would be inclined to assist you, even given the chance to, but I had brothers, once, and they will never join the Hunt because of what you did. I am loyal to my Lord. I am forever loyal to my Lord. And still, I feel joy that my brothers will be spared. For that, I can offer you a truth when asked.”

“Who were you?”

I blurted the question before I had a chance to think better of it, and yet I wasn’t sorry. If I was going to try to break the spells that had created Michael’s Riders, the more I knew about their origins, the better.

The Rider kept brushing, methodical and smooth. “Athan,” they said. “But that was a very long time ago. We have little need of names here, where the horn can call us all in a single sound and no one needs to speak of anything else.”

Tybalt cleared his throat. “You said you hadn’t seen her. Do you know where she is?”

“Ah. That is a different question, and different questions have different answers. I don’t know where she is. But I know where she was to be taken.”

I tensed. “What do you mean?”

Athan turned, slowly, to face me. “Why should she walk in the world where there is sunlight, where there are humans, when her grandfather made us as we are? When we were forbidden all but the Ride for His pleasures, His designs? Why should she remain free when she could be so much more than simply another creature of the dying day?”

“What did you do?”

“I did nothing. But some among our company may have been informed of what the girl’s mother intended, and may have gone to intervene. To convince her that the girl belonged where she had always belonged, where she should have been from the beginning.” Athan continued calmly grooming the mare.

Tybalt’s lips drew back, exposing the sharpened points of his teeth. Before he could snarl, I stepped forward, between the two of them. “Who informed them?”

Athan looked sharply up. “What?”

“The members of your company who were ‘informed’ that Raysel’s mother would be bringing her here—who informed them? Who told them where to go?”

It was impossible to be sure with the helm blocking most of their face, but I thought Athan smiled. “Ah. She finally begins to ask the right questions.”

Children’s logic, children’s rules. Don’t lie when the right questions are being asked, but don’t offer any information the questions don’t compel. It was so perfectly reasonable for Michael’s lands, and it made me want to scream even so.

“Who informed them, and where do you think Raysel belongs?”

“The news was carried by a woman gone invisible with place and position, who has been kind to us ever since her eldest daughter came to join our number, and by a man who ceased to be a brother once, by candlelight. They thought we deserved to know that the girl would be vulnerable one more time, before she was lost to us forever.” Athan shrugged. “As to where Blind Michael’s granddaughter belongs, you know that answer. She should have been here from the beginning. She should be here still.”

“Do the people who carried the news have names?”

“Yes.” Athan sounded surprised.

Right. I had asked the wrong question. I took a deep breath. “Can you tell me their names?”

“Yes,” they said, and nothing more.

“Will you tell me their names?”

“I will not.” They finally set the curry comb aside and straightened, taking their mare by the reins. “What will be done to her is no better nor worse than has been done to all the rest of us, and we thrive, in our own ways. She is in no danger if you allow her to relax into the inevitable and become what awaits her. She will not be harmed.”

“Where is she?”

“That, too, I will not tell you.”