Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“What is it?” I took the slip and pulled it over my head.
“This was a medicinal cart.” Dante motioned at it, walking around to where the seller would’ve stood to do business. He looked down at what was probably shelving and storage within. “Vampiric medicines said to help improve sex drive or thin the blood, or various other things that may or may not have actually worked, especially for non-vampires.”
“Were they legal?”
“Yes. Every one. The king’s guard checked him periodically. He didn’t offer many products or carry a lot of stock, but he often had a line, usually later in the evening.”
The setup was simple. Little shelves at either edge of the counter were made for showcasing the product. A banner would’ve gone down the front, and little placards for product names were affixed in various places on the shelving, all of them currently blank. The cart itself was worn and weathered, the rain swelling the wood in various places and the sun fading it. Simple but serviceable.
“They found him dead two days ago in his living room,” Dante went on, bending a little and reaching under the counter. I couldn’t see what he was doing. “Overdose on Granny’s product. They found two wrappers and a dozen or so of her other products, all intact. Given the cart itself was rented for the market, it was assigned to someone else. When that seller came to clean it out and set up shop, he found this.”
Dante reached into the cart, and something popped within its bowels. He stepped away, the expression on his face telling me I should take his place, which I did.
All the storage had been cleaned out. In the middle, directly under the counter and built into the wood framing, a little door had cracked open.
I pulled it wider, finding a little cubby that would’ve been impossible to see unless I’d specifically looked for it. Within, neatly organized, were the familiar black and purple packages.
“The new cart owner found it when he was giving it a good scrub,” Fancetta added. The tan-skinned woman with long brown hair and a square jaw was a dependable and loyal wolf, one I was glad to have in my pack. “Claimed he had heard of cubbies being built into carts like this and grew suspicious when cleaning it.” She raised one eyebrow in a skeptical expression. “Said his rag caught on a crack or something. It wasn’t clear.”
“It wasn’t meant to be clear,” I growled, pulling out Granny’s product and spreading it across the counter. “It’s obvious this is a secret within the market seller community. He likely only told us because he was too afraid of anyone thinking this product was his.” I pulled out the rest of the packages. “Contact the king’s guard. Perform random inspections. Search for more cubbies like this. Not just in carts, but in stalls as well. I want a detailed report of everything they find.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
I pushed Granny’s product toward her a little. “Get that to the queen. She’ll want to keep it with the others. Hunt down the original seller’s contacts and try to find out how it got in.”
“Yes, sir.” She bowed and started collecting the product.
“Beta, a word?” Dante motioned me away from the cart.
I went with him, walking down a side street away from the market. He handed over the rolled-up paper as he did so.
“Found that in the side of the cubby. The new stall owner, once he saw Granny’s product, didn’t proceed any farther. He called the king’s guard over immediately. They took him in for questioning and then called us. I was the one that looked inside. I found that.”
I unrolled the paper. The texture was more like parchment but thicker, with a glossy shine. It was made for traveling, less likely to get damaged in transit and more expensive because of it. My stomach dropped out.
Aurelia’s likeness was drawn on the page, her loveliness, her outstanding beauty, captured perfectly. The streaks of white, so like Calia’s hair color now that I thought of it, were placed in the right locations. Granny had done a marvelous job explaining her charge, and whoever she’d gotten to draw it up had done so in meticulous detail. At the bottom was listed a substantial sum as a reward.
“I figure something like that was what got Aurelia caught in the Red Lupine town,” Dante murmured, his eyes straight ahead.
It surely was. The stall owner in that town had mentioned someone was asking the wrong sorts of questions, and the town guard had easily recognized her from this drawing. There’d be no doubt. Even her beautiful eyes were captured perfectly. Granny left no details to the imagination. She wanted back her prize, the backbone of their operation, and badly. Just as the queen had said.