Marigold Thistledown's Arc

Chapter 12 of 15

The frost was still on the ground when Mara found Marigold at the empty signal station. The twin was gone through the gate. The network was safe. But the Guild's handler still had the twin's confession as his own word, and he could use it to name Marigold's traders as thieves and smugglers. Without the twin here to speak against the Guild's crimes, his word would condemn her people first. Marigold needed proof the Guild could not deny. She had none. "He'll bring his charge to the trade council by week's end," Mara said. She never softened a hard thing. "His word against ours. We lose." "Then we need something stronger than his word," Marigold said. Fennrick Vex stepped out from the rocks below the cliffs. The Guild thought their hunter was off drinking. He was here instead, scar bright across one eye, still wearing their cloak. "His ledger," he said. "He keeps a private one. Every villager he paid for names. His own hand." Marigold looked at him. Fennrick had lied to the Guild for her before. He had hidden a hunted woman under that very cloak. He hated how easily marks trusted him. She trusted him anyway. "You can reach it?" "He carries it. I ride with him tonight." "They'll know it was you," Mara said. "You take his book, you can't go back." Fennrick shrugged. "Already can't. He saw my face at the trail." Marigold hated the price. If Fennrick took the ledger, the Guild lost their man inside their own ranks. He would have no way home. But the ledger in the handler's own hand would prove the Guild paid for children's names. That was the proof no council could wave away. "Do it," she said. "Bring it here." Fennrick left before dark. Marigold and Mara waited at the station through the cold. A giant cat, one of the strays the village had taken in, curled against the door and watched the trail. Near midnight it lifted its head. Fennrick came up the path, moving fast, a thin leather book pressed to his chest. He dropped it in Marigold's hands. "Names. Dates. His seal." He was breathing hard. "He knows already. Sounded the horn before I cleared the gully." Marigold turned the pages. Villager names. Payments for red hair, for marked doors. The handler's own mark on every one. Real proof, at last. "You gave up your cover for this," she told Fennrick. "You gave up your witness," he said. "Even trade." Mara looked at the horn's echo rolling off the cliffs. "He's not coming to argue at a council now. He's coming to burn this station down and take the book back." Marigold closed the ledger. She finally had the proof to break the Guild. But the handler knew she had it. He would come with fire, not with words, and this time he would bring everyone.