Shadows and Light

Chapter Sixteen

Ubel stepped away from the other five Inquisitors and the young forester they’d captured. Not much more than a boy, really. All it had taken was a little of the Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion to coax the lad deep into the woods on Baron Padrick’s estate. He would have liked to take their captive farther away, but he’d been impatient to wring information out of the boy.

Just as well. The boy had broken so quickly under the first level of softening, he’d spilled out disjointed answers to every question they’d asked.

The result was frustrating, and he was still trying to sort through the boy’s words to fit them into something that made sense.

The baron had not yet returned home from the barons’ council. That was good. The baron’s wife was also not at home, nor were the baron’s two children. The boy had been clear about that much.

But every time Ubel had asked about the baron’s wife, the boy had babbled about a Lady Ashk, one of the Fae who lived at the Clan house in the Old Place nearby.

The Fae didn’t have Clan houses in the Old Places. Everyone knew that. They lived in Tir Alainn and came down the shining roads for brief visits to the human world—at least, until those visits were stopped by destroying the magic in the Old Place.

When he’d pressed further about this female living in the Old Place, the boy had babbled about a witch living there. That made sense, and the news had excited him. Master Adolfo had told him that he and his men couldn’t afford to linger at any of the Old Places they might pass on their way to Breton, so they’d been forced to allow the Evil One’s servants to continue soiling the world. But a witch who lived so close to Breton ... That was different. They could take care of her at the same time they dealt with the baron’s wife and children.

The baron’s wife. Was it possible Padrick had actually married one of the Fae and that’s why the boy babbled about Clan houses? While the thought of using one of those creatures for physical pleasure was titillating in a disgusting sort of way, acknowledging her as a person and, worse, raising the offspring that had come from such matings as if they were decent humans was obscene.

Perhaps she did have a cottage in the Old Place where she stayed when she was tired of pretending to be human. Perhaps that was what the boy had meant by a Clan house. Perhaps there were other Fae who lived there with her. Whenever the baron was away, she probably acted the bitch in heat for any Fae male who wanted her. She couldn’t do that in the baron’s own house. Even a man lacking in decency—as Padrick surely did, since no decent man would have helped that bastard Liam escape his rightful punishment—wouldn’t tolerate being cuckolded in front of the people he ruled.

Ubel studied the trees around him. Too many. Too close. Too alive. If there were some Fae living in the Old Place, then every bird, every deer, every rustling sound in the woods might be the enemy in animal form. Which meant they had to strike swiftly and thoroughly.

Tomorrow. The boy had said the baron’s wife was expected back tomorrow. But there was still one thing they could do today.

The magic in the nearby Old Place was so strong, it seeped beyond the borders, spilling out into Padrick’s land. There was more than enough here for him and the other Inquisitors to draw on, and what they would create would plague Fae and human alike.

“Ubel?” one of the Inquisitors asked. “What should we do with this one?”

Ubel looked back at the boy on the ground, bound hand and foot, a scold’s bridle keeping him silent. “We can’t let him go, so I see no reason why you shouldn’t test all the instruments on him to be sure they’re in good working order. After that, we’ll dispose of him.”

Master Adolfo had trained them all too well for them to act like children who had just been given a treat. But their eyes glittered with anticipation as they opened their saddlebags to carefully set out the rest of the instruments they’d brought with them.

As their leader, Ubel felt he couldn’t join them, so he walked far enough away so that his presence wouldn’t inhibit them. That’s what Master Adolfo would have done.

By tomorrow at this time, the task would be completed, and Baron Padrick would come home to the lesson of what happened to men who tried to thwart the will of Adolfo, the Master Inquisitor, the Witch’s Hammer.