"What in blazes happened to you two?"
Carl looked down at both of them. He was just finishing up his work for the day when the two burst into the Right Rudder Inn. Their faces were streaked with soot, and both smelled strongly of smoke.
"Blazes is pretty much the correct word," Val said. "We were caught in a fire."
"What!" Carl started.
"I'm sorry, but we are going to have to cut our stay short," Mand interrupted.
"What's going on?" Claire asked, wheeling out of her office. She looked at the two sisters. "Mand! Val! What happened?"
The two began to explain the encounter at the antique shop. Mand gave most of the dry details, while Val embellished here and there.
"And then Mand burst through the trap door and hauled me up the ladder!" Val said.
"I lifted it aside because some debris had fallen on it and I couldn't lift it straight up," Mand corrected.
The sisters ended the tale with explaining how they had slipped away from the scene of the fire. They avoided the main streets and used alleyways to keep a low profile. It had taken them about an hour to make their way back to the inn.
"We'll support you in whatever you decide to do," Carl said at the end of the story. "But if you stay here in town, you two will have to be VERY careful. From the sounds of it, both the shopkeeper and firefighter got a good look at you. The city guard will be looking for you two. Even if the shopkeeper verifies your story, fleeing the scene did not help your case one bit."
"Any idea who it was that followed you into the shop?" asked Claire.
"No, they had a strange accent that I couldn't place," said Mand.
"Ships have been finding there way here from further and further away in the last few years," said Carl. "It's not that unusual now to encounter someone who sailed in from a place that you've never heard of.
"The thing is, we don't have a clear answer as to WHY there were after us."
"It sounds a little similar to what happened to me," said Claire. "Like they had intended to bring you back to their ship."
"We're starting to see a pattern," said Mand.
"You probably unknowingly painted targets on your backs when you fixed the bridge," said Carl.
"There were a LOT of people who saw us there yesterday," said Val. "Mand gave a pretty impressive show,"
"That's why we have to go," said Mand. "We don't know who we can trust right now." She paused. "Present company excepted."
Val thought about the piece of paper that Terry had given her. Perhaps they could use a rich ally here in the city who could do some digging for them. No, Mand had already decided that they would leave, so it would be pointless to bring it up without another drawn out argument.
"Before you two make any decisions about what to do next, why don't you go have a bath?" Claire said. She then wrinkled her nose, "Before the guard tracks you here by smell alone."
Val lifted an arm to her nose and sniffed the sleeve, giving a face as she took in the smoky odor.
"We'll see about washing those clothes as well," said Carl.
"But," Mand began to protest. Claire held up a hand to stop her.
"As much wisdom there is in you two leaving right away," Claire said. "It might be better to wait for things to cool down a bit. Let the city guard settle down and move on to other things."
"You may be right," said Mand.
***
The bath felt like heaven to Val. She closed her eyes and let the aches of living on the roads ebb away into the warm water.
She hadn't realized how tired she had been. They had only left their winter's refuge on the coast about a month ago, and she was already worn from the constant travel as they moved from job to job. As much as her older sister insisted that a nomadic lifestyle would keep them safe, it looked like no matter what they did, they drew attention to themselves.
It was all Doyle's fault. If the gang leader hadn't tried to do....THAT.... their father would still be alive and they wouldn't be living a life on the run far from home.
It had been an adventure at first. Stowing aboard a ship and jumping off at the next port had been exciting. Val had never even been outside of the city of Ulareg at that point in her life. Thankfully, they were easily able to find work and earn money with their metalmancy skills. They were just starting to settle in to a new life when Doyle's men, bent on revenge, tracked them down.
They had only barely escaped with their lives and had been on the move ever since. During the winter, they would purchase enough supplies to last them, and then hold up in a isolated wartime shipwreck that they had stumbled across on their travels. The girls using their metalmancy to make the wreck as home-y as possible.
The water was starting to chill and Val's fingers were well pruned. A knock came at the door. "Val, you've been in there a while," it was Mand. "I'd like to get a bath myself."
"Coming," sighed Val. She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing the willpower necessary for her to remove herself from the warm embrace of the water. Standing, she toweled herself off and began to put on a spare set of clothing that she had lain on a nearby chair.
As she dressed, she wondered how long they would get to stay in town. Even if they were hiding, they would be doing so in the company of Claire and Carl. Even a week being able to speak to someone who was not Mand would be nice. She loved her sister, but....
A knock on the door again. "Hurry up!"
Sighing, she moved to the bathroom door and opened it.
In the hallway stood a large man who had a metallic fist clamped down around Mand's mouth. A woman stood at the door, a pre-war pistol pointed at her.
"Hello there," the woman said with a wicked smile.