Cascet of Souls

“Nothing special about ’em, except they’re touched in the head,” the boy replied, quickly grabbing up the coins. “They’re queer folk, even for the Ring.”

“Why are they called raven folk?” asked Alec.

“Why, because they barter up for any damn thing you can think of! I know one boy who got a sack of sweets for a glass bead. Another one give Easy Lia a half sester for a lock of her stringy hair, and didn’t even want a tumble to go with it. Now she’s gone missing.”

Seregil exchanged a look with Alec at the mention of hair. “How many of them do you think there are?” The boy shrugged and bit one of the coins, as if doubting its make. Seregil flipped him another. “So? How many have you seen?”

“Just the one-a lame old man with a patch over his left eye. He offered me a yellow stone for my head rag, if you can believe it.” He glanced possessively at the greasy silk kerchief drying on the hearth. “I’da told him to go to Bilairy, but figured you might want to pay-I mean, see it, and so I give him a hank of my hair for it in the end.” He held up a short lock of his wet hair where it had been cut.

“Let me see the stone.”

Kepi gave him a chagrined look. “It got lifted.”

“Someone picked your pocket?” asked Alec.

“Folk are hard in the Ring!” Kepi exclaimed. “Some older boys seen me trade and went after me. It was give it over or get knifed.”

“It can’t be helped, but it would have been useful. Do you know of any other raven folk?”

“Three or four I heard of from some of the others about the

neighborhood. One of ’em’s a young fella on a crutch, and there’s a couple of women.”

“What do they look like?” asked Alec.

The boy shrugged. “The ones who seen ’em didn’t take much note, except for they was dirty, and making silly bargains for dross.”

“Which means they weren’t young or pretty,” Seregil noted. “So, a bead, locks of hair, and an attempt on your colorful headwear. What do you make of it?”

Kepi let out a scornful snort. “They’re loons.”

“When did they show up in the Ring?”

“Real recent, folk say.”

“Since the closure of the Lower City?”

“Maybe. It ain’t been long.”

“Does anyone know where they came from?” asked Alec.

Kepi bit off a mouthful of bread and shook his head as he chewed loudly. “If they do, I ain’t heard it.”

“Alec, I think our friend here could use a little beer with his meal.”

Kepi gri

“Are they seen mostly by day or night?”

“That I don’t know, but I can find out fer you.” Kepi wiped his plate clean with the last bit of bread.

“See that you do.” Seregil took out a half sester this time and held it up. “And I want to know if they’re in the Lower City, or if they’ve been there. This is a matter of great importance, Kepi, and I need this information as soon as possible. A friend’s life depends on it.”

Kepi tied his head scarf back on at a rakish angle and headed for the door.

“You can stay here until the rain stops,” Alec offered. It was still coming down in sheets and lightning forked across the sky.

Kepi gave him another skeptical look and disappeared into the storm.

“What do you make of all that?” asked Alec, sitting down on the warm bricks before the fire.

Seregil sat on the stool, gazing into the flames. The angle of light made his grey eyes look silver, and Alec felt an unexpected wrench of memory but pushed it away.

“A bunch of mad traders who bargain in hair, among other things, and give out yellow stones?” Seregil murmured, absently winding a lock of his own dark hair around one finger. “It’s certainly something out of the ordinary.”

“We should go to the Ring and have a look for ourselves. Hair could mean necromancy.”

“Not yet. We have a di

CHAPTER 31. Hunting Ravens

THE di

To make matters worse, they learned nothing of note. Alaya flirted playfully with Alec throughout the evening, but his thoughts were with Myrhichia and later Seregil informed him that he’d told the elderly archduchess that his first kiss had been with a rabbit.

“I thought she said ‘first kill’!” Alec exclaimed. “I wondered why everyone laughed.”

Much to Alec’s relief, Kepi was waiting for them when they returned home, and with more news of the raven people-promising news.

“Some of ’em was seen in the Lower City,” the boy told them, hunkered down by the fire in his dripping clothes, fla

“So that must have driven them up here,” said Alec.

“What about the Ring?” Seregil asked.

“That’s the good bit, my lord! There’s a little girl who traded with an old raven woman for a sweetmeat the other day. Now she’s in the drysian temple in Yellow Eel Street.”

“I’m surprised they brought her out at all,” said Seregil.

That temple stood close by one of the Sea Market gates that let into the Ring. “The Ring folk generally tend their own.”

“Do you want me to go back again?” Kepi asked hopefully.

Seregil gave him a few coins. “Go back to watching Duke Reltheus for now.”

Kepi made them a bow and disappeared into the storm again.

“Could the sweet have been poisoned?” wondered Alec.

“Possibly, but it sounds like it isn’t only food they offer. As for the trades, if it was just hair, that would make necromancy more likely, or even alchemy, but there doesn’t sound like there’s any pattern to the trades. Or it could all just be coincidence.”

Alec gri

“I think they just might be. Let’s start with that little girl in Yellow Eel Street.”

Braving the storm, they rode to the Sea Market and entered the temple. A drysian met them and led them through his small shrine to a smaller room beyond it.

A haggard, fair-haired woman knelt beside the pallet, watching as another drysian let some liquid drip between a little girl’s lips. The child was no more than seven, a golden-haired, blue-eyed little thing. She’d been bathed and put into a clean nightgown, Seregil noted. Too late again. The woman, presumably the mother, was in worn clothing, but remarkably clean for a Ring dweller. She glared fiercely up at the two well-dressed nobles approaching her girl.

“What do you want?” she demanded, her accent marking her as southern-born.

“We have an interest in this affliction,” Seregil told her. He went down on one knee on the other side of the pallet and took two silver sesters from his purse. “I’d just like to look her over a bit, and ask you a few questions.”

The woman hesitated, then snatched the coins “Go on, then.”

“How long has she been like this?”

“She fell ill yesterday morning.”

“Did you see her talking to any strangers?”

“An old woman give her a treat the other day.”

“Was the old woman one of what they call the raven people?” asked Alec, trying to mask his excitement.

“Never heard of any raven people. But she had the look of a beggar.”

“Did she make an odd trade?”

The woman gave him a surprised look. “She give Lissa the sweets for her broken doll.”

“Can you describe it?” asked Seregil.

“What, the doll? What you want to know that for?”