When Karigan excused herself before she finished supper, the professor asked, “Are you not feeling well, my dear?”
“I’m fine, Uncle, just a little tired.”
She returned to her room, and Lorine helped her change into her nightgown early. When left on her own, Karigan took out the mirror shard from its hiding place, along with the note from Captain Mapstone. She stared long and hard at the words and handwriting, confirming for herself once again that this was, in fact, real and not a hoax. It had to be. She had to believe. Even if it was a trap of some kind, she could not ignore the summons. She had to go.
She gazed at the mirror shard, but it produced no vision for her.
When the bell struck ten hour, she swung her legs out of bed and crept to the door. She had to be especially careful—this was an earlier hour than when she usually slipped out to meet the professor to go to the old mill, and there was always the chance someone in the household was awake, notably the professor himself. However, as she made her way, she encountered no one. Light might glow in the crack beneath a bedroom door, but no one emerged.
Once she let herself out the back door, she knew the stable would be the next challenge, for Luke and the stable boys had rooms there. She worked up a few excuses in case she was caught. I’m sorry, Luke, I couldn’t sleep and wanted to see Raven. Or, I’m sorry Luke, but it seemed like a good night for a ride . . . Right. Very convincing.
When she entered the stable with the light of a very dim taper to guide her, Raven whickered sleepily at her.
“Shhh,” she admonished him.
She let herself into the tackroom and the wardrobe where her Tam Ryder garb awaited her. She changed quickly, stuffing her braid into the cap. She froze when she thought she heard a door groan open, expecting Luke to come at any moment and demand what she was about. She strained to listen, but heard nothing more than the movements of horses and the settling noises of the building itself. Still, she crept out of the tackroom, looking around carefully. When she saw no one, she went to Raven to groom and tack him. She had groomed him earlier in the day and now only had to brush a light layer of dust off his coat. He was fully awake now and nuzzled her for treats.
“Not now, silly,” she whispered, and she set the saddle on his back.
Karigan prayed her luck held. It was one thing if she was caught by Luke, but as she led Raven out of the stable, she knew it would be quite another if she were spotted by an Inspector. She’d brought the bonewood with her but did not think it would be much of a defense against a gun or mechanical.
She led Raven down the drive and mounted. He pranced and tossed his head, full of high spirits. The silver of his tack jingled, and to Karigan it sounded like an alarm ringing in the quiet of night.
“Settle down,” she murmured.
Raven whickered.
She leaned down on his neck and whispered to his twitching ear, “Tonight you are a Green Rider horse, and we are on an important mission. Understand?”
He quieted.
Good, Karigan thought, and she squeezed him forward.
He promptly started prancing again, behaving like the energetic young stallion he was, his neck handsomely curved. She sighed, made another short prayer, and they were out on the street. She looked carefully this way and that. A clammy mist hung in the air, turning the glow of streetlamps hazy, droplets turning into sparks and embers as they passed through the light. A little fog would be helpful. If only she had her brooch and her special ability worked. She could disappear and none would note her passage.
She held Raven in, peering down streets at every intersection. There were a few others out—street sweepers, cabs rumbling by at a trot, amorphous shapes in the mist. She followed the route Luke had taken when they’d gone to the Scangly Mounds that one day. When she looked over her shoulder toward the Old City, the light of Silk’s worksite at the summit boiled and wavered in the thick air. It would be her beacon and help her keep her bearings as she sought the foundation of the small mount—where the Old City, her Sacor City, had been—and searched for the Heroes Portal.
As she continued on her cautious way, Raven’s hooves clopping all too loudly on the street, she wondered if, instead of stealth, they should actually move along as if she had business to attend to. The cabs certainly did, as well as other carriages she saw out and about. She paused, thinking it over, and in the silence heard the mechanical click-clack of an Enforcer tapping its way down the street on its spindly, metallic legs, accompanied by the footsteps of an Inspector. Karigan backed Raven into an alley and peered around its entrance. A sickly glow hovered around the mechanical, its looking-glass eye rotating on the orb of its body. The Inspector swung a club at his side. The mechanical made a sharp bleep and turned down a side street.
Relief settled over Karigan, but Raven mouthed the bit, so she decided they would trot through the city and try to leave it behind as fast as possible, come what may. She was tired of caution, and the message Cloudy had brought made her decide that the time of waiting and inaction was over. They set out at a ground-eating trot.
In the center of town there was a little more traffic, and she felt less conspicuous. She slowed Raven to a jog to accommodate others on the street, even passing another Inspector and his mechanical patrolling shop fronts. The Inspector didn’t even glance her way, more interested in the window displays. Once away from the town center, they picked up their pace again along Canal Street, past silent mills with darkened windows. Fog wisped along the surface of the canal’s black water. Soon they clattered across the bridge that spanned the canal, then the second that crossed the river, and she urged Raven to a canter through the poor neighborhoods on the other side.