A bit of flute music threaded through his mind. The Capchens had danced to it…
Humming the tune, Pasco took three quick steps to the right, his arms in the air, palm-to-palm overhead.
Vani halted and rolled his eyes. "Now what?" he demanded.
Pasco took another three quick steps to the left. He lowered his arms halfway, holding them like wings out from his sides. He arched his chest, head high. Long step next, then leap at Vani, one leg bent, the other trailing straight behind him.
Vani, Haiday, and the youth behind them flew up and back as if thrown. Pasco landed on the ground and waited for them to do the same.
They didn't, all three stayed in the air, four feet above the tiles. They hung, and they hung, and they hung.
"Pasco, what did you do?" breathed Reha, who was earthbound. "That was you, wasn't it?"
"No," he said quickly.
The three hanging Acalons flailed without shifting their bodies an inch. "Let me down!" yelled Vani. "Right now, you puling, puking little rat turd!"
Pasco licked his lips. Time. He needed time to think. "Promise you won't beat me up," he retorted, his voice squeaking.
“I'll mince you is what I'll do! Get me down!" Reha left the courtyard and returned with a tall stool. She thrust it under Haiday, as if she just needed a step down Haiday struggled, but the air held her fast. Reha tried the stool on the other two, without result.
Vani kicked it over when she put it under him. "Pasco, get me down, or you're hog food!"
"Promise," whispered Pasco, mind racing like a panicked mouse, All he could think was that Vani would need, to hurry to beat Mama to killing him.
A sharp voice demanded, "What is going on out here? You children know very well Great-grandmother rests at this hour!" Gran'ther Edoar walked out of his quarter of the house, as cross as a bear. Leaning on his walking stick, the tall old man went up to the three hanging Acalons and tugged Haiday's leg. She remained in the air.
Pasco fell to his knees with a whimper.
Gran'ther walked around the three, looking them over, pulling first an arm, then a leg. Pasco's mind had stopped running, frozen around the thought that he would never be allowed out of the house again.
Once his inspection was complete, Gran'ther halted and looked at the cousins who stood on the ground. "How did this come about?" he inquired mildly. "Surely you have not learned to fly, or someone would have mentioned it at supper."
"It's all Pasco's fault!" snapped Vani. He thrashed as if he thought he could swim through the air to claw at his young cousin. "He did this!"
Gran'ther's tufted eyebrows rose. "Did he indeed?"
"I didn't mean it," babbled Pasco. "I–I was scared, and he's going to beat me up again—,"
"Beat you up?" Gran'ther looked at Vani and then at Pasco. "Again?"
"He's lying to get himself out of trouble," growled Vani, but the girls were shaking their heads.
"He's beaten Pasco before," Gran'ther repeated, to confirm it.
"Yes, sir," replied Haiday, shamefaced. "And you, future harriers all, you said nothing? You allowed him to do it?" Gran'ther asked it as if he were simply confirming a report. Now all of the cousins but Vani and Pasco nodded, staring at their feet.
"Well," the old man said at last. "Once we have solved the matter at hand, we must talk about this. We cannot turn a bully harrier loose on the people of Summersea. They deserve better care." To Pasco he said, "Can you bring them down?"
Pasco looked at the three captives. Raising, then lowering his arms, he tried to feel magical. Nothing happened. He then hummed the tune, and raised and lowered his arms. That didn't work, either. He was afraid to try dancing—he'd probably just make it worse.
"There's—I have to…" he stammered. Gran'ther scowled, and Pasco tried to get his voice under control. "There's someone I need to get," he said. "She—she knows what's wrong with me." If she'll come, he thought, shivering. What if she refused?
"Then fetch her at once," Gran'ther ordered. Pasco hesitated. "I have to go a ways. I'll be a while." Gran'ther sat on a bench, folding his hands over the grip on his cane. "No one's going anywhere." When Pasco still hesitated, the old man's heavy brows snapped together. "Now, boy!" he said sharply. Pasco fled.
It was late when Sandry had returned the night before, and fretting over Pasco had kept her awake long after midnight. As a result, when she woke in the morning, it was nearly ten. She dressed hurriedly and went in search of the duke. She found him in the workroom with Baron Erdogun.
"Uncle, I'm sorry about last night," she said, kissing his cheek before she took a chair. "I had to talk to Lark. I didn't get home until late. And why didn't you wake me for your ride this morning?"
"I am aware you came back late, and before you scold, I heard it this morning. I was abed when you returned." He smiled at her and offered her a plate of muffins. The baron yanked the bell pull. "When you didn't come this morning, I assumed you were still asleep," the duke continued. "Since you're usually up early, I thought you must need your rest. As for my ride, instead of having to make excuses to my taskmaster" — he reached over and tugged one of her braids, which she had left hanging down her back that morning—, "I confined my explorations to the Arsenal."
A servant arrived and took breakfast instructions from Erdogun while Sandry grinned at the duke. The Arsenal dockyards—where Emelan's navy was built, housed, and repaired—was large, but it was nearby. A visit there would not have lasted as long as their ride of the previous morning had.
He must have been tired, to go to bed early and to stick to the Arsenal today, she thought, breaking up a muffin. So he's listening to the healers after all, maybe.
"I trust you found Dedicate Lark in good spirits?" asked Erdogun.
Sandry nodded, her mouth full. When she finished her first muffin, she began on her second. Looking up as she buttered it, she saw that both men were watching her. It seemed they were curious about what had taken her up to Winding Circle, but they were too polite to ask her outright.
She giggled, then told them about the success of Pasco's net-spell, and Larks advice. As she talked, servants brought in a small table and set her breakfast out on it. Once they were gone, she continued as she ate.
When she finished, the duke chuckled. "I'm sure teaching will be an eye-opening experience," he said, picking up the sheaf of papers he'd been reading when she came in. "It always was for me."
"Oh, splendid," Sandry told him drily. "Was there any news about Jamar Rokat?"
"Not a word," said the duke. "It's as if they appeared in that room, did their work, then vanished." He leafed through the papers until he found three, and passed them to her. Sandry read them quickly. Captain Qais was as stiff in writing as he was in person, but the facts were clear. So far the bodyguards refused to admit to helping the killers enter the countinghouse. She understood that: if they did, they would be executed as accomplices. The Provost's Mages were still picking apart the spells of pro tection and detection on Rokat House, with nothing to report. Everyone who worked in the building was being questioned by the Guard. The dead mans brother was making a nuisance of himself, hovering over Captain Qais and demanding results.
Sandry returned the papers to her uncle, and contin ued to eat her breakfast in thoughtful silence. Just as she finished, a maidservant came to the open door. "Forgive me, your grace, my lord, but there is a boy here." In her mouth the word boy sounded like a disease. "He says he must speak to my lady immediately."
Sandry frowned. Could it be Pasco? "Does he have a name?" she asked.
Pasco darted in past the servant, coming to an abrupt halt when he saw the two men at the table. His face, already ashy, went dead white.
Sandry took pity on him and got to her feet. "Pasco, good morning," she said calmly, putting her napkin on her chair. "You met my uncle yesterday, of course—
Pasco bowed jerkily to the duke.
"And this is the Lord Seneschal, Baron Erdogun fer Baigh."
Pasco gave the same wooden-puppet bow to Erdogun, then fixed pleading eyes on Sandry. "Lady, my cousins are hanging in midair and I can't get them down!"
Sandry heard the duke smother a chuckle. She ignored it as she fixed Pasco with her best teacherly stare. "I take it you danced them up there?"
Pasco nodded, wringing his hands.
"So you agree you have magic," Sandry told him sternly.