His phone is disabled, sir. Officers have just arrived, and found the girl’s phone as well, beneath her car. Crushed, apparently; too badly to function. A portable computer is still in the car. I’ve killed that too.

‘Thank the world’s every maker. Well done!’ Rain sagged with relief, having feared her phone already in Anselm’s hands. Message rings conveyed only the silent exchange of sub-vocalized words, not complex thought itself. But the transfer did convey a great deal more emotional content than verbal conversation did, or could. Rain felt his operative’s relief as clearly as the man would feel his own. ‘Whatever she may tell them now, it should take him longer to access the messages themselves, whatever those prove to be. Perhaps we can still beat him to this one. Has there been any further evidence of our opposition there?’

The father’s crow arrived more or less when I did, of course. Not sure he’s spotted me here yet. But I’ve detected no one else. Whoever was here seems to have gone with the girl.

‘More blessings, if rather curious. Stay fully shielded, and keep looking. If our opponent really hasn’t left someone there to watch the boy, I must assume he’ll address that gap quickly. Do nothing to reveal yourself—to anyone—unless the boy is attacked as well. And, even then, only if unavoidable. I’ve sent someone to assist you. He should arrive within the hour, right behind the family, who are already on their way, I’m told.’

Yes sir.

‘That’s all. Thank you.’

The ring went dark, and Rain set it down among half a dozen others on the desk in front of him. As he waited for whichever of them might light next, he went back to struggling after some credible plan for resolving this catastrophe. He could hardly go debrief The Lady and Piper without at least the outlines of one. …How he dreaded that impending task.

In hindsight, Rain’s mistake was horrifically clear, and hardly worthy of an utter beginner, much less The Lady’s chancellor. In possession of Rhymer’s actual back story, Rain had known, as no one else could, that only Dustin and his adoptive mother were likely of concern to Matt. So he’d concentrated surveillance on them…regarding the husband and the fiancée as largely irrelevant bystanders. That those geist-stones had been used to save Dustin, not the girl, had seemed to confirm this assessment. While everyone else scattered their resources and attention in countless directions, fishing in the dark for further clues, Rain and his people had known enough to assume that, if Rhymer was going to appear at all, it would be near the boy or the woman he’d cared about. Rain had believed this privileged viewpoint gave him a considerable edge, unaware that it had also made him blind.  

What Rain had completely failed to consider—until half an hour ago—was how Anselm, who knew none of what Rain did about Rhymer’s likely motivations and priorities, might see things—and act—in the absence of such knowledge. Given their people’s ingrained aversion to detection, Rain had expected nothing remotely so conspicuous, even from Anselm, as overt kidnap, much less kidnap of a mere ‘bystander.’ Two weeks after the unthinkable stunt of that unnatural storm, Rain wondered now how he’d gone on thinking that Anselm would let discretion get in his way.

Rain closed his eyes and hung his head in self judgement.

When Dustin and Colleen had separated after their class, Rain’s people had done as ordered and remained with the boy—as had the River King’s spy, it seemed. Anselm’s people…had clearly followed the girl. For the leverage on Dustin she would supply them—visibility be damned.

It was just as painfully clear, now, how Rain’s team had managed to watch these people for nearly two weeks without discovering this stash of ‘documents’ from Rhymer. Rain had imagined Matt lurking in the shadows somewhere, just off stage, hiding as fastidiously from his old friends—even while protecting them—as he had hidden from everyone else. It had never occurred to him that Matt might be communicating with them directly! There’d been no sign at all that Dustin or the others thought they had Rhymer to thank for that rescue. So Rain had positioned his people near the ‘bait,’ gazing outward for some fleeting sign of Matt; not inward to scrutinize—much less target—his presumably clueless friends. …So many shortsighted assumptions.

That Rain’s strategic errors, today and earlier, all made perfect sense—in context of his erroneous assumptions—did nothing to lessen the humiliation, dread, and regret churning in his stomach. He could imagine no articulation of such monumental failure that might make it palatable to The Lady, or even to her excessively soft-hearted heir. But that hardly mattered now. The fear threatening to immobilize him was that his disastrous lack of better foresight might already have sealed The Lady’s doom. He would gladly suffer any penalty she could inflict if it were able to undo this day. But if there was some credible path to hope here, he could not yet see it.

A second message ring lit up, and Rain grabbed it off the table. ‘Yes?’

We’re in, sir, searching the house now. I’ve sent someone to the boy’s apartment too, though all evidence suggests he hasn’t been there since before the storm. Sorrel’s just checked in, and reports the parents’ phones disabled, as you requested.

‘Good! …All four down then. That may buy us at least a small head start. Once you’ve got me copies of everything, don’t waste time searching any other devices; just trash them all.’

Yes, sir. We’ll need one of them functioning long enough to glowworm whatever servers are involved. If the source wasn’t local, that may take quite a while longer than desired.

‘Understood. You should have several hours, if not more. Should that prove insufficient, just bring the remaining device back and finish the job here. In the meantime, search every inch of that house with extreme care. There mustn’t be so much as a page, scribbled note, or pocket drive of this material left there when you leave. Update me as soon as you find anything.’

Will do, sir.

‘Carry on, then.’

The ring went dark, and Rain set it down again beside the rest.

