The Goblets Immortal by Beth Overmyer (read 50 shades of grey .TXT) 📕

were mad. “I’m not holding them for anyone, boy. Now, you obviously are lying to me about not having them. Bring them back at once, or I’ll—”

Aidan held his hands up. “Calm down, old man. I told you I don’t have the maps. I didn’t have enough time to look at all the papers and oilskins I took.”

“Bah. Nonsense.”

“Why would I lie when you’re holding so much over my head?”

That made Dewhurst pause and consider his words. He did not want to believe Aidan, Aidan knew innately. Dewhurst wanted to hate the orphan boy he had tricked into handing over his title, the boy he’d framed for murder. He hated him and his noble blood. If Dewhurst had a sword, he’d run Aidan through right now, blood and Meraude’s demands be hanged.

Aidan shook himself out of the small trance he’d just entered and looked at Dewhurst, amazed. “You’re working for Meraude.”

Only upon hearing her name did Dewhurst betray any fear in his features. Yet after a moment, he smoothed the worries out of his face and shook his head. “You are a misguided child.” How does that Ingledark brat known about Meraude? I haven’t mentioned her, nor the fact that I was supposed to aid this boy or stay out of his way.

Aidan blinked himself back into the moment, having fallen again into a trance. He opened his mouth to accuse Dewhurst, but then it occurred to him: if he could somehow get a read on Dewhurst’s thoughts and feelings, it would be best to keep the man in the dark about that fact. Aidan shut his mouth and shook the cobwebs from his brain. How could he be sure of this new ability? Where had it come from?

Dewhurst interrupted his thoughts. “Those maps are crucial to your survival – to her survival.” He gestured toward Slaíne, who now stood outside of striking distance. “I suggest you check your cache again.”

Sweat formed on Aidan’s brow, though the air down there was cool bordering on cold. What could he do to convince the man of the truth? “I don’t have the maps,” he repeated, desperation leaking into his voice.

The look Dewhurst gave him was incredulous. “Do you think me stupid? Those maps did not sprout legs and walk out. Someone took them. Who else has been in my study?”

“Maybe a servant—”

Dewhurst waved the suggestion away. “My servants are loyal to a fault. I will give you three days, Ingledark. Three days to consider all the horrible things I could do to the both of you to get the maps back. And don’t think for a second that I would hesitate to follow through.” Dewhurst and Aidan stood there for a moment, sizing each other up, before the lord turned on his heel and stormed toward the stairs.

Slaíne gave Aidan one last pitiful look before trotting off after her new master. The guards didn’t even look at him before turning and filing out after their employer.

Aidan waited until their Pulls had all but disappeared before swearing. Three days? He’d searched his cache in Nothingness thoroughly. There was nothing even remotely map-like stored there.

Something else nagged at Aidan as he lowered himself to the floor. Who did have the maps? Had Larkin stolen them before leaving Dewhurst’s estate? If so, then she had truly set Aidan up to fail and be caught, and his hopes of trusting her now were dashed entirely. He thought back to his interactions with her. On one of the last days he’d seen her, she’d found him and Slaíne in the market place in Abbington, a new Pull on her person. It had felt like paper. Perhaps….

No, Larkin wouldn’t have been so stupid as to carry the maps on her person. Besides, she would’ve had to have them sent to her in Abbington, because she most certainly didn’t have them when Aidan first ran into her there. Unless she had them hidden somewhere…. No, someone else had taken the maps.

What did I get out of the vault? Aidan mused. It had looked like a map. But it couldn’t have been, if Dewhurst was honest and hadn’t recovered the map from the papers Aidan had stolen. Maybe Aidan’s stash in Nothingness was compromised somehow. “Nothingness.” Aidan sat upright as an ancient, gnarled voice came to mind. “I held on to the maps. Lot of good they’ll do ya now….”

He’d thought that Treevain’s voice in his head had been a hallucination brought on by stress, and the same with the woman who had claimed to be his aunt. Perhaps they’d been real. Aidan rested his head in his hands, racking his brain for other indications that this might be true.

The images and visions had been silent since he’d been imprisoned the previous week. They had changed in quality and quantity since the nymph had stabbed him in the shoulder with the ice blade. As he thought of the wound, Aidan rubbed it absently, though it did nothing more than give a tiny throb. “That must be it. They have to be connected. All of it.”

He thought some more. The elves said they were dead. Maybe they are. Maybe I can talk with the dead because of the blade wound. Aidan shook his head. If that were true, why would he have just seen those hideous creatures instead of someone that had meant something to him? Maybe not any sort of dead person, he mused, thinking more clearly than he had in weeks, despite the iron. But what sort? They must all have a common denominator. Aidan felt he had most, if not all of the pieces to this puzzle, but they were all gray sky with no breaks in the pattern.

Fatigue overcame him, but still he sat and tried to puzzle out his muddled thoughts.

Soon after, the scullery maid brought down Aidan’s afternoon meal – a cold potato and a dried-out slab of salmon, and a gulp of vinegar wine in a dented tin cup. She stood watching him