Fire Weaver (Fall of the Fey #1)

Chapter 20

Within minutes Faux and Carmel were back at the Bar & Grill, which now contained two other people, who sat on opposite ends of the bar. One was an old woman with curly black hair who wore dirty pants and a singlet that was so used you couldn't tell whether it started out white or if it had always been a washed out grey. The other was an even older man with greying hair and a weather beaten face, he slumped around his drink as though he was afraid of it from being taken away.

Terease was glaring at the woman's back as she wiped up what looked like red liquid and glass shards from the ground around the woman's feet. Faux waved to catch Terease's eye and she nodded in greeting. They sat at the same table they had before and waited. The woman turned her head to look at them with her head slightly raised giving the appearance of looking down her nose.

'Who are you?' She asked from across the room, her voice slurred as she weaved on her seat. 'Working for the King?'

'No.' Faux told her while Carmel tried to avoid eye contact.

'Huh,' she said and turned back to her drink.

Terease hurried over to them when she had picked up all the glass and gave them a warm smile, 'couldn't get enough the first time?'

'Never.' Faux told her, his posture angled toward her in what could only be described as flirtatious.

'We saw something and didn't know who to tell.' Carmel told her and then proceeded with detailing what had happened moments before. Terease's face fell into the blank face she had given them when they first met her, the face that only people who had lived through hard times could make, and waited until the end of the story without comment.

'They are good kids.' She told them, her shoulders slumped before she turned to the woman and called out. 'Darla, these folk saw the king's men grab your two kids.'

'Serves them right, monsters.' She spat on the floor and drank her wine without looking at them. Carmel flinched as if she had been slapped, Terease looked like she had eaten something foul. That woman had just called her own children monsters. In that moment Carmel did not see Darla, but her own father the day she had accidentally killed her mother and younger brother, with her untamed magic. He hadn't been able to look at her, in his hospital bed with his own burn wounds, as he called her a monster.

Carmel opened her mouth, her body quaking with remembered fear and rage, but caught Faux shaking his head at her before he whispered, 'it's more trouble than it's worth.'

Instead of yelling at Darla, Carmel asked another question of Terease. 'Where were they taken to? Do you know?'

'From here?' Terease rubbed her hand against the base of her throat, still grimacing at what Darla had said. 'They go further inland. The place they take the supernaturals is the castle in the Red Sea. It's a desert in the middle of the country but they will probably make stops and veer through towns where there are rumours of magic.'

Faux who was tracing his menu with his middle finger paused, a frown on his face. 'If we wanted to get her back, would it be worth following the men or would it be better to go straight to Red Sea.'

'I would say go straight to the Red Sea and wait just outside the castle but by that point they would have a ton of men and prisoners, it could end up pretty bloody.' Terease told them. 'What you need is a tracker.'

'Do you know where we could find one?' Carmel asked.

Darla called out for another wine, distracting Terease. She glanced back at them as she started walking toward the bar, 'not anymore.'

They walked outside and stood on the dirt road. 'Well, what do we do?'

Faux shrugged, 'give up.'