Happily, their ignorance of Matt’s real story had, it seemed, caused Anselm and the River King to neglect assignment of special surveillance to anyone but Dustin and whomever might be in his immediate vicinity. Their mistake—which had left only Rain’s people present that afternoon to hear Anna and her husband discussing what to do about the things Matt had ‘sent them.’ Even then, were Andinol machinery not so crude and cumbersome, they’d still likely have had little chance of beating Anselm to this punch—if they really had.

Rain began to pace around his desk, wondering if the girl’s phone had been crushed before or after her abductors had discovered what was likely on it? They’d clearly had only minutes to seize her and flee before Dusty and his train of observers had arrived. Could there have been time to search the girl’s email even as they dragged her from the car? …That hardly seemed likely. Unless they had found out about these documents somehow, sooner than Rain had, and knew to look for them. If so, they’d already likely be following the electronic trail back to Matt himself.

But then why seize the girl at all? That’s the part he couldn’t comprehend. They could just have stolen her phone, followed Matt’s emails—with far greater stealth—and saved themselves the world of trouble this abduction was likely to cause Anselm, even if it did force Rhymer out of hiding.

And if they hadn’t crushed the girl’s phone to prevent Rain’s discovery of Matt’s email, then why had they destroyed such a potentially useful device at all—and left no one there to keep track of the boy, once he arrived?

None of it made any sense at all. …Which meant either that Anselm was even farther out ahead of them than Rain already feared…or that he too was flying so completely by the seat of his pants—as the Andinalloi liked to say—that there might still be hope of catching him off guard as well somehow. Hope springs eternal, Rain thought. Another very useful Andinol saying.

The previous ring lit up again, and Rain reached down to set his hand on it. ‘Well?’

I think we’ve found them, sir. …You’re not going to like it.

‘Don’t waste time, please. What’s in them?’

There are several emails, sir, warning them to ignore our letters and stay out of it; so he definitely got our message, somehow—very quickly, I’d say, from the time stamps. He writes of personal matters as well, which I can make little sense of. But then… It’s…some kind of diary, or…I don’t know, but it contains a lot of very startling assertions, sir. Rhymer claims to have been a fifty-year-old man, changed into a boy one night, by The Lady. Rain’s eyes flew wide, his breathing all but stopped. Obvious madness, but there’s more. Much more. Hundreds of pages, it seems. We’ve no time to read it through, of course, but—

‘DON’T!’ Rain’s mental shout was away before he could master himself. He struggled, belatedly, to mask or blunt as much of his own emotional content as possible, though his success was likely partial at best. It was much harder to lie convincingly in quantum transfer than it was in verbal conversation—one more reason for its use in situations like these. ‘Don’t read another word of it, you or anyone! That’s an order. Any further discussion of this material—at all—is forbidden, even among yourselves, before returning here to be debriefed by me. Is that absolutely clear?’

…Yes, sir.

The man’s surprise, concern, and curiosity were all too palpable across the transfer. Damning himself for an escalating fool, Rain knew his outburst had done nothing to help minimize the damage. This was…the worst imaginable disaster. Until this moment, he had only feared these documents might lead Anselm to Rhymer before they could intervene to stop it. It had never crossed his mind that he might… Why—by all the names of madness—would Rhymer have done such a thing? Had he some reason to hate them now? …Had he simply gone completely insane? Most of Rain’s intelligence staff knew, of course, that The Lady had once briefly offered protection to an Andinol boy; that her reasons were upright, but necessarily secret. Even if Matt’s arrival at the keep had not been so spectacularly visible, they’d have had to know as much to assist in countering Anselm’s continuing attacks and attempts to unearth the boy himself. But this! This was—

Sir? …Have you…any further instructions?

‘No. …I apologize for my tone. I too am shocked by these insane assertions, and deeply alarmed by what The Lady’s enemies might do—to all of us—with such scandalous fiction. It is unspeakably important that such madness be contained as completely as possible before so much as a fragment of it finds opportunity to drift past ears less trusted and disciplined than your own. I will want to speak further of this with all of you the instant you return. But right now it is more vital than ever that you complete your task—thoroughly. At whatever cost. Have you any questions?’

No, sir. I’ll see to it that only one copy of these documents is made, and keep that on my person until its delivery to you by my own hand.

‘Excellent. Inform me immediately if you need any further resource—anything at all.’

Yes, sir. I will, sir.

‘Thank you. That’s all for now.’

The ring went dark beneath Rain’s fingers, but so mesmerized was he by the enormity of what he had just learned that he didn’t think to lift his hand. He just stood, staring, slack-jawed, at the air, trying to calculate the implications, the possibilities, capacity for greater speed…the potential damage…

Only one certainty emerged: there was not a moment left for gathering reconnaissance or formulating strategies. The Lady and her heir must be informed immediately.

He went to a small, song-locked cabinet across the room, set his hands and mind to opening it, and removed a black, unmarked geist-stone from among the cabinet’s other contents. Dropping it to the floor, he crushed it underfoot, then turned and went to sweep all the message rings from his desk, sliding them into his deepest coat pocket as he headed for the doorway. The alarm he had just sounded would ensure they were both waiting by the time he reached The Lady’s chambers. He had perhaps three minutes now to consider what he’d say to them, and how best to say it. Very possibly the last three minutes of his service as chancellor to The Lady.