She waved as she spurred her horses forward. Valek’s curiosity urged him to follow her in order to take a peek at her cargo, but catching up to Yelena in Lapeer was a priority.
Kiki set off, presumably toward Lapeer. Had Kiki known Maren would have information about Yelena, or had she just smelled a familiar person and decided to investigate? He’d have to ask Yel... Oh. Without her magic, Yelena wouldn’t be able to communicate with Kiki. His anger at his heart mate disappeared. Yelena must be devastated. No wonder she’d confided in Devlen and Opal. They’d endured the same hardship.
Valek and Devlen reached Lapeer two days later at midafternoon. Doing a quick recon of the town, Valek noticed guards posted around one of the warehouses and quite a bit of activity around the station house. While Devlen visited the authorities, Valek stabled the horses and then took a closer look at that warehouse.
He found a gap in their security and slipped into the building. While the equipment was unfamiliar, the smell slapped him in the face. Curare. They’d been manufacturing Curare. The smuggling operation, which he’d viewed as an annoyance, had transformed into a high-level threat to both Ixia and Sitia. No wonder the Commander had been so determined to shut it down.
Except...
Why wouldn’t he tell Valek that Maren had been working undercover? They could have saved time with her intel.
Unless...
The answer shocked him. He stood in the middle of the room, not caring who might see him. It explained so much. Not everything, but the reason the Commander hadn’t confided in Valek became clear.
Maren’s wagon was loaded with Curare for the Commander. And now that the Commander had enough of the drug and probably insider knowledge on how to produce more, he’d sent Valek to shut the smugglers down. No point in having Curare if everyone had it—that wouldn’t be a good strategy. And since Valek had “divided” loyalties, the Commander kept this part of the operation a secret so Valek wouldn’t inform Yelena. He didn’t trust Valek.
Not sure how he felt about the Commander’s lack of faith, Valek finished scouting the building. All evidence suggested the place had been abandoned. He exited and hurried to join Devlen in the Log Jam Inn’s common room for supper. Neither of them had eaten a hot meal in days.
“What did you discover?” Valek asked as he sat next to Devlen.
“That their corn pie is supposedly the best. I ordered one for you, too.”
“You sound like Leif.”
“I learned to ask the servers what their favorite dish is from him,” Devlen said. “It takes all the guesswork out of ordering a meal.”
“That is one good thing when traveling with Leif. The food is always better.”
“True.” Devlen scrunched his napkin between his hands. “I learned the smugglers are producing Curare.” Guilt creased his face. “Yelena’s father developed the drug to help people in pain, and the Daviian Warpers stole it and misused it. And now... Hell, I was a Warper. I was a part of all that. And just thinking about some street thug using Curare on my children...” He twisted the cloth into a tight rope.
“It can’t be undone,” Valek said. “It can’t be contained. But we can fight it. There is an antidote, and Leif and Esau have been working on finding a way to mass-produce it. And more healers are using Curare to manage pain. A good thing. Besides, from what I hear about Reema and Teegan, the street thug will be the one in danger.”
That surprised a laugh from Devlen. “Especially if they’re together.”
“That poor street thug won’t know what hit him.” He smiled.
The server arrived with two steaming corn pies and two mugs of ale. All conversation ceased as they inhaled the food. Not bad. The pie had chunks of chicken, potatoes and corn inside a flaky crust.
When they finished, Valek asked, “Did you learn anything else?”
“The smugglers had fled before the raid. But they think Yelena found a clue to their destination and followed them.”
“Think?”
“She disappeared after the raid.”
Valek wrapped his hands around the mug to keep them from grabbing Devlen’s shirt and slamming him on the table. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“What could you do? They don’t know which direction the smugglers headed. The horses need to rest. We need to eat.”
He drew in a deep breath. “When was the raid?”
“Yesterday.”
Valek considered. “Did they mention if Yelena was with anyone?”
“She was alone, which concerned the captain. He expected the Soulfinder to have an escort and did not believe her story about the factory at first.”
Which meant Janco and Onora had kept a low profile. And there was a good chance they’d followed the smugglers. Did they head north to that tunnel Maren had mentioned? One way to find out.
* * *
Valek returned to the Log Jam Inn after finding the tunnel. The entrance had been hidden by magic and it had taken him four hours to discover its location. Pure exhaustion soaked into his bones, and he fumbled at the door, waking Devlen when he entered the room.
“Any signs of recent activity?” Devlen asked.
“No. It was last used about three or four days ago.”
“That rules out north. And we know they did not go west or Kiki would have smelled Yelena. South?”
“Not with the Fulgor security forces searching for Ben Moon.”
“Then that leaves east.”