Dane Korvit's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The green trail led away from Lanalee's cottage into wet ground. Dane followed it three steps before it forked and thinned. He crouched, unsure which line was true. One wrong step would kill the trail. He needed the fairy, and he hated that he needed anyone again. "Lanalee." He waved her over. "I can't read it alone." She flew from the doorway and hovered above the fork. Her black aura swelled. "You'd have lost it. Watch my wand, not the ground." The willow-topped wand tugged east. Lanalee frowned. "It pulls the same way as my thief. Someone took my seeds three days ago. Maybe the same hand." They moved together. Dane cut brush while she held the trail steady. A striped creature darted past his face, green and teal, with dragonfly wings and too many small legs. It hung in the air, watching them. "A spy," Lanalee said. "Someone sent it." She snapped her wand. The little creature dropped into the mud and lay still. Where it fell, Dane found a worn leather bag half-sunk in the muck. He pulled it free. The strap was patched a dozen times. Inside sat a cloth pouch of seeds. "My seeds." Lanalee's voice went flat. "Someone dropped them here." "Dropped them, or lost them running." Dane stood. The trail and the bag pointed the same direction. A woman stepped out of the reeds ahead. Pink and black hair. A torn green top she wore like it meant something. She looked at the bag in Dane's hand and did not flinch. "That's mine now," she said. "I took it off a man who deserved worse." "The seeds inside are hers." Dane nodded at Lanalee. The woman studied them both. "Seraphina Nightshade. I con rich men and take what I want. I didn't know what the man was carrying." She looked past them, east, where the trail went. "He wasn't rich. He worked for something in the swamp. That's why I dumped his motes and ran." Dane felt his pulse pick up. "What's in the swamp?" "A witch." Seraphina's face stayed calm. "Two heads on one body. The men I follow all crawl back to her." Lanalee took her seeds and pointed her wand east. It pulled hard. "The trail leads there. To her." Dane looked at Seraphina. Something in her steady eyes held him longer than it should have. "You know the way in." "I know the way that gets you killed." She almost smiled. "You want the witch. I want what she owes me. We walk the same road." Dane sheathed his machete. He had a trail, a fairy who could read it, and now a woman who knew where it ended. The bag had cost him the trail's confusion and bought him a destination. "Then we walk it," he said. He turned east, toward the smoke and the witch who had sent Kylie's killer. Seraphina looked over at Dane and gave him an admiring look. Dane looked over at her and wondered if there might be something between them.