Page 111 of A Reign of Roses
Mari was already prying open the ledger and searching for his name.
“What’s Aleksander’s last name?” she asked.
I came to stand behind her. “Hale.”
“H, H, H…”Mari repeated, flipping through the pages.
“Nothing came up underA?” Griffin asked, hovering over her, eyes squinted at the fine print.
“No,” she said, leaning into his chest a bit. “Unfortunately not.”
Griffin froze with the contact and his face flushed. He stepped back from the witch in an instant and she nearly toppled over.
“Is it listed by last name?” I asked.
Mari remained silent, her cheeks now a matching pink before emitting a low, “Nope…”
And she was well past theA’s.
Gods damn it.
I peered out to see nightfall cloak the city inch by inch. What was the best way to go about stealing a horse? Would I reveal myself as the king of Onyx, or would it be faster, and avoid time-wasting questions, to simply threaten—
“Go back,” Griffin said, voice low. “I know that name.”
I turned back and peered over the ledger, Mari squished between the two of us. “Which one?”
“Hearken Sadella,” Griffin said. “He owns the Neck Romancer.”
“What’s that?” Mari asked.
“A theater in a seedy port town called Rotter’s End.” Griffin winced as he held Mari’s ripped skirt to the wound at his ribs. “Only an hour from here by horseback. A strange place…It’s in one of the most dangerous towns in northern Rose but caters to some of the kingdom’s highest-end clientele. Somewhere the rich can find decadence as well as anonymity. Quite the operation—prostitution, banned spirits and drugs, and apparently some mighty fine theater.”
When Mari made a face of surprise, Griffin added, “Kane and I hunted for the Blade of the Sun for five years. I know of every criminal operation in Evendell.”
I ran a hand down my face, attempting to maintain my waning patience. “How is that relevant to Aleksander?”
“I’m not sure…” Griffin admitted. “It was the only name I recognized.” He looked back down at the ledger and squinted again. “All the columns for Hearken Sadella’s known associates and locations have been left blank.”
I opened my mouth to respond. To tell them we were wasting time and needed to go abduct two horses immediately, but Mari’s gaze stopped me cold.
Her focused eyes, bottom lip caught between her teeth—
“Hearken Sadella…H-E-A— I need some parchment.”
I gestured to the snowy alleyway. “Afraid we’re all out.”
“Turn around,” she ordered Griffin, and my enormous bleeding, cold-as-ice commander whirled like a well-trained dog. Mari began to draw her pointed finger across his broad back as if she were writing something. He bristled with each movement of her tiny finger.
“It’s an anagram,” she whispered after a long moment, her voice a blend of awe and triumph.
Griffin spoke into the brick before him. “A what?”
“A word formed by rearranging the letters of another word. He was hiding from you, right?” she asked me. “When he first came to Evendell with all of his people? He likely fought under an alias and then adopted the pseudonym to live in anonymity. But he used all the letters of his real name. Aleksander Hale and Hearken Sadella.” She grinned, that fire back in her eyes. “One and the same.”
It turned out the easiestway to steal two horses was for Mari to distract a carriage owner who had stopped to fix his broken spoke, and for Griffin and me to free his horses and take off for Rotter’s End, swiping Mari from her conversation on our way. She insisted on leaving the man a satchel of coin, to which my commander grudgingly agreed.
Griffin had been right. The ride was less than an hour, as our horses were quick, and we arrived in Rotter’s End before the dilapidated clock tower in the town square rang seven. We’d made good time.
